These words haunted me throughout the Cardinals game. Eli put up a perfect deep strike early in the game only to have it intercepted by a great individual effort on defense. Immediately after that interception I kept telling myself that this would be the game to disprove that hypothesis, since Eli had looked solid in the couple throws he’d attempted to that point. Sadly, he promptly went into an out-of-rhythm funk for the rest of the game, even going so far as to throw an interception during a Late&Close situation. That’s sure not the trend I was hoping for him to go against. Ugh.
Eagles beating Giants
Cowboys beating Seahawks
NFC East is heating up!
Well, it was nice having an elite team to root for. An unusually short run – Week 17 of 2007 through Week 5 of 2009 – but fun nonetheless, and we got a championship out of it.
C.C. Brown continues to be an abortion at Safety. The Giants have got 23 starters in the front 7, but they were exactly two deep at Safety.
At 2:25 pm on Sunday, November 1, 2009, the New York Football Miniatures were pronounced mediocre.
Oh, get off the cross. Boo hoo, they’re not perfect.
The Giants are still a quality team, and they’re going to the playoffs. Both their lines are among the very best, and they have an above-average offensive backfield. They need to get better at WR (and the guys they have there are all young) and the secondary. The Eagles have holes, too, and if the two teams played ten games in a row, neither would win seven.
I’m not saying they suck, just that they’re no longer among the league’s best. Up until a couple weeks ago it had been necessary to consider them when asking which was the best pro football team. Now that’s not the case, and I consider that to be highly unlikely to change any time this season.
And Eli needs to get rid of this notion he seems to have picked up that all his targets are eight feet tall.
I don’t think the secondary is the major problem, though it’s certainly not good. But it never was. During the Superbowl run there was Gibril Wilson and, uh, James Butler, maybe? It wasn’t Omar Stoutmire or Will Demps, right? And didn’t Gibril miss a couple games during the playoffs?
IMO the main problem is Bill Sheridan. Spags just seemed to put everyone in the right position. By contrast, Sheridan is leaving gaping holes all over the place, much like the first two games (Cowboys and Packers) under Spagnuolo. Opposing receivers are catching the ball so wide open that there’s no blue jersey in the entire frame. That’s not a personnel issue, that’s scheme. If receivers were consistently getting good position and beating a man near them, that would be a talent issue. This isn’t.
The first five wins were against scrubs, yes, but in those games receivers weren’t wide open. During those games, when put in position to make a play the secondary made them. Losing Kenny Phillips for the season certainly hurt the cause, but that’s not the whole story. Aaron Ross has yet to set foot on the field this season. I’ve seen Aaron Rouse on the field, though I’ve never seen him actually make a play. Still, Corey Webster and Terrell Thomas are good enough to get the job done if Sheridan starts calling better plays.
Well, that’s the theory I’m going with, anyway.
Well, any secondary is going to look solid if the front seven is getting consistent pressure. That was the key to the Pats’ defensive success for a long time - they didn’t give up big passing yardage whether their secondary was Law and Harrison or a bunch of scrubs. The front seven has not been getting consistent pressure (which I think is mostly down to injury - Tuck has a bum shoulder, and Osi tore his ACL, which takes a year to fully recover from).
From the “Thank Fucking God” file: New York Giants demote C.C. Brown
John Riggins destroys Dan Snyder in an interview:
John Riggins: “First of all, it’s what I do, JB. I have been in broadcasting for the last 15 to 20 years, so it is sort of my job. And the other part is, and I’ve been asked this question a lot, when they say do you have an ax to grind? And I think any time an older player criticizes or says anything about his former team, unless he’s throwing Bon Mots at them, that all of a sudden you get a, ‘What’s he griping at?’ type of thing. Maybe that’s the case. But truthfully, I do have an ax to grind and I just realized I have been a little bit disingenuous. But this is a bad guy that owns this team. I’ll just tell you that upfront. Bad guy. And if the Commissioner is worried about potential new owners and saying some of these guys shouldn’t apply, he might want to police his own inside guys….”
Brown: “Why is he a bad guy?”
Riggins: “Because his business practices, I think. I don’t want to say they are unethical, but I don’t think it’s a place, a climate that is created there where people can be successful. It’s driven all by his ego and everything has to come from him. And I just don’t think you can be successful in those situations and when you are dealing with someone with the mindset of a child and yet owns a franchise in the NFL. I think you have some problems there.”
Cris Collinsworth: “We are talking about Daniel Snyder . Are you saying in some way he is unethical? Because I have dealt with him in the past and I have never sensed anything close to that. Or are you saying he has made bad decisions on the football side as an owner? Or what is specifically the issue?”
Riggins: “I am saying that I don’t think that this franchise can be successful where you have people saying, ‘Oh, this person Dan Snyder wants to win. He wants to win.’ It’s all about priorities. ‘What’s my priorities? The priority is it’s all about me. I have to have my needs met, then I want to make money, and those are one and two, and then I want to win. You can see by the decisions that are made….I don’t know if you have agreed with anything I am saying so far, but at this point, I would think you would say, ‘Yeah, I’ll go along with that.’ This person knows nothing about football, absolutely nothing. I don’t think they have a clue how a football team comes together, how it works. And yet they are the ones that are basically calling all the shots through a puppet, which is Vinny Cerrato. That is my take on it….I speak for the fans because these are the people that paid my salary for all these years. They are the ones that need to know that this is a bad guy.”
Collinsworth: “There is a fine line between being a bad guy and a bad GM, if you will. Are you saying a bad guy as in the NFL needs to take a look at this?”
Riggins: “Let me put it to you this way, Cris, this person’s heart is dark.”
Fucking LOL.
Just reading this post, I don’t get that. I think Riggins sounds like a douche, and has to fall back on this crap about Snyder having a “dark heart” when called on it.
I don’t like Dan Snyder, I think he’s an egotistical prick who isn’t afraid to piss off some fans. But Riggins sounds like a buffoon to me.
Hey, not his fault. Helmets weren’t very well designed in his day.
And they had beer in the coolers instead of Gatorade.
I think Riggo comes off like kind of a dick, but I find it interesting that an icon of the organization (and a member of the media) has the stones to publicly decry the way Snyder is running the franchise into the ground.
Cowboys over Eagles!
Chargers over Giants!
Redskins falling apart at the seams!
EXCELLENT!
Woohoo! A great day for football!
We could really use a “high-five” smiley right now!
Nice. That was a really important win for Dallas, first in awhile against a legitimate contender. DeSean Jackson just scares the daylights out of me and Maclin’s also faster than I’d realized. The D performed well to keep them in check and McNabb from getting in his old groove.
I can’t imaging how unpalatable it must be to defenses every time they see Brandon Jacobs handed the ball. Also, wonder what they’re saying in NY about that bizarre kick that never was. Gotta go find the story.
From ESPN: “A bizarre play at the end of the Giants’ opening drive cost them 3 points. New York lined up for a 39-yard field goal attempt, but Tynes never got the kick off. Feagles took the snap and Tynes said Feagles had both hands on the ball so he could not kick it.”
It reminded me of an equestrian event when a horse runs up to a gate and just decides for whatever reason not to jump.
The next time the Giants lined up for a field goal, a part of me was expecting the same thing again. Sortof a mental lock-up (“uh-uh, I ain’t kicking it; ain’t gonna happen”), maybe similar to a catcher who suddenly for whatever reason can’t throw the ball back to the pitcher.
But he got better.
That was a dismal game and the Giants made some really bone-headed mistakes. On top of that the Eagles let the Boys steal a game so a terrible weekend for this Giants fan.
I cannot believe the odd way the Giants found to lose this game.