The Giants Owe MLB and the Knicks A Nice Chanukah Gift

I'm watching ESPN do their Kent Brockman impression ("The Lincoln Squirrel has been shot! We'll stay with this story all night if we have to.") with their coverage of the Barry Bonds indictment and A-Rod's signing with the Yankees. And I'm thinking that the Giants really need to send a nice fruit basket to Bud Selig, Scott Boras, and the rest of the nitwits in Major League Baseball. And let's not forget the Isiah and Stephon show. Why should they do this? Well, after Sunday's embarrassing loss to Dallas, which basically ensured that the team will not win their division and will be playing for a wild card spot, Eli Manning had this to say:

Q: How do you handle the criticism? Six weeks you don’t hear many negative comments, and then yesterday, everybody says you are to blame. How does that affect you as a person? Or do you try not to listen to it?

A: I don’t listen to it. I’m not the one to blame for a loss. You are going to lose games, that’s part of football. It’s just about learning from the mistakes, seeing what you are doing well and going into the next week with a good attitude that you if you win that one, you are back in a good spot and everything will be fine again.

As well-adjusted as that statement is psychologically, it's really not what you want to hear from your franchise quarterback, especially not one that you gave up so much for. Should he commit hari-kiri in front of the press corps? No, but how do you have multiple delay of game penalties and then say "it's not my fault"?

To be fair, he did say, "I have to do a better job getting to the line of scrimmage, getting everything called quicker and getting the ball snapped." And these stupid penalties have been a hallmark of the Coughlin Discpline Era.

As for Tommy C, he's "more than perplexed" about the delay of game calls. He doesn't know what happened. Well, that's encouraging.

Back to the original point. All of this other stuff gives sports radio hosts, columnists and fans something else to focus on other than the ludicrously bad play of the New York Football Giants last week. The fact that the team has consistently fallen apart in the second half of the season for the past three years (8-16, all under Coughlin).

So get those wish lists ready Bud, Bonds, Boras and the rest. You may be getting a little something from Eli this holiday season!