The 2010 Schedule Is Here!

21 04 2010
NCAA Lacrosse: BIG CITY Classic - North Carolina vs Virginia APR 10

Hey look, it's the "New" Meadowlands Stadium.

Last night, the NFL (that’s the National Football League for those of you out of the loop) finally released the 2010 regular schedule in preparation for Thursday night’s draft. Earlier in the day, Roger Goodell leaked the season-opening Thursday night match-up in an online chat. That game, a much anticipated rematch of last season’s NFC Championship Game between the Vikings and Saints will hopefully kick off the 2010-2011 season with a lot of excitement and a lot less Black Eyed Peas (Please NFL, I beg of you, can we just stop the pregame “concert” that usually goes with this event? I guarantee you that a good 80% of NFL fans couldn’t care less about Fergie or Rihanna. And if I even so much as catch a whiff of Justin Bieber at any NFL-sanctioned event this season, I swear that we will be having a serious talk).

Anyway, I have for you, right here in this column, an exclusive look at the Giants 2010-2011 regular season schedule. I use the word “exclusive” rather lightly here, because I’m sure that every single major sports news outlet and blog on the internet has the information already. Take it from me though, very few sports blogs care about a random arrangement of opponents, dates, and times more than I do, for every April I patiently await the release of the new NFL schedule like Christmas Day. That would make today the day after Christmas, where I swear that I will not eat anything until after New Year’s and that I will not watch A Christmas Story again for another 364 days.

Week 1

September 12th, 1 p.m. FOX

Giants vs. Carolina Panthers

It’s only fitting that the team we closed out the old Giants Stadium with is the team we’ll be playing to open up the New Meadowlands Stadium, although I’ve tried as hard as I could to keep that last game against the Panthers deeply repressed beneath memories of Dave Brown and that snowball game against San Diego. By the way, is there a worse name for a stadium than the one we have now? I mean, we know it’s new, right? Why don’t we just call it “Meadowlands Stadium” then? Why do we need the “New”? Besides, are they going to change it after a few seasons to “Lightly-Used, But Still Smells Like It’s New Meadowlands Stadium”? I’m all for keeping the name out of the hands of a corporate sponsor, but if we’re going to do that, let’s think of something a little more creative then.

Week 2

September 19th, 8:20 p.m. NBC Sunday Night Football

Giants at Indianapolis Colts

Manning Bowl II! I absolutely cannot wait for this game, much like I couldn’t wait for the first Manning Bowl. I was at that game back in 2006 when we opened the season against Peyton and the Colts (who would ultimately go on to win the Super Bowl) and I remember thinking about how much more confident Peyton was in running the offense than Eli was. Even though little brother held his own in that game and we only lost 26-21, I remember thinking how great it would be if Eli became even half as good as his big brother one day. Then the next year we ended up winning the Super Bowl and it was Eli hoisting that Lombardi Trophy just like Peyton. I guess that wish came true.

Week 3

September 26th, 1 p.m. CBS

Giants vs. Tennessee Titans

The last time we faced Vince Young and the Titans was a total nightmare. I’m sure everyone remembers that game back in 2006. I believe it was November 26th. We jumped out to a 21-0 lead and everything was right with the world…until the defense completely collapsed, Vince Young started playing like Randall Cunningham from the early 90′s and then Rob Bironas kicked our hearts out with 2 seconds left in regulation to give Tennessee a 24-21 victory. That one still stings. The last time we hosted the Titans? Almost as bad. We squandered a 26-14 lead in the fourth quarter and lost in OT to the late Steve McNair 32-29 on December 1, 2003.

Week 4

October 3rd, 8:20 p.m. NBC Sunday Night Football

Giants vs. Chicago Bears

So, this will be our second primetime game in a three-week span. Giants fans know that we either look incredible or absolutely awful in primetime games. Take last season’s stinker against Denver on Thanksgiving night and then the game we played on Monday Night against Washington later in the season. It was like day and night. I hate to keep bringing up bad memories, but the last time we played Chicago on Sunday night was November 12, 2006 and we got annihilated by the Bears. How do I remember that date so vividly? Because I had gotten back from seeing Dane Cook at the Garden and I was watching the game at a bar around the corner and when Devin Hester returned that missed field goal 107 yards for a touchdown before the half I almost threw up on everyone that I was with. However that Bears team eventually played the Colts in the Super Bowl that season, so I guess we get a pass for that one.

Week 5

October 10th, 1 p.m. FOX

Giants at Houston Texans

Funny story (or not, it depends). My friends and I have a running joke we use at Giants games when an opposing quarterback is having too easy of a day and we’re not getting enough pressure on him. Usually we’ll yell “SOMEBODY TOUCH (insert quarterback’s name)!” at least once every time that team is on offense. This started back in 2006 at the last Giants-Texans game when the Houston quarterback at the time, David Carr, was running all over our defense. The guy sitting in front of us would stand up after almost every play and yell at the top of his lungs, “SOMEBODY TOUCH DAVID CARR!” Sometimes he would switch it up, depending on the situation and add, “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SOMEBODY TOUCH DAVID @#$%&@ CARR!” Anyway, we thought this was hysterical. Maybe you had to be there.

Week 6

October 17th, 1 p.m. FOX

Giants vs. Detroit Lions

Weirdly enough, I don’t have any interesting anecdotes or stories involving any past Giants-Lions games. I guess it’s because most games against Detroit end up being mind-numbingly boring or we end up losing and I purposely have a way of forgetting about every game that we’ve lost to the Detroit Lions, for obvious reasons. Anyway, this is a nice afternoon game in mid-October when the weather isn’t really cold yet, but it isn’t hot anymore and nobody knows whether to bring a jacket to the game or not. Usually if you bring a jacket, you end up sitting in the sun the entire game and losing eight pounds of your weight in sweat. Or the weather can throw a giant wrench at your head and it can be 35 degrees with 40 mph wind gusts. I don’t know what this has to do with the Giants and the Lions, but I’m just warning you about mid-October games at the Meadowlands.

Week 7

October 25th, 8:30 p.m. ESPN Monday Night Football

Giants at Dallas Cowboys

This year will mark the latest into the season that we’ve gone without playing a division opponent since the 1970 NFL-AFL merger. That’s six weeks without any games against NFC East teams. We kick off divisional play on October 25th at JerryWorld on Monday Night Football. By this point in the season, we’ll either both be going in opposite directions or we’ll both be neck and neck and this game will be an early test of fortitude. I can definitely see both teams being 4-2 going into this game and ESPN hyping it up for a full week and a half.

Week 8

BYE

The good thing about bye weeks is that we never lose.

Week 9

November 7th, 4:05 p.m. FOX

Giants at Seattle Seahawks

I’ve brought back enough bad memories in this column to give you all nightmares and flashbacks for weeks, so I’m going to leave this one alone. I could dig out a handful of bad games we’ve had in Seattle since the 90′s and every one of them would give me the chills and the cold sweats. Like the 5 false start penalties in a row? How about Jay Feely missing three straight game-winning field goals? Falling behind 42-3 in the first half? Brad Daluiso shanking a potential game-winner in the Kingdome? I’m sorry, I just said I wouldn’t do this. Needless to say, Seattle is never nice to us.

Week 10

November 14th, 4:15 p.m. FOX

Giants vs. Dallas Cowboys

We return home for the first time in almost a month and who do we find waiting for us there? Oh, it’s the Dallas Cowboys again. Twice in three games So before we play the Eagles or Redskins even once, we have to face the Cowboys twice? Tell me how that makes any sense? At least we get them out of the way early in the season, because those games tend to give me the most frequent heartburn and eye twitches.

Week 11

November 21st, 8:20 p.m. NBC Sunday Night Football

Giants at Philadelphia Eagles

Speak of the devil! Here are our friends, the Philadelphia Eagles. The team who outscored us 85-55 last season. Good news though Giants fans: Donovan McNabb is gone! The wicked witch is dead! Wait, what was that….you mean he’s still in the division? We still have to play him twice a year? Oh….

Week 12

November 28th, 1 p.m. CBS

Giants vs. Jacksonville Jaguars

This here is the quintessential late-November trap game. It’s a winnable game against a weak opponent in the middle of a bunch of tough divisional games that we are supposed to win by a wide margin, yet we usually find ourselves trailing by a touchdown in the 4th quarter until we finally realize, “Hey, this is the Jacksonville Jaguars, we’re supposed to win this game!” and we squeak by in the last 5 minutes.

Week 13

December 5th, 1 p.m. FOX

Giants vs. Washington Redskins

The good news: we don’t have to see Donovan McNabb until December. The bad news: I can see us going into this game at 7-5 and really needing a win to stay in the NFC East hunt and the playoff hunt. And facing Donovan McNabb with our season on the line is something that always makes me a little uneasy. (See 2009; 2008)

Week 14

December 12th, 1 p.m. FOX

Giants at Minnesota Vikings

For the 96th season in a row, we have to travel to the Metrodome to play the Minnesota Vikings in December/January. We’ve lost the last two games in Minnesota, however neither game mattered. In 2008 we had already clinched home-field advantage and last year we had already been eliminated from the playoffs the previous week. This season the game will hopefully be a little more important. Plus, we’re still in that stage of the year where we don’t know whether or not Brett Favre will be returning or retiring! Always a fun time. I like to call this period, usually from April to August, “Favre Limbo”.

Week 15

December 19th, 1 p.m. FOX

Giants vs. Philadelphia Eagles

The Eagles again. How will the first year of the Kevin Kolb Era turn out for Philly? I’m guessing that by this point in the season we should have a pretty good idea of whether or not the Eagles made a monumental mistake in ditching Donovan.

Week 16

December 26th, 4:15 p.m. FOX

Giants at Green Bay Packers

Eli vs. Aaron Rodgers at Lambeau on the day after Christmas. I’m anxiously anticipating this game. I think it has a lot of potential to be a great game and hopefully by Week 16 it will actually mean something. Although I won’t be complaining if we already have a playoff spot locked up by then. Even so, the match-up between Manning and Rodgers, two talented young quarterbacks, should be intriguing enough on its own.

Week 17

January 2nd, 1 p.m. FOX

Giants at Washington Redskins

We will end the 2010-2011 regular season on second day of 2011 against the Washington Redskins. What will this game mean? I’m not about to start projecting in April, it’s still way too early in my opinion. For all I know, we could be 11-4 at this point, we could be 8-7 or we could be 6-9, I have no clue. All I know is that if there is a playoff spot on the line and Mike Shanahan and Donovan McNabb are standing in our way, this could be another classic, old-fashioned NFC East slugfest.

On Thursday night, I should be rolling out a live running diary for the first 10-15 picks of the NFL Draft, so stay tuned for that.


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The Donovan McNabb Saga

29 03 2010

The relationship between Donovan McNabb and Philadelphia Eagles fans has always been an intriguing one. Which is to say that unless you are a Philadelphia Eagles fan, you’re not likely to ever fully understand it. Ever since Day One, I have witnessed what has perhaps become the most tumultuous relationship that a hugely popular “franchise player” has ever had with his franchise and his fan-base. From the day he was taken by the Eagles with the second overall pick in the 1999 NFL Draft, up until the day he will inevitably be traded to the Raiders or the Vikings or the Bills, the plight of Donovan McNabb will likely remain an enigma to most.

When the Eagles drafted Donovan McNabb out of Syracuse in the 1999 NFL Draft, he was booed heavily. The first thing Donovan McNabb heard when he stood next to Paul Tagliabue and held up a Philadelphia Eagles jersey for the first time, was a barrage of boo’s from the Philly faithful. How nice of them to welcome him so warmly. Although the Eagles were mired in a period in which they went through numerous second-rate starting quarterbacks, including but not limited to the likes of Bobby Hoying and Ty Detmer, Eagles fans still believed that drafting Ricky Williams was the direction that the franchise needed to take. In hindsight, was taking McNabb over Williams the right choice? Yes, of course it was. However, this doesn’t change the way most Philly fans feel about their franchise quarterback. Needless to say, the 1999 NFL Draft would be a harbinger of things to come over the next decade.

If nothing else, Donovan McNabb is certainly a polarizing figure in Philadelphia. Over the last 10 years, he has alternated between hero, villain and complete enigma more times than John Locke in the last 6 seasons of LOST and sometimes those transformations can take place over the course of a few weeks, a few days or even one quarter of a game. For someone who is been the star player and undisputable leader of a winning football team over the course of an entire decade, he has to lead the league for the most times his team has threatened to cut him, trade him or bench him.

It’s no surprise that he and Head Coach Andy Reid have clashed over the years, and while we can watch countless puff pieces on FOX pregame shows that portray the two as being best buddies, we all know the truth: Andy Reid doesn’t trust Donovan McNabb. Benching him in the second half of a regular-season game against Baltimore a few seasons ago was a heavily criticized move at the time, but it served to light a fire under McNabb, as he eventually led the Eagles to the NFC Championship later that season where they would lose to the Arizona Cardinals.

Which brings me to my next point: Donovan McNabb knows how to win. Now, here is where the gallery chimes in, in unison, with a resounding, “What has he won?” And the answer is: nothing substantial — yet. No, he hasn’t won a Super Bowl yet, but he’s been to one. Stats are stats, and this one clearly speaks for itself: since McNabb was drafted in 1999, he has led the Eagles to the playoffs 8 times. In that same time span, only one team (and one quarterback) has been to the playoffs more than McNabb and Philadelphia. That team? The Indianapolis Colts. Peyton Manning has one Super Bowl ring, and he’s made two appearances, but it took him 8 years to even make his first Super Bowl, while McNabb reached the big game in his 6th season. Am I comparing Donovan McNabb to Peyton Manning? No, all I’m saying is that over the last decade, not many quarterbacks have been as consistent as Donovan McNabb. His 9 wins in the playoffs are the third best among active quarterbacks behind only Tom Brady and Brett Favre.

Now I can throw stats around all day, but they don’t really do much. Almost every off-season for the last five or six years, Donovan McNabb’s name has been floated through the rumor mills and it’s almost become expected to hear writers and analysts wonder whether he’ll lose his starting job after a bad game in Week 5. With my brother being a diehard Eagles fan, and having watched McNabb and the Eagles almost every Sunday for as long as I can remember, this is something I’m typically used to.

Not to this degree though. This time, it seems like the Eagles organization is going out of their way to dangle McNabb out there in the open, leaving him available for any team that shows interest or makes an offer. This year, they’re opening themselves up to the possibility that no team makes a trade for McNabb and he returns to the field in September as the starting quarterback knowing that his entire organization doesn’t really want him to the be the starting quarterback. Is that any way to treat your franchise quarterback? Maybe it was the Eagles early exit from the playoffs this season, or maybe it’s McNabb’s frequent injuries that make the front office unsure if they can leave the team in his hands, but whatever it is, I’m sure there are better ways to go about this.

McNabb is still only 33 years old. He has played 11 seasons in the National Football League already and has suffered his fair share of bad injuries, but 33 isn’t that old, especially when it comes to the quarterback position. Peyton Manning turned 33 last month, and no one is going to argue that he’s even remotely close to being washed up. Both Kurt Warner and Brett Favre won playoff games last season at the ages of 38 and 40 respectively. In fact, Brett Favre came within one bad pass of playing in the Super Bowl.

Donovan McNabb still has a lot left in his tank as a quarterback in the NFL, whether or not he starts the 2010 season with the Philadelphia Eagles. If they ship him away for a draft pick in the next month, I will assure you that whatever team he does end up with will be competitive. Maybe not immediately, but he will have a noticeable impact, even if he ends up in Oakland. Yes, you read that right, I believe that Donovan McNabb can turn the Oakland Raiders into a playoff team.

As a Giants fan and someone who has been tortured by Donovan McNabb year in and year out, I’ll be honest and say that I won’t miss him if he leaves the NFC East. I would much rather face Kevin Kolb’s Eagles twice a year than Donovan McNabb’s Eagles (although in Kolb’s defense, we haven’t really seen much of him yet). Will the Giants-Eagles rivalry be a little different without No. 5? Of course it will, because even though I hate him twice a year, I look forward to Giants-Eagles games because of him, because I respect him just as much as I dislike him. And, if he can get the respect of a New York Giants fan, he certainly deserves the respect of his organization and his fans.


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The Final Four

21 01 2010

 

New York Jets v Indianapolis Colts

You can’t say that I didn’t warn you.

Last week, I told you that this league was hard to figure out. Did you listen to me? Probably not, I didn’t even take my own advice. I went ahead and picked the Chargers to beat the Jets when I had a sneaking suspicion that something fishy would happen in San Diego on Sunday. Actually, it wasn’t even a sneaking suspicion. The suspicion was walking around banging pots and pans and blowing a whistle. It wasn’t sneaking anywhere.

So why did I ignore this and pick the Chargers anyway? Half of the reason is because I’m an idiot, and the other half is because there’s no way I could have foreseen Nate Kaeding jumping into a DeLorean and reliving the 2004 NFL Playoffs over again.

However, I could have foreseen Norv Turner blowing yet another big decision in a critical moment by opting to go with an onside kick with over 2 minutes to play. Instead of putting the pressure on Mark Sanchez to pick up a big first down and hope that your defense can make one stop, why risk giving the Jets a short field? Sanchez had thrown for barely 100 yards at that point in the game and the Jets offense had been unable to get much of anything going for most of the game until Jim Leonhard’s late pick of Philip Rivers set the Jets up at the Chargers’ 27 yard line.

I’m having an extremely difficult time with trying to understand how and why the New York Jets are going to be playing the Indianapolis Colts this coming Sunday afternoon for a trip to Super Bowl XLIV. I’m having a hard time for a number of reasons and surprisingly, none of them have anything to do with my hatred of the New York Jets. Believe it or not, they impressed the hell out of me in San Diego and for at least the next 4 or 5 days, they have earned my respect. Relish this, because it will probably be the first and last time I ever say those words.

In all honesty though, I can’t figure out the enigma that is the 2009 New York Jets. Forget about the enigma of the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE for just a second and consider the fact that a team that was 4-6 through the first 11 weeks and went 2-4 in their division is now one win away from playing in the Super Bowl. This is a team that had it’s own coach remark in a press conference that his team had no chance to make the playoffs. This is a team who is led by a quarterback that finished the regular season with 12 touchdown passes and 20 interceptions and had a quarterback rating of 63. 

Hopefully you can see why I’m so baffled. What compounds this confusion is the fact that I live smack-dab in the middle of the three-ring circus that is the New York sports media. For this reason, I am constantly witnessing the Jets getting raked over the coals for their latest embarrassment against Buffalo or their failure to stop David Garrard on a game-winning drive on their home field. Despite all of that, I now see a team that was declared clinically dead by an entire city of critics and sports writers only a month ago, march confidently into Lucas Oil Stadium with an NFL title in their sights. They have seduced an entire nation with their swagger and their cocksureness and judging from all the Daily News back pages these last few weeks, you would think that the Colts were the underdogs on Sunday.

Does America always love a good underdog story? Of course, and that is partly why the Jets have become America’s Darlings du jour. A team that nobody thought had a shot, suddenly has turned the tables with a rookie quarterback and a rookie coach who knows his way around a quote. And I’ll admit that any coach that uses the movie 300 to motivate his team obviously knows what he’s doing.

Do the 2009 Jets remind me a lot of the 2007 Giants? Yes. I find a lot of similarities in both the teams themselves and the paths that they took to get to this point. A young inexperienced quarterback, a relentless, blitz-happy defense that gives opposing quarterbacks nightmares and a steady, exhausting running game. And that is all I have to say about the magical allure of this strange and unpredictable Jets team.

Now, on to my picks for Championship Sunday. I was 2-for-2 last weekend, so at least we’re getting somewhere. I think.

New Orleans Saints 28, Minnesota Vikings 24

Last weekend the Vikings defense absolutely overwhelmed the Cowboys offense. Dallas rolled into the playoffs on the arm of Tony Romo and the suddenly breakout play of Felix Jones, and then rolled over Philadelphia in the first round. The Minnesota pass rush was too much for Romo though, and they were exploited in every conceivable way. Not turning the football over was one of the main foundations that held the Cowboys up during their run to the playoffs and that pillar came crumbling down on Sunday when they turned the ball over three times.

Can the Vikings replicate this gameplan this Sunday against the Saints and disrupt the rhythm of Drew Brees and the New Orleans offense? Probably not. First of all, they’ll be at odds in the Superdome which is possibly the hardest place to play on the road in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE. Second, the Saints don’t need a huge game from Brees to win. Of course they would like one on Sunday, but it’s not a necessity. There have been numerous times this season when Brees played very un-Brees-like and the Saints still managed to get the job done. Then again, those wins didn’t come against the Minnesota Vikings and Brett Favre.

Nobody can deny that Brett Favre has been having one magical season and his 37 touchdowns and 7 interceptions look like numbers that the quarterback of Oklahoma or USC would put up. Could this be his season of destiny? His last hurrah? His final showdown? Sure. Will it be though? Probably not. I think that the Saints and more importantly, the Superdome, will prove to be too much for the Vikes. The Saints will get their first ever Super Bowl appearance.

Indianapolis Colts 21, New York Jets 16

To be perfectly honest with you, I think that the New York Jets match up better with the Colts than any other team in the AFC. The only thing that can derail the Colts offense is a blitzing defense that puts constant pressure on Peyton Manning and forces him to check off on his receivers a little quicker than he is accustomed to doing. It’s no secret that Peyton Manning is a little less Peyton Manning-like when he has to worry about  linebackers coming up the middle or cornerbacks coming from the blind side. If the Jets defense can harass Peyton Manning like they harassed Philip Rivers last week, they will have a very, very good shot at winning the AFC title.

New York Jets v Indianapolis Colts

There is just too much at stake in this game for the Colts though. Whether or not the Colts fans or the Indianapolis media will admit to it, Jim Caldwell has taken a lot of heat for his decision to pull Manning in the second half of the Week 16 game against the Jets. Even if they don’t necessarily disagree with the decision, every one has talked about it, and it is on everyone’s mind. Lose again to the Jets and there is going to be a lot of questioning going on and a lot of  criticism thrown in the direction of the Colts organization, particulary Jim Caldwell. There is simply too much at stake here for the Colts, and Peyton Manning for that matter, to throw anything less than the kitchen sink at this game. Peyton Manning absolutely lives for games like this. He thrives on it. Mark Sanchez? As good as he’s been so far this postseason, I don’t think he’s ready for this stage yet. And maybe that’s all it comes down to in the end.

I will tell you one thing though, it will be one heck of an AFC Championship Game.


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One For the Ages

30 12 2009
Carolina Panthers v New York Giants

Last week was a busy week for two reasons: Christmas. Shopping. For those reasons, I couldn’t turn out a column after last Monday night’s 45-12 throttling of the Washington Redskins on Monday Night Football. Had I written something, I likely would have gushed about how good the offense and the defense looked and how I could see this season turning around. I may have even written about how I thought this team might make a pretty surprising run in the playoffs and how I thought that there were a lot of similarities to the 2007 team that won the Super Bowl. I probably would have written all of those things, and a lot more. Then, after Sunday’s game, I would have looked back at last week’s column and been very embarrassed. I would have been almost as embarrassed as the Giants were by the Carolina Panthers Sunday afternoon in the last game they will ever play at Giants Stadium, their home for the last 34 years and 283 games.

A few weeks ago, after the wild Sunday night shootout against the Eagles, I wrote that I would not be disappointed if that was the last game I would ever watch in Giants Stadium. Then I got greedy. I knew I just had to be there on Sunday, I had to be there for the last hurrah, when the curtain came down on the place that I have grown to love over the last 15 years. Now, my final memory of Giants Stadium is going to be the Giants getting spanked by a team that had absolutely nothing to play for, on a day that we had everything to play for. It’s going to be a memory of our defense getting torched for 206 yards by a second-string running back (mind you, I know Stewart can be a starter on just about any other team in the league) and for 3 touchdowns by a second-string quarterback. It’s going to be a memory of Brandon Jacobs getting mercilessly booed as he walked off the field and towards the locker room with about 8 minutes to go and the Giants down 41-9. Were the boo’s warranted? Certainly. Jacobs racked up a whopping 1 yard on 6 carries. The workhorse who helped carry the Giants to a Super Bowl title 2 years ago, now looks like he has suddenly aged a decade. His explosiveness has all but disappeared, he no longer puts his shoulder down and runs over defenders and for the most part, he looks like he is running with ankle weights on. He has not crossed the 100-yard mark once all season, he only has 5 touchdowns (one-third of his total from last season) and unless he has a monster game against Minnesota next week, he will fall short of 1,000 yards for the first time since 2006, when he was Tiki Barber’s backup.

Needless to say, the lackluster running game has been the root of several of the Giants problems this season, but not all of them. Not in the least. It certainly hasn’t affected the passing game. Manning has had no problems finding the open receiver this season (you know, when they actually decide to catch the ball) and he is having, by far, the best statistical season of his career. His 27 touchdown passes are a career high and he will likely pass the 4,000 yard mark next week, making him only the third Giants quarterback to do so in franchise history. He needs a little over 200 yards to set the Giants all-time single season mark currently held by Kerry Collins who set it in 2002.

What the lack of a run game has done to the Giants this season is fail to establish a rhythm that has been so vital to our offense in the past few seasons. Being able to balance a successful passing game with a steady running game is the key to success in the National Football League, and the Giants just couldn’t find that balance for most of this season. Not enough big runs from Jacobs and Bradshaw to jump start a scoring drive and not enough big plays to galvanize the team and give the offense some momentum when the team sorely needs it.

I’m not going to say much about Sunday’s game, mostly because there really isn’t anything to say about it. It was the epitome of all that has gone wrong for the Giants this season. The defense failed to make big plays when they needed to. It seemed like last week’s defensive game plan, which worked so well against Jason Campbell and the Redskins, was not replicated on Sunday, as the Giants only sacked Matt Moore once, on the Panthers first offensive play from scrimmage. If you take a few steps back, Sunday’s game was quite simple to understand, mostly because it happened so quickly. The Giants opening drive, which ate up almost 8 minutes of the clock, looked almost exactly like their opening drive in Washington last week. When Manningham fumbled on the Carolina 17 yard line after converting a huge 3rd down, the momentum that the Giants had seemingly tried to build up with that march slipped away, and from that point on it looked as if the Giants were going through the motions. One of the amazing things about football is that entire outcome of a single game can be changed by a single play. It is often the littlest things that can swing the momentum and which can either bury a team or give them a second life. On Sunday, the Giants were buried early. Perhaps even before the fans knew it, and certainly before the players knew it, proving that anything is possible on any given Sunday.

Carolina Panthers v New York Giants

Was it tough to head out to Giants Stadium for one final Sunday, hoping for a heroic, season-saving effort from the Giants and a final push for the playoffs, only to see one of the worst performances in the stadium’s history? Yes, it was admittedly difficult. However, there was a sort of poetic beauty in being able to witness Sunday’s game. Everything served as a type of closure, from the boo’s, to the guy over in section 319 who threw all of his food at the field when the Giants fell behind 24-0 at halftime. I’ll be the first to admit that with all the games I’ve seen at Giants Stadium over the years, I’ve been pretty lucky. I’ve seen a lot of good games, and even a handful of great games, but I haven’t witnessed to many stinkers like the one I saw on Sunday. Actually, it’s safe to say that Sunday’s game was the worst I have ever attended at Giants Stadium, or anywhere else for that matter. So bad that I probably will have to amend the column that I wrote a few months ago detailing the top 5 worst games of the Eli Manning Era to include it. When you look at it that way, it even begins to make some kind of sense. Maybe not fully, and not yet, but in time I’m sure I’ll see it for what it is.

On Sunday, Big Blue will travel to Minnesota to take on Brett Favre and the Vikings. The Vikes have already clinched a playoff spot, which is lucky for them considering the nosedive they’ve been locked in since the beginning of the month. They’ve dropped 3 of their last 4 games, including a gut-wrenching 36-30 overtime loss to the Bears on Monday night. The 11-4 Vikings suddenly have something to play for, as a loss by them and an Eagles win over Dallas would drop Minnesota down to the 3rd seed in the NFC, giving the Eagles the coveted first-round bye. As for the Giants, it’s a much different story. By Week 5, many Giants fans looked at this game on the schedule anticipating that it wouldn’t mean anything, much like last year’s Week 17 matchup against the Vikings. After all, we were 5-0, and most of us thought that we would have our playoff position readily secured by now. Well, it turns out that we were half-right, as Heatmiser would say. The game means about as much as an exhibition game to the Giants, but not for reasons that we had anticipated back when we were 5-0. The Giants will miss the playoffs this year for the first time since I was a senior in high school and I still believed that prom would be just like American Pie, only in real life. Instead, we will try to play spoiler and help out the Eagles, because after all,  they’ve helped us out so much this season (outscoring us 85-55 in two games). It’s the least we could do. To be perfectly honest with you, I’d much rather see the Eagles win the NFC than the Cowboys, a team we beat twice. It would hurt much less to know that the team that caused us the most torment this season turned out to be the second best team in the NFC.

With The Minnesota game being played on January 3rd, this past Sunday’s game against Carolina served not only as the last game at Giants Stadium, but also the last game of the decade. Although the decade ended on a bitter note for Big Blue, nobody can deny that it was one hell of a decade to be a Giants fan. With two Super Bowl appearances, one Super Bowl title, 3 division titles and 6 playoff appearances, it was arguably one of the most successful decades in Giants history, and I’m proud to have been a part of it. As we say goodbye to another decade and welcome in 2010 in just a few days, here’s to hoping that 2010-2019 will be even better for the New York Football Giants. Who knows, maybe it will even start with a win on Sunday.


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