Sometimes great teams and great people have bad days. Not everything goes as intended. Evel Knievel didn’t make it to the other side of the Snake River Canyon. The Summer of George didn’t go off as planned. You launch your balloon-like contraption in your backyard, forcing your six-year-old son to hide in the crawl space of your garage while alerting the authorities that he’s trapped inside your homemade UFO as it soars across Colorado and the next thing you know you’re being arrested. Even the division-winning 2008 Giants lost to the Cleveland Browns, and the Super Bowl-winning 2007 Giants gave up 80 points in their first two games of the season. The 2009 Giants probably aren’t as good as they looked beating Oakland, 44-7, and they’re most likely not as bad as they looked yesterday, losing to New Orleans, 48-27. Should we just chalk it all up to a bad day and move on?
In honor of his homecoming and as a tribute to his father’s …
Now that the Great Balloon Hoax of Aught-Nine is over, we can concentrate on sports again (CC Sabathia’s uniform is so big and baggy, it could probably be filled with helium and flown across the country, too). This past week in New York sports, the Yankees swept the Twins and now have to take on those pesky, team-of-destiny Angels, the Giants killed the Raiders to stay undefeated, the Jets suffered their second consecutive loss, the Rangers kept on winning, the Devils heated up, but the poor Islanders still couldn’t manage to notch their first victory of the year. The most bizarre moment of the week, though, was the Mickey Rourke sighting on the Giants sideline. And Kevin Bacon showed up at the Garden for the Knicks preseason home opener. Is the cast of Diner making the rounds of the local sports teams to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the movie?
Besides being at the Knicks game, Bacon could also be seen hiding in the Yankees dugout on Friday because, unbeknownst to A. J. Burnett, that was Shrevie’s wife, donned in curly …
Yesterday’s Giants game can easily be summed up in four words: Giants good, Raiders bad. Things went exactly as the Giants hoped for. They ran out to a 28-0 lead, with Eli Manning showing no signs of an injured foot. With garbage time starting in the second quarter, the Giants were able to give Manning the rest of the day off, and have David Carr take over from there. Big Blue dominated every aspect of the game, putting up 483 total yards to Oakland’s 124, six sacks to zero and 36:04 to 23:56 in time of possession.
Let’s not waste our time analyzing a blowout, though. Instead, let’s concentrate on the most interesting event of yesterday afternoon: The fact that Mickey Rourke was watching the game from the Giants sideline. What the heck was he doing there? How did he slip by security? I’m just spitballing here, but here are a few reasons I came up with for his appearance mingling with Big Blue:
He came by to personally …
The Giants kept on rolling this week, the Jets lost to a good Saints team (but traded for troublemaker Braylon Edwards), hockey season has started, with mixed results for the three local teams, the Mets held a day-long press conference on Monday to announce the firing of two coaches, and the $200-million juggernaut that is the Yankees steamrolled over the Twins in the opening game of their playoff series. Here are some fun facts about the Yanks and Twins:
CC Sabathia eats more food in one year than the farmers of Minnesota produce combined.
Brett Favre was warming up in the Twins bullpen in the seventh inning of Wednesday’s game.
George Steinbrenner gave an inspired speech to the team down in Tampa after the Yankees’ final regular season game. It was short, yet fiery: “Where the hell is my damn calzone!”
After defeating the Tigers in their dramatic one-game showdown on Tuesday, the Twins immediately called Darryl Strawberry, Lenny Dykstra and Keith Hernandez to find out the most effective way to destroy a plane on a flight to New …
The Giants went into this game as heavy favorites, and won easily, 27-16, with most of Kansas City’s points coming in garbage time. The only way the Chiefs could have beaten the Giants was if they had Len Dawson, Otis Taylor, Ed Podolak, Curly Culp, Buck Buchanan and Jan Stenerud still playing.
The star of the game for New York was Steve Smith. He caught 11 passes for 134 yards and scored two touchdowns – and he barely played in the fourth quarter. And guess what? He now leads all NFL receivers in just about every major category. He’s #1 in receprions (34), #1 in yards (411), #1 in yards per game (102.8) and #1 in TD’s (4). He runs his routes with perfection and always seems to be open. He and Eli Manning have a great chemistry going. Best off all, he doesn’t suffer from the prima donna syndrome that most star receivers are afflicted with these days. I really don’t think Smith will be …
Sunday afternoon was a New York sports fan’s dream (or nightmare) as the Giants, Jets, Yankees and Mets all played at the same time – and they all won (even the Rangers played at noon on Sunday and lost, but we won’t count that because it was preseason). I’m jumping on the bandwagon and doing one of those running diary things that are so popular with the kids these days of that afternoon. Here we go:
12:30: Watch the last half of the first period of the Rangers game and eat a turkey, ham and cheese sandwich.
12:36: Yell at my daughter to quit jumping on the couch.
12:50: Bring plate into kitchen.
12:51: Sit back down in front of TV, and watch Terry Bradshaw, Michael Strahan, Jimmy Johnson and Howie Long laugh.
1:02: Giants game starts. They drive down field with ease and score their first red zone touchdown of the year. It was done so easily, I don’t think there was even another team on the field.
1:21: Switch to Channel 2 to check …
The Giants defeated Tampa Bay as coolly, methodically and nonchalantly as John Phillips commits incest. Tampa Bay was no match for Big Blue as the Buccaneers played like they were wearing eyepatches and had peg legs and hooks for hands (though that might come in handy on defense). Bucs coach Raheem Morris summed it up best: “We were beat by grown men, a team we want to be like one day. They came in here and took it to us. Out-manned us. Out-gunned us. It wasn’t even close.” The stats back up his statement: 397 total yards for the Giants, 86 for Tampa Bay; time of possession – 43.38 minutes for the Jints, 16.22 for the Bucs; 27 first downs for the Giants, five for Tampa Bay (and they didn’t get their first one until five minutes were left in the third quarter).
The Bucs cured most of the Giants problems – at least for one day. Red zone issues? Going into the game the Giants were 0-8, …
A Giant won, a Jet soared and a Yankee guaranteed that New York is the best place to call home.
Three sports team hailing from New York had simultaneous starts this afternoon (Yanks not on time due to rain delay).The Yankees, Giants and Jets each had something to prove today.
The Yankees had a reason to celebrate and be proud of this seasons accomplishments. The Bombers clinched the American League East Division for the playoffs which gives them home field advantage and an extra day off at their disposal.
The biggest upside for the Bombers not having to fly back to Anaheim to play the Angels in the first round. The Angels are that good and that scary.
Realizing why the Yanks looked like a beaten club even when they beat the Angels is because the Angels play small ball, long ball and run the bases fiercely. Easily, the Angels have the most comparable batting line-up to the Yankees so pitchers have to be virtually perfect. The Angels are relentless in …
The Giants and Jets both beat division archrivals this past week. And both are 2-0 and sitting atop their respective divisions. The Giants went down to Texas and paid the Cowboys back for beating them in the first-ever game at the Meadowlands in 1976 (Dallas won, 24-14). Of course, Giants Stadium didn’t receive quite the same amount of hoopla as Cowboys Stadium has gotten this week. Here are some reviews from 33 years ago when the Giants home first opened:
“It just looks like a regular football stadium. Where is the 60-yard JumboTron? Where are the go-go dancers? What do they plan to do here, just play football?”
“Where do you put 78,000 angry New Jersey residents to watch Doug Kotar gain 500 yards a season? The new Giants Stadium, that’s where.”
“The new stadium is a modern marvel, but can they do something about that swampy smell?”
“It just goes to show you the power of the Mob that they got this stadium built all the way out …
Jerry Jones threw a $1.15 billion party last night, and everybody was there – John Madden, Pat Summerall, Lebron James, one Hall 0f Fame Cowboy after another, George W. Bush – but, unfortunately, for Dallas, so were the Giants. Jones’ modern-day Roman Coliseum landed from outer space just in time for the game, giant scoreboard and all (and from the view from space, it’s shaped exactly like Jones’ ego), and the Cowboys probably want a do-over (the biggest disappointment of the night was nobody hitting the three-mile-long JumboTron). An impressive 105,121 fans showed up for the game, and they were loud. But they’re still not as loud as my daughter when she throws one of her tantrums. The most tremendous feat of the evening: Fitting Madden and that scoreboard into one building.
For the Giants, the game was beginning to look like last week’s season opener – red zone problems, rushing problems, a defensive touchdown, fancy footwork by Mario Manningham and another receiver leaving the game due to injury (Domenik …
When we last saw the Jets, the comedy team of Eric Mangini and Brett Favre were sabotaging the season. Favre confessed that he had a torn biceps tendon, but he’s just covering up for his arm – it wasn’t torn, it was drunk. The team was even fined for the subterfuge. New and improved coach Rex Ryan gave a pregame speech to remember; it basically boiled down to this: Win on for Richard Todd. And win they did. The rookie coach even shed a tear after the game – it wasn’t because his team won, though, but instead the reason behind the crying was that he just found out that NBC cancelled My Name Is Earl to make room for Parks and Recreation. And when Ryan was about to present owner Woody Johnson with the game ball, Kanye West appeared out of nowhere, grabbed the ball and yelled out, “Weeb Ewbank is the greatest Jets coach in the world! In the world!”
Meanwhile, the Giants …
The Giants may not have a go-to receiver but what they do have on offense is depth (though they lost one cog in the offensive machine on the first play of the season when Danny Ware dislocated his elbow). Eli Manning (20 for 29, 256 yards, one TD, one INT) completed passes to seven different receivers. Steve Smith was outstanding in his new role in the starting lineup, catching six passes. You figured they’d rely on their monster running game and ease into the aerial attack, but they came out passing instead. Brandon Jacobs didn’t really get much going, with only 46 yards, while Ahmad Bradshaw outrushed him for 60 yards. The word of the day for the O was balance – 31 running plays and 29 passing. Mario Manningham hauled in three passes and showed off some fancy footwork on his touchdown reception (the first of his career). Kevin Boss caught some key passes. And Hakeem Nicks debuted by dropping the first pass thrown …
