That was quick

"You know what Plax? You shoot yourself in the leg and fuck up our delicate camaraderie in the locker room? We don't need that shit. Just go home. We can with without you!"

Oops.

"Plax, come back! We love you man!"

Awesome

I read this over on the Shutdown Corner this morning. I touched on this briefly before, but for all his talent Burress is something of a douche bag. The Shutdown Corner guys summed it up far better than I ever could, but needless to say I am unimpressed by Burress' attitude after signing a new, fat contract. I wonder if anyone told him that nothing in the NFL is guaranteed? It's tough for me as a Giants fan because on the field the guy gives it his all on almost every play. Like most prima donna receivers, he is sometimes disinterested in blocking, but he runs his routes hard, has improved his hands considerably, and is a weapon opposing teams have to game plan for every week. I gained a lot of respect for Burress for gutting it out on a noticeably hampered ankle last season, but I have a hard time rooting for someone who works less at his job than I do. Now if you'll excuse me, someone left a Guinness in the office fridge and I think I can find it a good home.

Just when I think I'm out they suck me back in!

Love a good Godfather quote in the morning. Last night the Mets turned to their automatic collapse protection in an effort to prevent yet another September collapse. Just when I was coming to terms with the inevitable Johan spun a gem on the mound, going 8 strong innings and actually winning for a change. Behind the strength of Jose Reyes' and David Wright's steely good looks, I mean offense, the Mets held on for a 6-2 win. Most teams would probably find a 4 run lead in the 9th inning pretty comfortable, but Pedro Feliciano decided to give up two hits despite the fact he didn't actually face one of the Cubs' 8 best hitters. Luis Ayala came in to secure the win (this time) and the dream stayed alive for another day.

Last season Plaxico Burress gimped around on a bum ankle. Despite not practicing all season Burress established himself as one of the very best game day receivers. He made a huge deal out of reporting to work this offseason despite his unhappiness with his contract. Just before the season started, the Giants and his agent managed to work out a deal paying Burress as one of the top receivers in the game. I wondered at some point if Burress' success without practice was going to carry over to this season. Monday Plax decided not to show up. He did not tell anyone, he did not respond to efforts to contact him, and this morning coach Coughlin was unipressed with Burress' excuse for his absence. The star receiver was suspended this morning for the next two weeks, which is not as big a punishment as you'd think because the team has a bye this week. Burress will still miss two of his new fat paychecks. Fortunately for Giants fans, that means he will only miss Seahawks game a week from Sunday, and not a game against an actual NFL team. Still, kudos to Burress for proving once again he's just a big a douche as I always thought he was.

I know you've all been waiting anxiously

I'm hoping I can now speak rationally about the events from Sunday evening. Here is my expert analysis of the Giants upset victory over the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII:

YYYYYYEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! BLAAAAARGHHHHWAHBOOMBAH!!!!!

Fuck beans! That didn't work. Let me try again.

WOOOOOOHOOHOHOOOOOBANANARAMADINGDONG!!!!!

Little bit better. One more stab.


Seriously, think about the key play from the Super Bowl. You all know the play I'm talking about. If you don't then FUCKING KILL YOURSELF! Sorry, I think the game gave me a weird form of Tourette's. Eli Manning, a quarterback generally considered to have the mobility of a dessicated corpse, escapes the grasp of two Patriots defenders and scrambles to the outside. He spots an open David Tyree down field, and by open I mean double-covered. He flings up the ball which Tyree leaps up to grab, at which point safety Rodney Harrison smacks the nose of the ball. Tyree somehow manages to keep one mitt on the ball and presses it to his helmet as he falls to the turf. With Harrison desperately tugging at his arms, he regains control of the ball between his hands and somehow holds it inches from the ground as he falls over backwards. First down, time out, and the rest is history.

Let's break this down step by step. To start, you have to go to the play before The Play. David Tyree runs a route to the sideline where he turns and runs back to the quarterback. Unfortunately Manning was expecting him to turn upfield and flang the ball way about 6 yards behind Tyree. Only Manning's inaccuracy on the throw prevented a Super Bowl clinching interception. You could almost feel the frustration seething from Tom Brady on the sideline. I imagine he thought something along the lines of "When my receiver runs the wrong route on a last minute drive to save the season I throw a ball that can be fucking intercepted!"

Given new life, the Giants promptly call a play that was apparently designed specifically for Eli Manning to pull an Eli Manning, namely run backwards 10 yards and take a crushing sack. Showing off his best Michael Vick impersonation, Manning instead strangled a pit bull to death with his bare hands. I mean Manning instead kept his legs moving, escaped to the outside and threw up a prayer.

Tyree ran down field and was likely the most attractive option given that he was covered by Harrison, a man who last successfully defended a pass in the '04 season, a fact that he proudly taunts opposing receivers with as they sprint by him time and again. The ball floated on Manning, allowing Harrison time to recover and make a play on the ball. Any sort of missile-like blow that Harrison is known for while Tyree was stretched out for the ball likely separates the receiver from the pass. Instead Harrison batted at the ball, and actually hit it hard enough to knock the ball loose from Tyree's hands. Thankfully not letting his brain interfere with his athleticism, Tyree kept one hand on the ball and squeezed it against his helmet. Fortunately for all Giants fans, Tyree had gotten a pregame head butt from Craig Biggio, covering the right side of his helmet in pine tar. Given the added traction, Tyree held control of the ball as he was bent backwards and fell to the ground.

Take a look at Tyree's career statistics from pro-football-refernce.com. Notice that he had all of 4 catches all season and is mostly a special teams force. I'm assuming he's a special teams force. Nothing else could explain the 2005 Pro Bowl selection in a season where he caught 5 passes for 52 yards and a touchdown. Had Plaxico Burress made The Play it would have been another in a long line of spectacular plays from the enigmatic receiver. Had Amani Toomer made The Play it would have been an exclamation point on an outstanding career. Hell, had Steve Smith made The Play it would have been a flash of brilliance from the most promising receiver the Giants had drafted since Toomer. Even tight end Kevin Boss had his moments during the season, culminating in a spectacular catch and escape during the go-ahead touchdown drive early in the 4th quarter. Instead it was David Tyree. Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to dig up another video replay of The Play and scream irrationally at Patriots fans.

I kind of feel like I have to do this

I was thinking of breaking down the Super Bowl expert style. I've been reading the articles and listening to the radio and trying to gleam every piece of information I can get my greasy hands on, but it keeps coming down to the same thing. The Giants have the best defensive line in football. The Patriots have the best offensive line in football. Whoever wins that battle wins the game. It's a lot of pressure on that Giants unit. All they have to do is stuff Lawrence Maroney and get to the untouchable Tom Brady without any help from the linebackers or secondary. Mostly because the linebackers and secondary are below average at best.

When it's all said and done, a couple of key points keep kicking around in my head. The Patriots under Bill Belichick are nearly unbeatable coming off of a bye week. The Giants under Tom Coughlin are nearly winless coming off a bye week. I start to think to myself that if Osi and Strahan can get good pressure on Brady and get his jersey dirty, if Eli can limit his mistakes and Plax can make a couple of big plays, and if the Giants can establish and stick with a running game to dominate the time of possession, hey, they got a shot, right? Then I remember the key fact that just does not get discussed on the talk show because this is the most hyped event in the world. The Patriots may well be the greatest team of all time! The Giants are a nice story, but they are not the greatest team of all time! Seriously, I wonder if the Patriots will cover because they've never won a Super Bowl by more than 3 points, but Super Bowls historically have been blowouts and the Patriots are the greatest team of all time! Look for the Pats to win and to cover. Fuck.

I can't believe I'm going to say it

The Giants are going to the Super Bowl! Coming into this season, I was less than enthusiastic about the team's chances of finishing at .500, much less contending for a title. In fact, I believe my preseason prediction had the team of 3-13, firing coach Tom Coughlin, and shopping around for a new quarterback to replace bust Eli Manning.

The team was coming off yet another first round playoff flame out, their All Pro running back was retiring taking about 98% of the team's offense with him, and rumors had their All Pro defensive end following him out the door. Well it turns out the retired Tiki Barber is a complete ass hat who did nothing but undermine his quarterback's confidence and leadership. Michael Strahan just wanted to skip training and work his way into shape during the early regular season.

Plaxico Burress overcame a gimpy ankle to put on a receiving clinic in the NFC Championship game. Amani Toomer won't garner many votes for MVP what with his inconsistent play and suddenly drop-happy hands, but he made by far the most important play of the regular season when he rolled up on Jeremy Shockey's leg and fractured the mercurial tight end's fibula. While Shockey was having another solid year he was one of the few remaining negative influences on Eli's fragile psyche, and Manning seemed lift his game to another level in the final two games and the postseason.

Another important fallout from the loss to Washington was the reining in of offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride. He called for 53 passes from Eli Manning on a night when running back Brandon Jacobs rushed for over 5 yards a carry. While I like to think they hooked up a car battery to Gilbride's testicles, I imagine the conversation was more of Tom Coughlin screaming at Gilbride, "HE'S ELI FUCKING MANNING! NOT PEYTON! ELI! NEVER EVER DO THAT AGAIN! IT'S EMBARRASSING WHEN HE CRIES ON THE FIELD LIKE THAT!" Actually, I kind of imagine Coughlin screams all the time. "HONEY CAN YOU PLEASE PASS THE SALT? THANK YOU!"

But I digress. The Giants closed the regular season with a tight game against the (so far) undefeated New England Juggernauts, er Patriots, a game they actually led in the third quarter until Brady remembered no one on the Giants could cover Randy Moss. Hopefully he forgets this again in Arizona or else it could be a long game for Big Blue. Hey, maybe Gisele should take Brady to Cabo for a few days to get his mind off the big game. It worked so well for Romo!

What the hell was that?

A couple of real head scratchers were played yesterday in the northeast. First a 7-3 Giants team was taken to task by a 4-6 Minnesota team. Of more concern to the Giants fans was Eli Manning's utter inability to direct a ball towards its intended target. He threw a remarkable 4 interceptions, of which the best result for the Giants was when the ball was returned to the Giants 8 yard line. I can imagine Eli happily skipping to the sidelines saying, "Hey coach, at least that one didn't go for a touchdown!" Actually, I can imagine Eli and Coach Coughlin having a conversation that went remarkably similar to this:

Coughlin: "The BLUE jerseys Eli, we're wearing the BLUE jerseys!"
Eli: "Throw it to the guys wearing white, got it."
C: "No, BLUE, BLUE, throw it to BLUE!"
E: "WHITE, WHITE, I got it, geez, don't yell at me Coach, Peyton and Cooper stuffed my head in the turkey again."
C: "..."

Sunday night saw the Patriots extend their perfect season to 11-0, but just barely. Given that the Eagles boast two of the best cover corners in the league and a defensive coordinator who is a master of designing exotic blitz schemes, the Patriots have to be happy with putting 31 points on the board. But giving up 28 points to the Eagles? When their quarterback was A.J. Feeley? And Junior Seau effectively bottled up Brian Westbrook, the lone dangerous weapon on the Eagles offense? If not for a boneheaded Feeley interception late in the 4th quarter the Patriots could well have woken up today at 10-1 and wondering what happened. I may be off base here, but I'm speculating Feeley tried to bribe the Patriots defenders with promises to let them watch Heather Mitts shower.

Football weekend!

The UConn men's basketball team was slaughtered by Memphis on Friday night. This was expected and I did not watch it. I just wanted to have something in here that was not about football.

Saturday the UConn football team ran all up and down on Syracuse in their home finale. This sets up a titanic clash between the Huskies and the Mountaineers of West Virginia next Saturday in Morgantown for the Big East championship. The winner of that game will represent the Big East in the BCS in January. This is a potentially huge thing for the Huskies. Traditionally, basketball powers do not excel in football and vice versa. The exception seems to be the University of Florida, but Connecticut is only a few years removed from being a I-AA school. A nationally televised bowl game on the biggest stage with a $15 million payout will be a coup for recruiting. Head coach Randy Edsel's name will be bandied about for the most sought after jobs in the country. Now in all likelihood West Virginia will run the Huskies off the field, but still, UConn should get a major bowl birth and some wonderful TV recognition. Also, their starting quarterback is the younger brother of the Giants Jared Lorenzen, or as I like to call him the Fat Kid.

There were three key NFL games this weekend, and by key I mean I watched three games. First up were the Giants on FOX winning a huge game on the road against a good Lions team. Pending the status of Brandon Jacobs hamstring, the Giants look poised to be a team that will lose a divisional playoff game to either Green Bay or Dallas in the second round of the playoffs. Burress had himself a game worthy of last season, mixing the spectacular catch with the inexplicable drop. The defensive backfield once again chose to let their opponents top receiver run uncovered downfield, but the defensive line had another huge game and Manning continues to look like a real NFL quarterback. The emergence of Jacobs as a receiver out of the backfield and a capable blocker picking up the blitz is adding a new dimension to the offense to complement his bruising running attack.

Second the Steelers got caught in a classic trap game against the woeful Jets. Coming off a dramatic comeback win against a feisty Browns team, Pittsburgh kicked off the easiest part of their schedule by failing to show up to New Jersey. To be fair, no one ever really wants to go to Jersey, but the NFL scheduled the game and there is no excuse to not win. The Jets boasted one of the NFL's worst rushing defenses, figuring to get pushed all over the field by the physical Steelers. Fast Willie Parker was more Wee Willie than Fast Willie this week and often found himself slipping to the ground before the first tackler had a chance to drop him for a loss. The defense failed time and again to stop the Jets offense who lost their top receiver to injury early in the game. I have no thoughts about this game except that if they blow off next week's Monday nighter to the Dolphins and ruin Miami's perfect season they should be forced to forfeit all their previous wins to the Bengals and Browns. That was just not good enough boys.

Sunday night saw New England continue their march to perfection with an absolute drubbing of the Bills. The interesting thing to me is that we were discussing how big a spread would have to be on the game for you to take Buffalo. At one point I observed that if you were allowed to bet extra that the Patriots would double the spread, you would have been safe laying up to 23 points. It turns out that late last week the spread was 16. Really? Vegas was having people take the Bills +16 points? Have bettors completely ignored the entire Patriots season up to this point? Needless to say that if I were a betting man, I'd take the Patriots and give the points for next week's Eagles game. For all the people complaining that the Patriots are being poor sports and running up the score? You are darned right they are, and it is fantastic!

Not a great day to be a Manning.

November 11th was not a particularly memorable for the Manning family. Eli went 23/34 for 236 yards, 1 touchdown and 2 interceptions in a home loss to the division-leading Cowboys. Peyton went 34/56 for 328 yards, 2 touchdowns and a career-high 6 interceptions in a road loss to the underachieving Chargers. Cooper sat at home watching the games unfold and thought to himself "Well F me, I can do that! Where's my millions of dollars?"

It was interesting to watch the end of the Chargers versus Colts game when the most clutch kicker of all time, Adam Vinatieri missed a chip shot 29 yard field goal that would have given the Colts the lead with 90 seconds to play. Apparently all the times Mike "The Idiot Kicker" Vanderjagt missed key field goals that lost his team the game were not his fault. It turns out that Peyton's giant head actually alters the flight of the ball. A similar phenomenon was observed in Pittsburgh where the metal plate in Ben Roethlisberger's head that prevents (any more of) his brain from leaking out his ears had just enough drag on Cleveland's potential game-tying field goal to preserve the victory.

The Giants game featured costly penalties, bone-headed turnovers, and an utter inability to stop Terrell Owens. In other words it was a typical Giants game. The Giants might well be the third best team in the NFC, but no have virtually no shot of catching the Cowboys for the NFC East lead, meaning they will be playing a road game at either the West or South winner if they make the playoffs. As has been proven in the Giants' three losses this season, any team with a decent passing attack can shred their secondary. At least Eli has learned to mostly hide his tears on the field. His voice barely cracks anymore when he's calling out his audibles!

In news that surely escaped the mainstream media, Mets All Stars David Wright (third base) and Carlos Beltran (outfield) paired their recent gold gloves with silver sluggers. Now there is no more unabashed David Wright supporter than I am, but even I am willing to admit his gold glove was a farce. The man practically led the league in errors from his position! Not exactly what you're looking for in your gold glove defenders. I would like to tip my cap to Carlos Beltran who has managed to put up 3 consecutive typically excellent years patrolling center field for the Mets. It is an extremely difficult outfield to play, especially when your starting corner outfielders have the combined range of a lamp post. You hear a lot about the Mets wanting to trade Beltran to rid themselves of his contract, which upsets me on any number of levels. Where else are you going to find a gold glove outfielder who hits .270 with 30+ home runs and 100+ RBIs every year? What more do they want from him? It's not like they're hurting for money, they play in New York City and have their own cable company for crying out loud! Also, David Wright is dreamy.