Week 10 vs Cowboys - 1st half

• Heere we go.
• Julius Jones busts out a big run. I knew I should've started him in my fantasy league, since then he wouldn't have had a carry all game.
• Aside: does Tony Kornheiser think it's interesting when he talks about his fantasy team incessantly, or does ESPN tell him to do that? Yes, I mention my team, but I'm not on national television.
• OK, guys? I know it's fun to pretend it's still Week 1, when you sucked. But, like, it's not, remember? You're good now. Get it together.
• Touchdown? Tony Curtis?
  
  OK, not that Tony Curtis. Not a good start, Spaggie.
  
• Oh good! Pam Oliver's here. She'll yell at the Giants D and get them to play better.
• Burress might be the least heralded really good receiver in the league. Unless there's someone even less heralded, so unheralded I don't even know their name.
• Shockey! Catch! 4 yards! OH yeah! That's right! He's elite! E-L-E-E-T-E! Elite!
• What the heck was that toss to Jacobs? He lost two yards.
• Why is Tom Coughlin yelling at the coaches?
• I don't watch enough other teams regularly to know if the play clock almost expiring happens to teams other than the Giants, but it seems to happen to NY a lot.
• Two penalties in a row give the Jints a first down, apparently due to Eli's "voice inflection". Then a shove to Jacobs after the play for a few more yards. Joe Schmuck says it was "acting" by Jacobs, but it didn't look like it to me. If it was, that's kinda lame, but also sort of gamesmanshippy (I made up a word!).
• It seems like the game plan is "give the ball to BJ". Hopefully we'll see some Plaxico too, although he practiced this week, which could be a problem.
• Touchdown! Shockey! Now! He'll! Celebrate! For! A! Week! And! A! Half! Great throw, and a good catch too.
• Tynes... MAKES THE EXTRA POINT! OMG!
• There we go. Stopping Romo. Good work.
  
• Joe Schmuck tells a story about a NY player who was "star struck" when these two teams played in Week 1. Sometimes you don't talk to the media, especially if that's the story you plan on telling them.
  
• Oh right, Tank Johnson is on Dallas now. This was the game he supposedly joined for.
• I gotta agree with Troy, that was a nice pass. Shockey does his usual fall-on-the-ball catch.
• Aside: yay! The Dolphins are still winless! Boo, the Rams won.
• Oh fuck, INT by Eli. I don't think he got hit, which is what Joe Schmuck said. I love it when commentators make excuses for QBs they like (and when I say "I love it" I mean it's really fucking annoying.) Brett Favre gets this the most, although this season he's actually playing well so it doesn't matter. And with Joe Thiesman gone, there's less of that sort of thing going on.
• Personal foul call on the Giants, but a bad one. The guy was running! I want to protect the players too but come ON.
• Pretty balanced game so far. Hopefully Eli's INT doesn't blow it early.
• What did I say before? Barber's a good player.
  
• DOWN goes Romo. OH yes. Would've preferred a forced fumble but at least they stopped 'em.
• Aside: could the friggin' Cardinals score so I could
  
• Aside: Hey, what's that guy from Heroes doing on a McDonald's commercial?
• Shockey's having a good game. Clearly mocking him on this blog is useful.
• Eli's getting smacked around. That's the "great offensive line" that Aikman was talking about before, right?
• And... Interception! Romo! Boo-yah! (What an obnoxious term.)
• See? Plax only has 20 yards. Shouldn't have practiced.
• Jacobs is good. Not flashy like Tiki but good.
• Aside: here's why fantasy football is great (and also painful). I'm watching this game, and also thinking "Dammit, why hasn't Ronald Curry caught a pass yet?" If I were only a Giants' fan, I wouldn't even know who Curry was.
• Giants only have one penalty for 15 yards. Nice.
• Jacobs is tough. Pounded through for a first down. You need a guy like that.
• OK, Aikman's right, that was a nice block by Shockey. Blocking is one of those incredibly important things that's hard to show since there aren't stats.
• Speaking of stats, nobody has particularly good ones so far (Shockey is having a good game). But the game is close.
  
• Burress with a nice block. More impressive when he does it since he's not a moose like Shockey.
• 2nd and goal. Score. Score. Score.
• ALMOST a TD pass to Shockey. He's stopped but it's a nice catch, and a really nice pas from Eli who seems to be in sync with Shockster today.
• Reuben Droughs... Touchdown! It's funny, he's not Jerome Bettis or anything but he's a decent short yardage fill-in type back.
• Aside: I don't like that song on the iPod Touch commercial.
• Aside: Jessica Alba can't act but man, is she hot.
• Aside: K-Ville looks like a good show. Not that I'll watch it but it does look pretty good. Somebody watch it and tell me if it's any good, OK?
• See, there's a good illustration of the difference between Marion Barber and Julius Jones. Jones can't pound through a pile of defenders the way Barber can. He's just not big enough or fast enough. Barber has this extra oomph that's hard to quantify, it results in big plays sometimes.
  
• Ha ha. TO dropped a pass. Jerk off.
• Another stop. Sweeeet.
• Heard something interesting about RW McQuarters on the radio this week. A caller said "why is he still the return guy, he stinks, the Jets have 3 TDs from kick returns, I'm an asshole and I know everything, blah blah blah." The host's response was that Coughlin's main concern is no fumbles, and unless you have a guy who you know is fast enough to
  
• Well, that sucked. A score there, even a field goal, would've put a nice lead on the board. Now they give it back to Romo and company. They have been stopping them, though.
  
• On another player, that tackle of T.O. might have drawn a penalty. On him, you probably have to pull a knife to get the ref to call it.
• Whoah, that was some ending to the first half. DAL goes ahead on a Crayton TD (again - if I'd started him, he would've been hurt on the first play), then a huge penalty and a great Shockey catch (he's 8/86 with a TD today) sets up a FG by Tynes. On a less good note, Tynes was slow to get on the field for his kick so the team had to call the last time out. Like I said earlier, do other teams have these problems? Tie game.
  

Former FATriots Coaches

Why are so many of Bill Belichek's former coaches so fat?

Admittedly, lots of NFL coaches are on the chubby side. Still, these three guys probably couldn't ride an elevator together.

What NYG needs to do today

(photo from here)
Pretty much everyone with a microphone was saying that the Giants newly awesome defense needs to destroy Tony Romo in order to win. We say: stop Marion Barber and Jason Witten. Back in Week 1, Witten had a field day with the Giants, going for over 100 yards and a TD. And it's not like they were stopping T.O., who scored twice on 3 receptions (for 87 yards). Witten is a good player but he's not Shannon Sharpe; if you recall, he was open all freakin' day. Barber's stat line wasn't amazing (11/65 with 1 TD) but he's the guy they give the ball to when they want to pound the line. He's also started to emerge as the #1 RB in Dallas despite being the technical #2 behind Julius "maybe his brother Thomas is better" Jones. The Cowboys are a good team, even if Romo does get too much credit for such a young QB. (And not nearly enough flack for claiming to not have banged Carrie Underwood - look at those pics, he could've gotten her easily.) The Giants can definitely win the game as long they don't fall into yet another second half slump - the last few seasons have ended very badly. I don't think this team is as bad as previous years. It may not be a Super Bowl caliber group but it's more balanced and less kvetchy (I'm looking at you Tiki). Coughlin is the real wild card as far as I'm concerned. If he starts up again with the arm flapping and the weird decisions, that's going to be a problem. Eli is the other potential issue. He's been less inconsistent this season - not exactly a game manager but not a "gun slinger" either. Everyone wanted him to be his big brother, and I think this year he finally realized that he's not. Or he just stopped listening. Or he just got better. You won't ever know but he's not exactly chatty. I think that's a good thing, and if the season ends on a high note, it'll be easy to say I was right. If not, what the hell do I know?

Predictions

Back before the season started I made the following predictions:

Sep 9 @Dallas- Dal - RIGHT
Sep 16 Green Bay- NYG - WRONG
Sep 23 @Washington- NYG - RIGHT
Sep 30 Philadelphia- NYG - RIGHT
Oct 7 N.Y. Jets- NYG - RIGHT
Oct 15 @Atlanta- NYG - RIGHT
Oct 21 San Francisco- SF - WRONG (not sure what I was thinking here)
Oct 28 @Miami (London)- NYG - RIGHT
Week 9 BYE
Nov 11 Dallas- NYG
Nov 18 @Detroit- NYG
Nov 25 Minnesota- NYG
Dec 2 @Chicago- Chi
Dec 9 @Philadelphia- Phil
Dec 16 Washington- NYG
Dec 23 @Buffalo- Buf
Dec 29 New England- NYG

So far I'm 6-2. Not too shabby.

Here are adjustments for the rest of the season based on, you know, reality:

Nov 11 Dallas- NYG: I'll be the homer and go NY here although I think it's going to be tough. Some Romo stats: He started huge in Week 1 against NYG, with 345 yards passing, 4 TDs vs. 1 INT (plus a rushing TD), and a QB rating of 128.5. With the exception of Week 4 against the Rams (which shouldn't count, but it does, I guess), his weekly TD totals went down every single week, ending with 1 TD pass in Week 7 against the Vikings. Last week again Philly (which also probably shouldn't count) he threw for 324 yards, 3 TDs and 1 INT in a brutal pounding of the Eagles. So let's say the pattern continues and he falls a bit, throwing for maybe 290 yards and 2 TDs. Our boy Eli hasn't been fantastic but he's not losing games either. In the Week 1 loss against Dallas he threw for 312 yards, 4 TDs and one INT for a rating of 113.1. Week 2 he sucked against Green Bay, completing only 55% of his passes. After that, the team has won every game, largely due to the defense but also because he didn't make a lot of panicky, game-losing plays (for an example, see big bro Peyton's fumble at the end of the New England game last week). So I'll play homer (d'oh!) and give it to Big Blue for Week 10. But don't bet your mortgage on it.

Nov 18 @Detroit- DET: I'm going to go with the trap game theory (again) and say that it'll be hard for the Jints' defense to stop the Kitna and Martz show.

Nov 25 Minnesota- NYG: unless the Vikings bring out the dildos to distract Michael Strahan, this shouldn't be a problem.

Dec 2 @Chicago- NYG: Chicago is so bad right now. Can't see NY blowing this one.

Dec 9 @Philadelphia- NYG: see above. Feel bad for McNabb, but he doesn't look too good. By December the Philly fans will probably be giving him Reggie Jackson treatment (that is, throwing bottles at his head from the stands.)

Dec 16 Washington- NYG: The Redskins aren't great but they have some talent, especially the quarterback, who isn't a big numbers guy but definitely has the potential to make a play that changes the game. Still, as long as NY sticks with what they've been doing and Coughlin doesn't make any stupid calls (a big if) they should take it.

Dec 23 @Buffalo- NYG: Let's assume NY wants this game and the Bills are in a rut after squeaking out a few wins.

Dec 29 New England- NE: How great would it be if NY was the first loss for the Patriots? If they're still playing for the 16-0 season, I'd have to give it to the Pats. The team just looks too damn good (jerks). If not, and NE is resting players, I'll go NY.

BDRadio 11-5-07

Because you haven't heard anything about the Colts/Pats game until you've heard what we think.
Click here to listen in.

Hating the Cowboys, sort of

Dallas is one of those teams that people in New York have always despised. Some of it is that they were good (see above.) Mostly it was this whole "God's team" nonsense. Other than the cheerleaders (who are still hot but, you know, whatever), who were a big deal once upon a time, the organization was the subject of much East Coast vitriol. Now? Still are, but not as much.
Part of the reason is Tony Romo. While his "aw shucks" thing is getting a little old, and the fact that he was hanging with Carrie Underwood and didn't do much of anything with her makes some people wonder about him, he just doesn't inspire the hatred that previous players have.
Why not?
- He came out of nowhere: this always helps. This isn't Ryan Leaf, a highly touted QB who was a major bust (not to mention a bit of a dick.) I remember when nobody thought for a second that Bill Parcells would ever dump Drew Bledsoe for Romo in midhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif-season.
- He replaced Drew Bledsoe: Bledsoe really seems like a jerk. Whether he's yelling at Keyshawn Johnson on the sidelines or just plain old whining about something, he was never particularly likable. Granted, he never had the career he thought he would have, but then again, who among us has? Shut up and play.
- That whole "aw shucks" thing: Let's be honest. We want our athletes to be people. We hate A-Rod (well, I do) partly because of his crappy post-season performance, partly because of the naked pictures of him in the New York tabloids, but mostly we hate him because of the tightly controlled image he tries so hard to project and protect. Romo seems to be having the time of his life, the way we imagine we would if we had enough athletic ability to play professional sports. Even when he played horribly in a game earlier this year, he handled it well.
So can we still hate the Cowboys? Oh, no doubt. It's just more difficult to hate the QB.

Stairway to Clemens

Thank goodness for YouTube. Otherwise I might actually get some work done.