Giants fan here. I’m very cautiously optimistic. The Giants addressed every worry-area from last year during the off-season, with one exception: Quarterback. In the weak NFC, there’s no reason the Giants can’t make a playoff run if Eli Manning shows that last year’s horrible performance was a fluke – and let’s not kid ourselves with ‘hard schedule’ this and ‘crappy receivers’ that or ‘porous offensive line’ the other thing. He was just bad. Ken Dorsey had the same problems in San Francisco and had just as good a season.
So, if Eli comes close to justifying his draft position, we’ll be good this year and the next. If he’s a bust, he’s going to torpedo the franchise at least until the end of the decade. Wheeeee!
As for the Steelers, let’s figure out their 2005 record by adding up the expected value of wins for each of their games, as determined by my super-secret mathematical footballistic hyper-metrics:
That gives the Steelers 11.25 wins, or an 11-5 record. If you wanted to round up arbitrarily to 12-4, I wouldn’t put up too much of a fuss, but predicting that a specific team will finish 13-3 or better is almost always foolish.
In other words, does anyone want to bet me $100 that the Steelers will lose three or fewer games this season?
So I take it you have never seen him play? I’ve never, ever seen any receiver less willing to work for a ball than Burress. But hey, if you want him, have him. I’m thrilled to have him off the team.
Take it however you want it, if it makes you feel more comfortable to assume I have any love for the Giants since I dared to stray from the black and gold semen shower. I should know better than to try to talk actual football in one of these wankfests, but he worked to the tune of 20 yards per catch last year. Hey, if 70 catches for 1,000 yards isn’t your kind of thing, awesome, be thrilled. Don’t let me keep you from your kneepad collection.
Ok, just got back from a weekend away…time to sit down to a few hours of football (dear god, I love DVR).
I’m beat, so I’ll cut to my main points:
– Go Giants…gotta love that ballhawking.
– The Manning elbow situation will turn out to be nothing.
– One massive ball of flame to the NFL Network: while I really appreciate you showing a replay of the Dolphins/Steelers game this morning, could you do me a favor next time and not show the final score on the ticker during the fucking game?!?! Thanks…that’d be greaaaat.
Dorsey had the same hard schedule issues? He played in the weakest division in the NFL. Actually, that’s being kind. He played in the weakest division the NFL has ever fielded. Eli started his career against a slew of top-ten defenses. (None of which, I might point out, were from the NFC West.)
Eli did suck, yes he did. He sucked again last night, but the Giants don’t need him to be particularly good. Big Blue is likely to return to the “3 yards and a cloud of dust” style of football. (How funny that he only completed 3 passes, but 2 of them were TDs?)
Agreed about the receivers and O-Line, though. The line was fine last year, and Eli got better as the receivers got injured. (His best game and most productive target was all David Tyree. Love that guy.) So it wasn’t an issue of receiver quality.
hehheh, yeah, take that, Jimmy! You’re obviously tainted with pro-Giants bias. heh.
Aww… Sorry if I hurt your feelings by disagreeing with you about the greatness of Plaxico Burress (even in his best year, Hines Ward still had better numbers, by the way). Knowing you are so sensitive, I’ll leave you alone.
I see where the confusion came from. Your statement makes no sense unless you’re talking to a Giants fan. I had assumed your statement was intended to make sense. My bad.
Really? So, if I said, “Hey, Gus Frerotte is the most underrated quarterback,” and someone else said, “Okay, you’re welcome to him,” that means that I must be a Dolphins fan?
Well, it is only pre-season, but after watching the Steelers offense against the Redskins - yeesh. Clearly I was wrong about the departure of Plaxico. Ben seems to think all his receivers are 7’3".
And our defense? Hasn’t been a problem to this point, but dayum! The Redskins were opening huge holes in our line with regularity.
Perhaps the offense will get their shit together before the season opens. One hopes.
Well. That hasn’t happened in a long time. Then again, I haven’t been back to school all summer. The above was me, not Robin. She’s a stinkin’ Dallas fan. Everyone has their flaws, I guess.
It doesn’t look too good compared to last year, does it not?
Besides the injury problem the sports talkers in Pitt are repeating “stories”- anecdotes from people who happened to be there at the alleged times- that Roethlisberger has a big head and he’s not too popular with the rest of the team. No one admits to seeing it directly, but they repeat the stories about how he walked out after the Eagles game without shaking hands on the field, knowing looks behind his back from teammates, and his attitude of “I’m a superstar” he supposedly gives to these teammates.
The talkers said “we don’t see it, but there must be something to it- unless the rumors were started by the Cleveland fan club on the Internet.”
So- is the offense holding back, or are thay really that bad? Burress dropped a lot of passes when he was here- including one boner he pulled, spiking the ball after a tough catch. He rolled on the ground but was never touched by an opponent; he got up and spiked the ball, and the alert defense grabbed it and scored. It may have been Baltimore… Ward’s holdout has him moving slowly, he’s not in playing shape yet. But Big Ben’s overthrows are the most troubling- is he just slumping, or was he always such a bad passer? Did he hit Burress only because no one else could reach the ball?
Hopefully, this last game will be a wake-up call, and play will imnprove. It has to- there’s a big set of expectations to live up to.
The loss of one particular person has me worried- he may be the key to their season, but he had to retire because of health problems. I’m talking about Myron Cope- listening to the game color will never be the same. He was the perfect antidote to the Cris Collinsworths who always seem to draw the Steeler games.
And you were still able to marry her? Kudos. I guess if you ever get into an argument, you can always fall back to making note of X and XIII, or two-and-one.
I should make clear that I was being facetious about Plaxico being the answer. Of all the Steelers receivers, he was least likely to make the effort to get to a ball that was not laid in his hands (and even if it was put into his hands in the end zone on a fade pass in a crucial playoff game, he might just drop it). If E. Manning can do that, he’ll have plenty of success.
I’m not really terribly concerned just yet. All the pieces are there, and Maddox even showed how one can hit a tight end for a big play. And really, how many times do you see Randle El drop a ball like he did. I’m still looking at this as kinks to be worked out, not major problems.
Yes, but I have XXX to counterpoint. Y’know, the one where your own quarterback couldn’t tell the difference between black and gold and blue and silver.
