The Half Way Point

6-2 at the half way point ! I'll take it ! If you told me after training camp that we'd be 6-2 I would have signed up for it in a heartbeat. Ever the pessimist that I am I predicted a 6-10 season, so this is like a bonus for me. Hopefully we will not follow the pattern that the 3 previous Tom Coughlin led Giants teams have: start off 5-2 and limp home in the second half.

For some reason I don't see the past failures of the previous 3 years affecting this team. New locker room leadership will see to it that the Giants stay the course.

Now onto the win across the pond in the UK. Most detractors will say that the Giants played poorly and barely held on to win vs an inferior opponent. I agree with those detractors, but choose to put a positive spin on this. Good teams still find a way to win these "trap" type games. No matter how ugly it looked they still won. A bad or mediocre team would have found a way to blow it. The weather was downright poor or should I say pour(ing). Balls were popping out all over the place. Receivers, even the sure handed Amani Toomer, were dropping balls left and right. My recommendation to the NFL: Stay out of the UK, unless you enjoy each week being a "mud bowl". It rains over there twice as much as it does in Seattle. Every now and then playing a muddy game is kind of fun I have to admit.

So we enter the bye week with a chance to practice up and even the score against the hated Cowgirls of Dallas. Way back in week #1 we lost to Dall-ass with a totally different team on the field. Ravaged by injuries and holdouts the G-men looked nothing like the way they look today. Take Osi, Jacobs and Strahan out of any lineup and that team is going to suffer. Not to mention that Eli had a separated shoulder and had to be replaced by the Pillsbury Throw Boy, and you have trouble. Still the G-men only lost by 10 on the road and were in it until late in the game, when Eli went down.

Dall-ass has a weak defense, highlighted by a weak secondary. They have narrowly won their last few games against bottom feeders, while the G-men have been crushing all (sans the British Invasion game).

Can't wait for the showdown in the Meadowlands !

Weeks 6 and 7: Giant Steps

I haven't posted much lately, but I haven't really had a reason to do so. The G-men have been taking care of business en-route to a 5 game winning streak to be the hottest team in the NFL south of Foxboro.

Sure there are some things that need improvement. We all know that Eli needs to work on those 2 minute drill turnovers and the secondary does have some holes, but we have to remember that this is the salary cap era and every team has deficiencies.

The pass rush has been nothing short of phenomenal. When a guy like Justin Tuck sits on the bench and only comes in on obvious pass rushing downs, you know your DL is strong.

A quick comment on the Atlanta game: The G-men went down south and basically just blew out the hapless Falcons. Strangely the home team seems to always lose in this matchup and that Monday night game wasn't any different.

Last week the 49ers traveled 3,000 miles to NJ to play Big Blue. The game started slowly, but Big Blue turned on the defensive pressure and eventually blew out San Fran. We all know the key play of the game was Osi's sack, strip, fumble recovery, TD run play. If that didn't cement him as the defensive player of the week I don't know what would. #72 is incredible. You can't double team him every play, because #92 will wreak havoc. I can definitely see the bookends both going All-Pro again like they did 2 years ago when healthy.

My comments on Mr. Pierce. Our aggressive MLB, one Mr. Aaron Pierce got called for two 15 yard personal fouls. The first call was pretty much blatant. I can't argue it. The second call seemed to be on reputation and very borderline. The Giants in the past have been victimized by QB's who break away from a sack and then run for a 1st down. SF QB Trent Dilfer was fighting to break away when Pierce layed the hammer to him. I think this league needs to either go back to the dreaded "in the grasp whistle" or just let these guys play. If Dilfer broke away we'd be sitting here bashing Pierce, like we did for Kiwanuka vs Vince Young last year.

On a side note, later in the game Pierce intercepted Dilfer and headed for the end zone along the sideline only to get brought down by Dilfer himself. My question is, why was Dilfer allowed to get away with slamming Pierce to the ground and taking the tackle out of bounds ? If Pierce made the same tackle on him would a yellow hankie have hit the ground ???

At the end of the game 49er coach Mike Nolan was calling bogus time outs just to pad his score and make the results look more respectible. Possibly he was trying to piss off the Giants for crushing his team. I just don't know the reason. Whatever the reason, I personally think it was stupid. I don't think its a sportsmanship issue as much as it's a common sense issues. By extending the game 3 or 4 plays just to get his team to double digits he risked injury to both team's players for some meaningless plays to be run. What if his stud RB, Frank Gore, blew out a knee or got knocked out for 2 or 3 weeks because of it ? Was it worth scoring 6 points and padding Gore's stats vs a Prevent defense defending a 27 point lead ??? Whatever happened to common sense ?

Coming Up: The big trip across the pond to London to play the Dolphins. They call these "trap" games. Miami is already playing out the string and New York is looking foward to their crash course against the Cowboys in 3 weeks. I think Coach Coughlin is going to have his team ready for this one and not take it for granted. I see a sense of pride in this squad that I haven't seen in a long time. In the past the G-men would read their press clippings and this game would be a fiasco. The locker room dynamic has changed and new leaders have begun to step up. No knock on Tiki, who I love, but when he and Strahan were ruling this locker room those things happened.

Special Notes: Congratulations to Amani Toomer for officially becoming the GOAT. No he didn't blow the game for us ! GOAT=Greatest of All Time ! Statistically he is now the top recieve in Giants history as he surpassed Tiki for # of grabs. He already owns the career TD reception mark. I remember back in the mid 90's when he joined the G-men out of Michigan and hardly saw the light of day. In fact he was a punt returner until he got injured and we all worried that we had another overrated guy from Michgan (remember Ty Wheatley ?). Instead over the course of the next decade he has evolved into a consistant target for numerous QB's and has become Eli's go to safety valve when Plax isn't open. Congrats Amani !

That's all I've got !

The Bragging Rights for New York

First off I would like to extend my thanks to the NY J-E-T-S for being such a wonderful/respectful tenant. Most landlords have trouble with their tenants and eventually have to evict them. The J-E-T-S are model tenants who are well behaved and go quietly into the night.

Now that we've dispensed with the "niceties" it's time to asses the game. I can not remember ever attending a football game (not in Florida) where the mercury was above 80. Section 311, as you all know, is on the sunny side of the field. While this is a fantastic thing in December it is not so fantastic when global warming hits early October.

The Giants started off slow in this one, which has become their trademark in 2007. With about 15% of the crowd being Jet fans you could hear lots of cheering when Brandon Jacobs put the ball on the turf and Kerry Rhodes posted the afternoon's first score on a fumble return TD. Turnovers coupled with poor play will ensure that you lose to good teams. Thankfully, for the Giants sake, the NY Jets are not a good team.

Eli Manning turned in a pitiful performance in this half. His passing numbers looked more like Charlie Connerly's from the early 1950's and not a modern day QB. At times he looked lost and bewildered. Other times he looked worse. The play calling at the end of the half was equally pathetic. Who in their right mind would call a pass play over the middle with 30 seconds and 80 yards left to go ??? Whatever happened to, "take a knee and come out for the second half". While I won't compare Manning's INT to the Pisarcik play, it was flat out stupid. As a result the Giants handed the Jets 3 cheap points and even more momentum.

Whatever Big Blue discussed in the locker room at the half worked like a charm. Some genius decided that they might want to run the ball down the throat of their opponent, who possesses one of the worst run D's in the league. They also decided it might be smart to let rookie Aaron Ross play a bit, since he actually has more foot speed than R.J. McQuarters or Sam Madison may have had in their prime.

As a result the Giants were able to get the big back Brandon Jacobs on track. He was unstoppable averaging 5 yards a carry. He lost 19 yards late in the game, when the refs felt sorry for the Jets and called back his TD run on a phantom holding call.

The lone dark spot in the second half was the kick coverage. Let's give the Jets their due. Their kick return squad is pretty good, because Leon Washington picked right up where Justin Miller left off. The Giants made it easy for them. Lawrence Tynes consistently kicks the ball short and low. Granted the coverage team isn't spectacular, but Tynes doesn't give them a chance. Kicking is a major area of concern for this team and before it's all said and done I believe Tynes will have cost the Giants 2 or 3 games (if he's still here).

Ah, the second half...or as I call it, the reason to leave the swamps of Jersey with a smile on my face. The defense did not allow the Jets to score an offensive TD in the second half. While we didn't see 12 sacks, like last week, we saw a sustained pass rush and great run stopping ability. Oh, and there is this Ross kid. Aaron Ross (#1 draft pick) wasn't even on the field for the first half. Seems he was being punished for violating an "undisclosed" team rule. His first half rest might have sharpened him for his second half performance. Changing the defensive strategy to no blitz / press coverage might have helped as well. You see this Pennington guy, who plays for the green team is rumored to not be able to throw hard. Pressing his receivers might force him into throwing the ball into tight coverage and ensuing mistakes might occur. Well they certainly did. Ross had two key picks, including timely pick 6 to salt away the game. Here's hoping we start seeing more of him and less of McQuarters.

Play of the game offense: Has to be Plaxico Burress' 53 yard TD run. Man if this guy could put it all together like this on every play he'd be the most unstoppable WR in the league. At 6'6" and real good speed this guy is the ultimate playmaker. His stiff arm of the diminutive Jet CB (Andre Dyson) was classic throwback football. As he higstepped his way into the endzone Plax capped off a 98 yard drive that put the Giants on top for the first time all day and effectively ended the Jets 2007 campaign.

Defensive play of the game: Pick either of Ross' INT's. While the pick six put the game away, the first INT stopped a good Jet drive cold and gave life to the Giants who scored on the ensuing drive.

What I don't know: I don't know if my heart can take anymore of these comeback games. The Giants are anything but boring, but can they expect to make the post season flying by the seat of their pants.

What I do know: The Giants show highlights of the top 5 days in their history on the jumbotron during commercial breaks. When they showed Tiki Barber's 200+ yard day vs KC last year where he carried the team on his back to the post season a big chunk of the crowd began to boo. I for one did not. I will never choose to boo Tiki as long as I attend Giant games. We have to realize that for the decade he wore blue he gave us his heart and soul and carried our team to the post season, while he was the focal point of our offense. Yes, he's a media hog (I cleaned that up) and sure he's had some negative words for the team since he left, but he performed at a high level while he played here. Applaud the fact that he was the greatest RB in the history of this 82 year old franchise, mute him with your remote when he shows up on NBC as a talking head.

Speaking of the stadium...When will the upper deck actually win a giveaway. Week in and week out all the prime giveaways go to the lower deck and the middle deck. Section 110 wins the $1,500 watch every week, while section 330 wins Heinz ketchup. There are just as many seats in the 300 section as the 100 section yet the rewards are disproportionate. It's plain sad when the 200 sections wins more than we do and maybe 15% of the seats are there. I smell a conspiracy.

While I'm complaining about the stadium I might as well complain about the parking nazi's. If the airlines checked my ID to get on a plane as much as the parking people in the Meadowlands check your parking pass, we'd never see another hi-jacking occur again. No fewer than 15 times did they force us to stop and show them our parking pass. It got to the point where it took us 20 minutes to move 1/8 of a mile. Then they force you into the lot of their choice and not the lot you want to park in. I tried to explain to one guy that we park in this one lot every week. He didn't want to hear it. He starts yelling at me to "Save your story...I don't want to hear it". I was tempted to take the softball bat out of my trunk at that point !

OK, I'm on a roll. I'm now going to complain about the national anthem. I love this country and I feel the anthem should be traditional, respectful and not last 10 minutes. The Giants decided to trot out some world renowned "recording star" who nobody knew. Instead of singing the anthem the way it was meant to be sung she has to "style". it's one thing to indulge someone famous like Whitney Houston, but a mere nobody ? Hey Giants management, when you take 2 seconds away from your time looking for a decent place kicker find us someone who can sing the anthem. In fact look no further than your own Kate Mara who attends every game anyway. Kate has everything you'd want in an anthem singer: good voice, works cheap (her father owns the team), looks like a knockout and sings in 3 minutes. Let's start a write in campaign to: bring back Kate every week.

Next up we have the Falcons in Atlanta on a Monday night. Dare we say 4-2 ? This is the classic let down game. After 3 straight wins the Giants need to take the Falcons seriously and play hard. Unfortunately our history against them is terrible unless one Michael Vick is playing. We've been beaten by everyone of their backups starting with our ex-backup Danny Kannel. Time to step up and beat the Falcons !

Week # 4: The Real Osi !!!

First let me start off by saying I HATE 8pm games. I hate them because the ruin your day and they don't start until 8:25pm, which means you don't get in your door until after 1am. Thankfully the Giants prevailed, so all is well in our lives.

On a night where most skeptics felt that the win over Washington was an abberation and the Eagles were going to hand us our lunch, nobody went home disappointed. That is of course if you were a Giant fan. Sadly plenty of seats were occupied by Eagle fans or more specifically people who yelled "Giants suck". You see Eagle fans not only see the glass half empty they see cracks in the glass that will eventually lead to an apocolypse.

I had the good fortune to attend the game with my online buddy Gary, a devout Eagle fan. Gary drove all the way up from South Jersey and braved traffic on the Garden State Parkway to see his beloved E-A-G-L-E-S. By the end of the 3rd he was gone. He had had enough. In fact many other Eagle fans left the game early, most with an escort from security. It's funny but almost everyone of them left with a bottle of beer in one hand and their middle finger held up on the other. Gary to his credit left like a man. He is the classiest Eagle fan I know.

My other cohorts included Howie Fortel, my normal partner in crime in Section 311 and my buddy Jim Day, who tells everyone he's a "Dolphin fan who roots for the Giants". Don't ask me what that's all about. Howie was excited, and why not ? We were treated as Gary said to, "a throwback NFC East game from the 80's, that only a Giant or Eagle fan could watch".

I watched and enjoyed every bit of it. On a night where the Giants honored their famed "Crunch Bunch" as honorary captains the defense played inspired ball. For those of you too young to remember the Crunch Bunch was the nickname for the Giants linebacker corps from the mid 70's to the mid 80's. #55 Brian Kelley, #10 Brad Van Pelt, #53 HOF'er Harry Carson and of course the greatest Giant of the all LT !!! It was great seeing LT at the Meadowlands again. He looked great and one can only hope he's living clean.

The Giants D fed off the crowd from beginning to end. I believe the Eagles got into the Red Zone once. All they could muster was a long FG in the 4th quarter to break the shutout. Donovan McNabb was sacked more times than Rome was by the huns !

The obvious defensive star of the game was OSI Umenyoria, who abused the Eagles rookie LT. I won't mention the kid's name here out of respect for him. Osi had 6 sacks and looked like a

young Deacon Jones. It's awful hard to double team anyone in the Giants pass rush when they are all healthy. I dare teams to put 2 guys on Strahan. If they do Osi will have the single season sack record all to himself even with Brett Favre stumbling.

Speaking of sack records, Michael Strahan broke LT's all time Giants sack record. I'm going to go on record here as saying that the record really isn't the record. The NFL didn't officially start counting sacks until 1982. This means that LT lost out on 9 1/2 sacks from his rookie season, since they weren't "official". This is actually a joke. The NFL makes billions of dollars every year. You'd think they could spend a few thousand of it to have some college intern or low level accountant count every sack ever recorded off of the play by play boxscores off of all the games played and possibly watch the film from every game since 1950, which they do have.

My bet is that guys like Deacon Jones or Gino Marchetti or even former Giant great Andy Robustelli might have a legit claim to the record. Major League Baseball, which normally plays second fiddle to the NFL actually retro-ed Saves to every pitcher who earned one going back to the early 1900's. All they did is review the boxscores. The NFL owes this to all of us who love our stats and all the old-timers who really made this game what it is.

The funniest thing is that Deacon Jones, the man who coin'ed the phrase "sack", doesn't even have 1 official sack credited to him during his 13 year career. Stop the insanity and give credit where credit is due !!!

Ok...let's move on to the offense. Since the defense played a near flawless game I have to pick on something. The final score was 16-3 and it should have been 27-3. Let's credit Eli with a terrible pick in the red zone to snuff out a great drive in the closing minutes of the first half. Eli said, "I just made a bad throw". Eli, we watched the game and you made a great throw. Unfortunately it was made in the direction of a guy wearing a white and green jersey. The second half looked to me like the offense was just trying to not mess up anything. They seamed to be totally content to let the D dominate the game.

Special teams...Looked great if you can discount the kicking game. This team is in depearate need for a field goal kicker. Right now we've got a retread who can't even make extra points let alone 35 yard chip shot field goals. Jerry Reese better start scouring the waiver wire in order to find some one who can kick or this team will lose 2 or 3 close one's.

One more note on the defense. 12 sacks...simply incredible when you realize it was done vs one of the more mobile QB's in the history of the game. I tend to think DMac's legs aren't 100% as evidenced by the play where he crossed the line of scrimmage and had a clear 10-12 yard avenue, but chose to throw the ball and wound up with a penalty (illegal forward pass). In the old days he would have tucked it in and ran for the 1st down. My guess is that the Giant D had him so off his game he just lost site of where he was.

Next week we get our crosstown rivals, the J-E-T-S ! It should be an interesting one !

See ya then !

Week 3...Coming in off the ledge

OK, Giants fans this week was a big one. With the Jets already posting a win earlier in the day it was up to us to get our first win too. Putting on my rose colored glasses we'll skip directly to the second half where it was all Giants. Just one comment on the first half: Plax & Shock must make the easy catches as well as the highlight reel catches. Shockey dropped a huge seam pass that Manning put right on the money. If he catches that one the INT that followed would not have happened.

Moving on to the second half...

Big Blue actually pressured the QB and closed off the running game. Joe Gibbs looks like the game has passed him by (offensively). The Giants offense could do no wrong and the Giants D did not allow a Redskin 1st down until the final drive.

Ah, the final drive...Let's be honest here, everyone of us expected Washington to score and force OT. In typical Giant fashion they were about to snatch defeat right from the Jaws of victory. Let's face it, the Giants can NEVER make it easy on us. I was listening on my headset as I was walking to the store and it seemed like Bob Pappa took forever to make the call. It was a great 4th down stand, but it should never have happened. It was great getting a win, but it did come at the expense of a second year starting QB who looked confused more often than in control.

We'll take the win and take all the tickets off ebay !

Next up we have a home game vs the Eagles. Let's hope they wear those ugly throwback uni's to the Meadowlands, so we can all have a laugh !

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Week's 1/2

This is my first official entry for the 2007 season. My prediction before the season started was 6-10. After losing to Green Bay at home yesterday I have to revamp my prediction and downgrade to 5-11. Yes I had yesterday's game vs "the Pack" pencilled in under the win column.

As you all probably know I attend 4-5 Giant games a year, which includes our yearly pilgrimage to Philly to see them with our friend Dave Bush. For those interested in the details on how that works out, we simply trade Dave our tix for the Dallas game and he takes us to the game in Philly.

Week 1 vs Dallas was a precursor to what we'd see in week 2. Basically Dallas was able to throw the ball at will against a Giant defense that is rather defenseless. You see this game of professional football is very easy to play and understand. If you are unable to rush the quarterback and unable to cover receivers you stand a very good chance of losing the game and winning the #1 draft pick the following June.

The Giants defensive line, on paper, looks formidible. Unfortunately it's anchor is Michael Strahan, who missed camp and seams to have either lost his disire to be hit or his skill to hit. Osi Umenyiora is a great complimentary end to Strahan. Unfortunately for him he is injury prone and Strahan doesn't warrant double teaming anymore. The DT's are ok, but with the lack of outside pressure they are forced to do what they are not capable of doing, which is be a force inside. Mathias Kiwanuka, last year's #1 pick, would probably be their best DE...if he was still a DE. Instead they moved him to linebacker, where is is dreadfully out of position. This move was made because they viewed linebacker as the weakest spot on their defense. That type of thinking is tantamount to saying "the paint that is chipping on the deck of the Titanic needs addressing".

The Giants secondary is old and slow, which is a great combination for BBQ sauce, but not a group entrusted to cover the fastest legs in the NFL. Sam Madison, who is as old as James Madison, was a fine cover CB in his day. Unfortunately his day was so long ago one can't even remember what millenium he was drafted in. McQuarters is a decent nickle back who I unfortunately wind up seeing the back of his jersey in other team's highlight reels every week. Curiously the Giants dumped Will Demps. While it's true he underperformed last year, the Giants were in no position to dump any warm body in the secondary.

Well let's burry week #1 and skip to week #2. The one highlight from week 1 was Eli Manning. He did everything we could ask him to do, except stay healty. But why should we expect him to be any different from the rest of his injury prone teammates ?

In week 2 Eli started off gr8, finished weak and eventually left since the team was being blown out. I calculated 4 or 5 dropped passes by his recieving corps. Shockey as usually dropped his share. When he wasn't dropping passes he was spiking balls and taking penalties that killed drives. How this guy makes the pro bowl every year is a mystery to me ? Do the voters actually think he's better than Crumpler or Whitten ? If they do they should be sentenced to sitting in section 311 with me every week as I go ballistic with his antics.

Well there truly wasn't an actual turning point as to when the Giants lost this game vs Green Bay and it's resident senior citizen, Brett Favre. If I had to pinpoint a time I would have to say late June, when they didn't go out and draft at least 3 defensive backs and 2 LB's. If I have to go in game I would have to say the offsetting penalty on Shockey's spike took all the wind out of their sails.

By the 4th quarter the game was over and fans started leaving in droves. I commented to my friend Jeff who sits next to me that, "the Giants have worse area coverage than Nextel". I think I'm in for a long season. I'm wondering if I should start scanning my tickets and sell them on ebay and hope for the best. Thankfully my 5 year old daughter has soccer games on Sunday. Watching those games might be a more viable option.