Sorry, Weirddave. That above quote was supposed to be of Idiotboy, and somehow it got all mixed up when I quoted from him. (Newbie error. Still not sure what the hell I’m doing.)
Still, Ravens 9, Giants 6.
I’d like to start out by saying that I’m a Steelers fan, so I don’t particularly like the Ravens or the Raiders. But I have to admit that the Ravens probably have the best defense in the history of professional football. And they’re one of the cleaner teams around. Sure, they perform their share of cheap shots, but who doesn’t? (BTW, the Siragusa hit on Gannon was clean. Its not Siragusa’s fault that Gannon is such a wuss.)
And Art Modell had no choice but to leave Cleveland. Football is a business. You’ve got to at least break-even to keep going. The city of Cleveland screwed Modell every way possible. He did the right thing by leaving. And personally, I think the NFL screwed up by allowing Cleveland to have another football team. While the fans probably deserve a team, there are other cities who would’ve done more for their home team. They should’ve had to wait as long as Baltimore did when it lost the Colts.
And finally, the Ravens defense is going to crush the Giants offense. The NFC is like the minor leagues of football. There are at least 8 AFC teams better than the Giants (Titans, Ravens, Steelers, Jets, Dolphins, Colts, Raiders and Broncos). Don’t be fooled by what you saw in the playoffs. The Giants beat a mediocre team at home followed by a bad team at home. This may be the first shutout in Super Bowl history. It’ll be 85 degrees in New York on Super Bowl Sunday before the Giants win that game.
Yeah, so sorry…Armstead…my fingers are going faster than my brain feels like thinking right now.
Dude, I would SO love to see you break your freaking leg and go do what he did Sunday and the week before…did you happen to see that interception he made against the Eagles?! Poetry in motion, baby!
So the smart-ass answer to the smart-ass question is: NO Jason Sehorn is NOT injured…but go ahead and keep thinking that and ignoring him…
Giants 7, Ex-Browns 0 (On a Sehorn interception return)
Idiotboy, Sehorn is overrated. He made a great play on that interception, sure, but he’s no Duane Starks. The Ravens defense is superior. They shut down the freakin’ Broncos and the Raiders, two of the best offensive teams in the league (behind the Rams).
As we’ve established, the Vikings have no defense. The Giants are not going to be able to do to the Ravens what they did to the Vikings.
However, I will give props to Armstead. He’s one of the best defensive players in the league. Strahan is, too, when inspired. But, Sehorn? He has a lot to prove. Even if he has a good game against the Ravens, for crying out loud, the Ravens don’t even have a passing game. Their version of a passing game is their secondary’s returns of interceptions, which I predict will set up two the three necessary field goals for victory.
9-6, Baltimore.
OK, fair enough. We’ll leave it to the 60 minute defensive showdown in 12 days. Like Falcon said…it’ll be down to who makes the mistake…
Oh baby! Talk dirty to me! I’m gonna paint my car with purple grease paint right after work!
(I already wrote, “GO RAVENS!” in the dirt on my bumper.)
I’m calling it 12-3. This will be my first ever SuperBowl too! Yay!
Go Ravens! The Giants don’t stand a chance against the Ravens’ defense - I mean, come on!
It’s one thing to be a fan but let’s be realistic, Baltimore has this win pratically cinched! Oh, did I mention Go Ravens?
One-game records, even in the postseason, don’t necessarily mean much. Anyone remember Timmy Smith? (Besides my fellow Redskin fan Falcon.) Set the one-game Super Bowl rushing record in Super Bowl 22, I think, in 1988 (Redskins-Broncos). It had been something like 168 yards; Smith obliterated that by rushing for over 200. Then he virtually vanished from the face of the earth.
There are days when everything comes together for a team - internal and external factors, everything you can imagine. The Giants just had a day like that. It’s not repeatable on command; it’ll only happen again when the constellations align just so. In the 1983/84 postseason, the Redskins demolished a fairly good team, the Rams, by about 55-7 in the opening round. They squeaked out a win in the NFC championship, then got shredded in Hyperbole 18.
That’s not to say the same thing will happen to the Giants, although I question the ability of any offense to survive the onslaught of the Ravens defense right now. Being ‘shredded’ by the Ravens might take on the dimensions of 9-0; this is a team that can make the task of coming back against that small a deficit look hopeless. The Raiders had to settle for a FG after 1st-and-goal on the 2. The Ravens have played three of football’s best offenses in the past three weeks; they’ve scored a total of 16 points.
I remember the Bears’ ‘46’ defense, and the Steel Curtain. This defense is in that class. It’s a truly amazing thing to watch.
Ravens, 12-3.
I remember Timmy Smith. He was a stud on one of those Nintendo football games back in the day, the year after that Super Bowl. What did happen to him? I wonder if Sports Illustrated or some other magazine has ever done a retrospective on his one-game career and subsequent plummet from the face of the earth?
Ravens 2, Giants 0.
In overtime.
Let’s see.
The Ravens, for all their vaunted defense, have played two games against the Bengals, two games against the Browns, two against Pittsburgh before they got hot, two against the injured and sucky Jacksonville before they improved and got healthy, San-freakin-Diego, Arizona, and Dallas. Not exactly teams that are going to score early and score often. People say the Giants didn’t play anyone, and the Ravens had a weaker schedule. The only quality, balanced, somewhat healthy opponent they played (COUNTING the playoffs) was Tennessee, and they split 'em during the season in close games. And Tennessee didn’t have much of an offense this year–receiver injuries really killed their passing game. And even then, the games Tennessee lost came down to Al “walleye-vision” Del Greco missing field goals and extra points (wide) left and right. Oh, and said vaunted defense really didn’t get that many sacks, so I anticipate Kerry Collins having quite a bit of time to throw the ball, which is what he’ll need to do to win if Tiki isn’t healed up.
Kerry Collins was a 3,600 yard passer. The Giants had a 1,000 and 800 yard rusher. Their offense is nowhere NEAR as boring or as low-powered as people claim. And it’s been steadily improving all year. I mean, even with Minnesota’s crappy defense, what, ONE other team put up those kind of numbers against them? The way people have been talking, Minnesota shouldn’t have won a game…I mean, if the crappy GIANTS did THAT to them…
And offense? Well, let’s just say that I am not worried about the Giants defense not being able to hold them. Even if they have a short field due to the special teams (the only matchup that really worries me), the Giants are arguably one of the best defenses that the Ravens have faced. And at one point this O couldn’t score a TD against CLEVELAND, for Chrissakes. One of the worst red-zone offenses in the entire league. The Ravens will have to do their scoring on special teams and defense. I doubt Trent Dillweed will be that much of a factor.
Oh, and Dave? The Giants are not MY team. You seemed to know that at the beginning of your post, but then you forgot. I just loathe everything about YOUR team, from the sell-his-grandma-for-a-dollar Modell to the competing-with-Keyshawn-for-Biggest-Mouth-Least-Talent-award Shannon Sharpe, to the MURDERER Ray Lewis…and the rampant hypocrisy of all former Colts fans who think that what was done to them is oh-so-bad that it deserves equal treatment to someone else. Face it, there’s a new expansion team every three years these days. Nobody needed to move anywhere, except for your money-grubbing owner. I’m just glad that YOU guys have him. Nobody deserves him more, except for maybe the Cowboys, who I hate for all the same reasons I hate the Ravens, except I don’t think they have any killers on their team, at least.
Libby,
I know it’s not your team, but you seem to be waving the banner high, here. Before I start, I just want to make clear that this is all football trash talk, and not personal. Hell, you know I like you personally.
Your numbers for Kerry Collins were accurate, but you act like thats something we’ve never seen before. Collins numbers this year are almost identical to Mark Brunell’s
comp. Att. yds av TD QB Rating
Collins: 311 529 3610 6.92 22 83.1
Brunell: 311 512 3640 7.11 20 84.0
we beat Jax twice. Other playoff QBs:
Ferotte 138 232 1776 7.66 9 82.1
McNair 248 396 2847 7.19 15 83.2
Gannon 284 473 3430 7.25 28 92.4
Of all of these QBs, their record is 5-1 against the Ravens defense this year. Ok, you say, how about rushing. At that the Ravens are even better.
rushes yards average TDs
Dane/Barber 441 1776 4.03 13
lets look at, oh, say the playoff teams, Den. Oak. And Ten.
Anderson/Davis 375 1782 4.75 17
Wheatly/Caufman325 1545 4.75 9
George 403 1509 3.7 14
We beat all three teams easily in the playoffs. look, I’m not saying that the Giants don’t have a good Offense. They do. BUT…They have never faced a defense like the Ravens before. We shut down all the other high powered offenses listed above, I have no doubt we will do the same on the 28th.
You also have a good defense, but the Titans was better, and they are watching on TV. If the Giants are the “worst team ever to go to the Super Bowl”, surely the Ravens have the worst offense ever to go. They only do one thing right, and that’s win. You claim our schedule is weak. Well, I’d call Philliadelphia the equal of Jacksonville, and Dallas and Arizona are no better than Cleveland and Cincinatti. You beat Atlanta, another pansy, and lost to Tennessee, in a game that wasn’t as close as the Ravens loss to them, and we beat them twice. We can only play the teams on the schedule, and in the playoffs, the good teams, if you will, we have still dominated.
As to the second part of the post, well, how can one counter emotion with facts? You can’t, but I’ll try.
I covered this, and a Steeler fan, a Steeler fan agreed.
Uh-huh. Shannon’s got two rings, soon to be three. And I suppose nobody on the Giants talks trash? Don’t be a Pollyanna, it’s part of the game.
This one bothers me the most, mostly because I know and respect you, and this is not you, Libby. You’re studying to be a lawyer, and I’m willing to bet you’ll be a damn good one. The above comment could be potentially actionable depending on the forum in which it was uttered. Lewis was not convicted of murder. He plead to a lesser charge of obstructing justice, partly because that was what he did, and, I’ll be fair, partly cuz it got him off the hook. This is exactly what lawyers do for their clients EVERY DAY. You should understand this. The FACT is that even WITH his testamony against the other two defendents, no conviction was returned. They walked scott free. Lewis at least admitted what he had done wrong, paid the price both in money and legaly, and I admire him for it. He was with the wrong people at the wrong time, let’s just shoot the guy, why don’t we?
I would suggest you review your recent history more thoroughly. Excluding Cleveland, which was added as a sop to the collective guilt of the NFL, and Houston, which was added to balance the league, there have been exactly 2 expansion teams since 1977. Baltimore put the best package on the table in 1993, and was stabbed in the back by Paul Tagliabue at the behest of Jack Bent Crook. The past five years have proved that we can and do support a team through thick and thin, but there was no way we were going to get an expansion team thru Tagliabue and Crook’s NFL politics. As it was, our proposal was so strong that the Sun King had to arange to have the final team named a month later in order to convince the other owners that the best proposal on the table should be passed up in favor of Jacksonville. The NFL has been fucking Baltimore up the ass without a reach around or lubrication for 16 years, and I don’t give a flying fuck what they think now. Wait for an expansion team? Sure. We’d still be waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
hmmm. The formatting of the stats is off, but I think you can make sense of it. And, of course, I meant the teams listed wer 1-5 against Baltimore, not 5-1. DOH!
I just would like to add I fucking hate that traitor Shannon Sharp.
And that’s about as mild as I can manage right now.
Why isn’t this in the Pit?
(Or GD?)
Anyway, Dave, you’re a ________ing #@#@#$ (censored for MPSIMS viewing) for insinuation that the Jags are even equal to the Philadelphia Eagles. Had they drawn New Orleans or Minnesota in the playoffs, we’d be arguing Eagles/Ravens right now. 
Libby…Satan is a lucky man. I’ve never known a woman who is more knowledgable in football. I’m slowly lowering the amount of torture on my fiancee, as she’s slowly beginning to understand the mystique of professional football. I also feel for your Bills…but at least you guys got Mr. DUI himself, The Big Katz! 
But anyways…
I do notice the slight tinge of angst in your statements, and am glad at least someone is helping me to defend the “not-so-helpless” NFC Champion Giants.
However, as far as the Cleveland thing…like I said before, I am not and never was a Browns fan. But I do remember all the bitterness wafting through most of Ohio during the move. Pangs of whining are slowly beginning to resurface in COW-town with Mr. “Drag-his-feet” Athletic Coordinator Andy Geiger and his “search” for a decent coach, which I will avoid from hijacking this thread to rant about right now…but I have now inspired myself to start a thread about it…
Ok, where was I? Oh yeah, I’m sure there are Pro’s and Con’s to the whole situation, and to boil it down, a large percentage of Ohio is still bitter, and most of Baltimore is just tickled. But as stealthily as the Giants have slithered into the SuperBowl, the talent will rear it’s head when it really counts…it should be a great game, no matter who wins. And regardless of which team is the “worst” to be in a SuperBowl, I think it’ll truly be one of the best games in decades!