Mine:
Dallas @ NYG
Wash @ StL
Sea @ Phil
Ellis Dee: I hope you got all 4 and the spare.
I thought the Giants were done with finding new ways to lose. 3 missed Field Goals that would have ended the game and 11 false starts. Arghhh!!!
Jim
Did you get that familiar feeling too? Their creativity is boundless when it comes to finding new and interesting ways to throw away a game. What the hell happened to Feely?
I think you’re letting a bit of your inner Homer affect your judgement. I don’t see the Skins losing to the Rams, and neither the Giants nor the Cowboys have anything to point to with pride from that lousy game in Irving. The G-men are a different team in the Meadowlands, and I don’t put the 'Boys on anything better than a longshot.
I agree with you about the Eagles though. They’re toast.
Don’t bother with tires. Go straight for the knees.
Going to be a long Greyhound trip back for him. If I were a Giant, I certainly wouldn’t let him get on the plane.
Part of the problem, IMHO, is the overall lack of talent on the Redskins. As The Danny has put the Redskins through changes after changes, each one seems to have left the Redskins’ cupboard a bit more depleted since its peak in 2000. How many players does this team have that other teams would really get the hots for? Santana Moss, LaVar Arrington, Jon Jansen, Chris Samuels, and after that the list gets thin pretty fast. I’m not so sure Clinton Portis would be all that sought after in a trade; most teams have a RB roughly his caliber or better, AFAICT. And is he really doing that much better than Ladell Betts, Rock Cartwright, and whoever else was at RB for the Redskins in between Davis and Portis?
Part of this is Gibbs’ fault, though: the defense is still good, but it would be a lot better if Champ Bailey and Fred Smoot were still the starting CBs. If you’ve got guys you can leave out on an island with the other team’s #1 and #2 receivers, it gives you a much freer hand to attack the rest of the other team’s offense. And paying that much money for Brunell…hell, Schottenheimer did better with freakin’ Tony Banks.
I certainly hope that all Jerry Jones was expressing was what it sounded like–an idle interest in TO. I really don’t want him in Big D. From what I heard on ESPN, Philly is reading FAR too much into Jones’ comments. The quotes I heard said something to the effect of having controversial players was nothing new to Dallas and it could be interesting to see what a QB like Bledsoe could do with a receiver like TO. Pretty darned noncommittal, I thought. I didn’t hear anything that suggested that we’re just waiting for him to be cut loose so that we can snatch him up (and I hope, hope, hope that we ain’t!).
I mean, it’s one thing to have a hotdogger on your roster–but a player with absolutely no sense of team loyalty is just too much to ask!
Dallas beat the Giants already plus they have 10 days to prepare. I’m not very confident with my pick, but I’ll stick to it (also because I’m a fan). In my season finale prediction a couple pages back, I picked NYG to beat Dallas.
I really don’t care who wins Wash @ Rams. They’re both failry weak teams overall. I just went with the home team here.
I don’t think we can infer anything from the first game, since it was such an ugly, sloppy mess on both sides. Neither team seemed to want to win. It could go either way, but I think NY has a slight edge at this point solely based on home field advantage.
Dallas has put Dat Nguyen on IR and signed Michael Barrow, who might play against NY Sunday.
This matchup is a hard one to call. For every reason I can think of that Dallas should win, there’s a counterpoint in the Giant’s favor. Performance by both this year suggests it’ll be close so I’ll go with the Boys by 3.
At this point I’m scarred by that Feely debacle. MSG Network’s Sportsdesk, which is a 30 minute SportsCenter clone but only covers all seven New York teams, was full to the brim with one liners:
[Clip of two Giants jumping up and bumping chests] “The Giants started touchy, but then got Feely.”
“Third time’s the harm.”
They had like six of 'em peppered all over the show. Nice.
So now I’m back to rooting for the Wellington Mara yardstick of a successful season: all I want is for the last game of the season to be meaningful. Give me that, Big Blue, and I’ll be a happy fan.
Don’t be too hard on Feely. Blame the refs who gave Jints fans false hope.
Does anyone know the record for most false starts for 1 team in a game?
This site provides stats for penalties in general, with Chicago, KC, Oakland and Houston being somewhat prominent, but not for false starts specifically.
It does seem like there’s been an upsurge as of late. Maybe stadium customization plays a role, what with crowd noise being a sought after element in their design. The Giants Sunday committed 11 false starts in their total of 16 penalties, the most for them in 56 years.
Try again, sparky.
Nice job reading his article
I feel like the best Jay Feely one-liner was “Jay Feely will be kicking himself all week, but if Sunday was any indication, he’ll miss”
In fairness, it has changed to a different article. Originally it was “NFL admits error in two TD catches”. It has apparently been updated to include the NFL’s actual response, which is what I linked.
Aye, it was. I thought it odd that they’d publicly admit something like that, especially so recently after the game, but there it was in print (so it must be true!).
Seems logical that they’d backtrack and deny it, and that makes more sense than someone making it up, though I admit that is a possibility also.
I bought into it because I still believe that Shockey’s TD shouldn’t have counted.
And don’t call me sparky.
Shockey’s TD pass was iffy. Needed a better call on the field because I agree with the ref ruling: no indisputable evidence to overturn. Strong evidence, but not indisputable. Toomer definitely had a catch. However, discussing rules, if Toomer’s first foot was ruled a millimeter out of bounds on review, the review ref could not consider the defender’s push. Because Toomer was ruled inbounds, any call of a push is irrelevant, so it doesn’t get called. If it became relevant whether or not Toomer was pushed, the ruling is off the table. Once again, too complicated rules getting in the way of common sense.
GiantsInsider is calling this game the Giants best of the season. Guess they missed the Redskins game.
In your linked article about Shockey’s catch, halfway down there’s an advertisement picture displaying that simpleton who does the “That thing got a hemi in it?” commercials for Dodge. I think I can be excused, considering the remarkable resemblance, for at first thinking it was indeed a picture of Jeremy his own self.
Very interesting article on short passing and how it can distort statistics here, on Football Outsiders.
I only link to it in this thread because, apparently, the Giants throw by far the fewest short passes in the league, which is a big reason that Eli’s completion percentage is so low. In fact, if you remove all completions of five yards or less, the Giants have the 10th best completion percentage – so, not only is Eli a downfield passer, but he’s a pretty good one.
Big game this week. Go Blue.