ANOTHER BIG WEEK IN THE NFC EAST

Giants and Eagles are preparing for another big weekend of football, the tight competition in the NFC east has made each week critical, especially after the fiasco last week at Lincoln Financial Field. The Eagles have taken over control of the division after a pretty complete performance by the Eagles and the Giants once again shooting themselves in the foot with turnovers and penalties. They’ve lost control of the NFC east and they now lead the NFL in turnovers. They actually contained Vick better than any team thus far this year and they completely blew it with stupid turnovers on offense.  Ahmad Bradshaw lost another fumble, Eli threw 2 more picks and of course his pathetic attempt at a dive/slide to cough up the ball after getting one of his picks recovered because of an Asante Samuel fumble.  I’ve been defending Eli all season blaming the majority of his interceptions on some unsure hands in the Giants receiving core, but it keeps happening. It’s kind of like Derek Jeter and his seeing eye singles, if you only watched 100 Yankee games in your life you would say Derek Jeter gets a lot of lucky hits, but if you watch the Yankees enough, you see that Jeter has got hundreds of those hits in his career, something that happens frequently enough isn’t luck, good or bad. Besides cleaning up the interceptions Eli has to learn how to slide. Its utterly insane that a professional athlete cant master this simple athletic feat accomplished by thousands of little leaguers each spring and summer.  I’m a big Eli fan and it annoys me when people don’t give him his proper respect as an elite NFL quarterback, however when he does stuff like stumble to the ground like a drunk girl and cough up the ball at a critical time in the game after throwing a pick, it gives people ammunition to call him a chump, and that makes me mad at him.  A lot of the time Eli looks like Peyton Manning’s brother but once in a while he looks like Matt and Tim Hassleback’s little brother.  Make no mistake, this is a must win for the G Men, the comforting thing is that after the last two performances Coach Coughlin will have the Giants focused, he is already shaking things up by giving Brandon Jacobs the start at running back after Ahmad Bradshaw fumbling another two times against the Eagles.

                The Eagles on the other hand will be playing the Bears who are on fire right now. Vick will have another tough test this week as he goes from one top defense to another, only this time he will be playing on the road which will make things even tougher. Asante Samuel will be out for the game against the Bears which should make Jay Cutler happy, the Bears are a tough team if their offense plays decently, and the keys to that are Cutler avoiding interceptions and Mike Martz running the ball on a somewhat consistent basis. This could be my bias talking but I think the Giants will bounce back this week at home and the Eagles will slip up on the road.

JETER NEGOTIATIONS GETTING HEATED

                 I know I promised a college basketball preview for both NY and Philly college basketball teams but more pressing news has come up recently. The unthinkable is actually happening, Derek Jeter’s contract negotiations haven’t been going very smoothly, no one was naïve enough to believe that they would be done in a day or two or that the two sides would quickly reach an agreement on the value of the legendary shortstop going forward. Jeter and his agent have made the point that Jeter is one of the more indispensable players in Yankee history, that his contributions to the team can’t be numerically quantified and that he should be paid for everything he’s done for the franchise. The Yankees brass say that they have already made Jeter quite rich throughout his career, that they are want him on the team but that he must recognize that he is getting older and his skills and value are diminishing, therefore he shouldn’t get paid like the player he was 10 years ago.

                This is an odd side for me to take; Jeter is the Yankee of my generation. Each generation of Yankee fans has had an iconic, all time, first ballot hall of fame player who is the identity of Yankee success during that generation.  Ever since he showed up for his first game as a starter in the 1996 season, where he hit a home run against the Indians in his first major league game Derek Jeter has been that Yankee, and the thought of seeing him in another uniform is nauseating and disheartening, however I’m almost, almost inclined to take the side of the Yankee bosses. I cannot say it enough, I LOVE Derek Jeter however, I was expecting someone like him to not ask for an outrageous contract, I kind of expected Derek to recognize his skills may be eroding and to ask for a reasonable deal so that he can get his three thousandth hit in pinstripes, stick around for a year or two more then call it a career, riding off into the sunset as the greatest shortstop to ever put on the sacred pinstripes of the Bronx Bombers. He basically wants a four year deal worth 80 million; the Yanks want to give him a three year deal worth 45 million, so there not far apart on this negotiation, but the nasty public comments going back and forth between Jeter’s agent and Brain Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner have made it seem like this could be another sloppy, hurtful break up, similar to that of Joe Torre.  Derek’s agent called the Yankee offer baffling, which it isn’t, but Cashman retorted by saying that if Derek is displeased with the offer he should test the free agent market and see if he could find an offer that he likes, then Hal said he feels the Yankees have made him very rich for a lot of years and he doesn’t feel they owe him anything in terms of money.

                I can’t believe it but I actually agree with Cashman and Hal. To call the Yankees offering “baffling” is insulting, Jeter would continue to be the highest paid shortstop in the game, even though he isn’t one of the 5 best shortstops on the field. Jeter had by far his worst offensive season of his career this past season, and at his age it’s hard to claim he just had a bad year. He plays one of the most important defensive positions on the field yet it is almost universally recognized that Derek’s range at short has been in decline for a few years now. Besides all of that Jeter had one of the most lucrative contracts in baseball for the past 10 years, the last time Jeter was a free agent he had an option, accept the Yankees offer, or go to arbitration and try and squeeze even more money from the Yankees, which he did without hesitation, but now that the shoe is on the other foot the Yankees are being cruel? Also the idea that DJ should be repaid for his years of service to the Yankees is ridiculous, what was the 21 million he got paid last year? That wasn’t repaying him for his service, he’s been compensated many times over for his spectacular play on the field and wearing the Yankee pinstripes has only increased his marketability. Also where else is Derek Jeter going to go? Is he really going to play for the Reds and get his three thousandth hit there, over a few million? This may be the first time Jeter needs the Yankees more than the Yankees need him.   

COLLEGE HOOPS GETS GOING

Drexel Head Coach Brusier Flint

I love this time of year, Thanksgiving is right around the corner, which means Christmas isn’t far behind and that coincides with football, both pro and college getting serious and basketball on both the pro and college level heating up. The NBA has already started and the usual headlines and stories have been hashed out, how the Heat and their new big 3 will play together, how will the Lakers look, is Boston too old, we don’t have any of the definitive answers yet but opinions are being formed and the Knicks look as dreadful as ever so there isn’t a ton of excitement in the NBA for me, but there is an oasis in this basketball desert and its college hoops. Some people don’t like college football and basketball because there are a ton of teams in a lot of conferences and a talent pool that isn’t as deep as the pro’s.  I however love college sports. The school traditions, the pride and spirit of the fans and as corny as it sounds there is a certain level of purity in college sports.  This may sound insane given that the Cam Newton scandal is all over ESPN, but I do respect college athletes competing, it’s hard to remember because they’re on TV all the time but they are just kids. There’s something appealing about 18-23 yr olds playing for pride and each other when compared to the egotistical, money driven drama surrounding pro sports sometimes.  Anyway I’m done waxing philosophical about the virtues of college sports.

                Both Philly and NY have a plethora of college basketball teams, not all of them are nationally relevant perennially but they are all relevant locally every year. Philly obviously has the “Big 5” which has now be renamed the “City 6” to include Drexel.  Granted I’m biased, not only am I a Drexel student but I work for the Drexel basketball team as a manager, my personal connections aside the Dragons program is on par with that of Temple, Saint Joes, La Salle and UPenn. Villanova is clearly the top program in that group and plays in one of the toughest conferences in the country, the Big East.  In New York Fordham is trying to re-build their basketball program and Saint John’s has made a step in the right direction in trying to being their program back to national prominence. Iona College is near and dear to my heart, because it’s near to my house. I grew up around the corner from Iona College and went to high school at Iona Prep so I like to follow the Gaels and their progress.

                My next post will be a breakdown of each team and their prospects for this upcoming season, but regardless of their records college basketball promises to be exciting and interesting and is there a better event in sports then the NCAA tournament? College football could learn so much from their basketball counterpoint, just put a playoff or tournament system into football and it could be as awesome as college basketball is.

GIANTS AND MARGARITO HAVE SIMILAR WEEKENDS

I don’t know who took a worse beating the Giants, or Antonio Margorito. One was heavily favored (The Giants) and one was trying to re-establish his career after being caught cheating. In both cases the lights went out, literally at the new Meadowlands and Margarito’s lights essentially went out when many Pacquiao closed up his right eye with a UN ending series of lightning quick punches that has made the small Philippine native a boxing legend. HBO’s “24/7” series is highly entertaining and does a great job promoting a fight, I never really thought Margarito had a shot to beat the PAC man but the show did a good job playing up his size advantage and his quest to redeem himself after being caught with plaster in his gloves, a cardinal sin in the boxing community and a crime in most states. It was obviously a long shot but the hype had me and my friends debating whether or not we should cough up the dough to buy the fight. Thankfully we didn’t, we would have wasted beer money on watching Manny dismiss the larger Margarito, closing up his right eye and literally breaking his face, fracturing the orbital bone in his cheek.

                The Giants were in a similar position this week only it was their pride that was fractured. The Cowboys in their first game under new head coach Jason Garret came into the new Meadowlands and convincingly beat the Giants, mostly due to the explosive speed of rookie Dez Bryant, who ruined my night in one respect but gave my fantasy team some much needed insurance points and sealed a victory for yours truly. It was a disgusting loss from a Giants fans perspective but after calming down and watching Dexter and Boardwalk Empire I realized we should have seen this coming. The Giants had won 5 in a row and the Cowboys had lost 5 in a row, the law of averages alone favored the Cowboys, combine that with the spark that a new coach provides and we should have seen this disaster on the horizon. Even with that the Giants still had a chance to win this game but they shot themselves in the foot with stupid mental mistakes and penalties. Hakeem Nicks failed to finish a rout in the end zone that lead to a back breaking pick 6. Eli’s fumbling of a terrible low snap and a penalty that negated Eli’s 48 yard TD pass in the 4^th quarter were just a few of the things that lead to the Giants getting thumped by the Cowboys. Despite this, I’m not worried, the Giants are still the most complete and most talented team in the NFC and they’ve proven that they will rally behind the leadership of Tom Coughlin when things get rough.

                Eagles fans will certainly be claiming the Lombardi trophy as theirs after Michael Vick’s unreal performance against the pathetic Redskins who made another brilliant front office move, signing an ageing quarterback who was benched 2 weeks ago to a five year deal worth 78 million. Granted this contact isn’t as expensive or restrictive as it seems on the surface, it’s still pretty questionable considering how this season with McNabb and Shanahan has gone.   

HOT STOVE QUESTIONS FOR YANKS AND PHILS

The Yankees and The Phillies are coming off disappointing playoff losses and naturally the focus is on getting their squads ready for next year. However, both teams have key pieces that are now free agents and could potentially bolt for greener pastures, and green means money. The Phillies have their star right fielder and right handed power hitter Jason Worth on the market and things aren’t looking up for Phillies fans if they were hoping to retain him. He doesn’t want to speak on the subject with two much detail because that would tip his hand, he has indicated though that he doesn’t plan on offering  the Phillies a home town discount, and he intends to be paid handsomely for his services. The Phillies probably aren’t going to re-sign him to the deal he wants and that could cause major problems for the Phils. Worth is obviously a devastating hitter, but more importantly he’s a right handed hitter, which splits up the Phillies corner stone hitters, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, both of whom are lefties. The need for Worth as a righty hitter became very apparent in the NLCS when the eventual World Series champs, the San Francisco Giants and their very deep pitching rotation and bullpen shut down the heavily favored Phillies and their lineup that was declared the best in the N.L.

                The Yankees, who lost to the Rangers in the A.L.C.S. also, have a small problem in terms of bringing an important player back for the 2011 season.  Only this player is a Yankee legend a first ballot hall of famer and their captain: Derek Jeter. This isn’t as simple as it seems though, the knee jerk reaction would be to automatically re-sign Jeter and I’m sure this saga is going to end in Jeter being re-signed, however the terms of the contract could get tricky. Jeter is an aging star, who is coming off the worst season of his career by far. His bat looked much slower at the plate, he struck out 8 times in the A.L.C.S. , very un Jeter like and his range at shortstop which has been questioned for a couple of years now looked even more limited. Despite this the Yankees have to handle this situation carefully, Jeter is beloved by the fans and rightfully so, he brought us 5 championships and the bets shortstop play the Yankees organization has ever seen. He’s done all this with class and dignity, a phrase that has almost become a cliché because it gets throw around a lot but in Jeter’s case it’s true, he’s been in the spot light in New York since 1996 and has never been caught up in controversy. All he’s done is win, he’s my generations Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio. That being said, he’s probably not going to be get back to that legendary status, and the question becomes how do you compensate Jeter for all he’s done and still keep him around with dignity, while lessening his role with the club at the same time. As volatile as this situation could potentially be I don’t see it being a huge problem, I just don’t see Jeter handling this situation any differently then he’s handled things throughout his career, with class and dignity. He will want to be paid handsomely, as he should, but I doubt he’ll cause much of a stir. He will still compete and do everything he can on the field, but like DiMaggio before him, I don’t think Jeter will want to watch himself disintegrate into an inferior player, he will probably play till he gets his three thousandth hit, stick around a little longer then ride of into the sunset as the greatest shortstop in New York Yankee history.

Cream rises to the top in NFC East

 The Giants and Eagles have separated themselves from the bottom teams on the vaunted NFC east.  Year in and year out the NFC east is one of the toughest, deepest divisions in football and this year the predictions envisioned something similar. The Cowboys and their talented roster were picked by many to be the first team to host a Super Bowl in their own stadium, as this year’s Super Bowl will be played in Jerry Jones lavish new facility. However their season has turned out to be one of the most disappointing in team history, Wade Phillips became the first coach Jerry Jones has fired during the season and Mr. Jones favorite prodigal coach Jason Garrett will finally get his shot to be a head coach, even though he’s been getting paid like one for the past 2 seasons, earning $3 million a year, the most for any coordinator in the league. The Cowboys weekly blunders and the injury to Tony Romo have effectively put the nail in Dallas’ coffin. The Redksins too have proved to be disappointing and dysfunctional; the pairing of Donnovan McNabb and Mike Shanahan was supposed to lift the Redskins offense which had struggled the past few seasons. The majority of that blame was put on the shoulders of Jason Cambell whose now playing pretty well for the surprisingly competitive Raiders.  In retrospect that blame appears to be misplaced, things got worse last week for the skins when Shanahan took McNabb out of the game for the last two minutes, claiming Rex Grossman gave them the best chance to win in the 2 minute drill. Shanahan made the mistake of trying to make up various excuses that don’t sound offensive while trying to explain his decision; the truth is that people who have watched McNabb frequently throughout his career know that he’s simply not a very good quarterback in the 2 minute drill. Eagle’s fans have been railing against McNabb’s ability in late game, clutch moments for years now, but their claims were dismissed, that must have just been the crazed Eagles fan base looking to knock down a great QB because they can’t be satisfied right? Wrong, the Philly fans were correct in their assessment that McNabb tends to fall short in clutch situations, most notably the incident where he puked while trying to lead the Eagles downfield against the Patriots in the Super Bowl, and his questionable decision making against the Cardinals in the 20009 NFC championship game.

                Anyway, enough about the riff raff of the division, the Eagles with Michael Vick returning at QB looked impressive in a win over the Colts and the incomparable Peyton Manning. As a former owner of a Pit Bull I don’t like Vick, and would like to see him fail, however it can’t be denied that he is playing excellent football this season, he still has his explosiveness and is a better passer then he ever was earlier in his career.

                Finally, I’ll do what ESPN completely failed to do this weekend, give credit to the best team in the NFC, the New York Football Giants. At the risk of sounding like an over optimistic fan, 2010 is starting to feel a lot like 2007, only this time our offense is much better than it was in 2007 and our defense is looking just as stout, giving opposing quarterbacks nightmares. Granted the Seahawks aren’t the mid nineties Cowboys, but the thoroughly dominant performance the Giants displayed has to have fans of Big Blue excited. In a closing note, Hakeem Nicks and Eli Manning have become one of the most dangerous passing combinations in the league; the Giants have finally found a deep threat to replace Plaxico Buress.

Sixers try another re-building season

The 76ers have been trying to shake the feel of the Allen Iverson era, the last time they were a relevant team in the NBA. They’ve changed the uniforms from the ugly black, red and gold back to their traditional red, white and blue and brought in former Sixer and well respected coach Doug Collins. They are also watching number 2 draft pick Even Turner and his development closely, hoping the versatile Naismith award winner can become a do it all 2 guard, the position that new coach Doug Collins feels is lacking the most. I saw Even Turner at the Brew Pub in Manayunk and couldn’t help but text my friends who are Sixers fans, at the time I was telling them he was only about 6’5 and they should be worried, but I was drunk and spiteful. This is actually rare when speaking about the Sixers to my friends who are Philadelphia sports fans. Whenever I talk to them about their teams there’s usually a degree of hatred involved, I will openly admit that I hate the Eagles and The Phillies and derive pleasure from watching them lose, but this isn’t the case with the 76ers for some reason.  I’ve never really had that kind of animosity for the Sixers, in fact I almost kind of root for them sometimes.  I like that they represent the old school northeast basketball culture, they’re an original and classic NBA franchise and the city of Philly does have a good basketball culture. I also worked as a stats intern for the Sixers legendary stat man Harvey Pollack.

                The fact that they haven’t been very good in recent memory and I haven’t had to hear Philly fans rant and rave about how great they are and how they’re going to beat the Knicks, because neither team has been very good for a while now. Things might change if these 2 teams can reverse their fortunes.  I think that would be a very good thing for basketball, I think the teams like New York, Philly, Boston, Washington, Chicago and L.A. should have good teams, because they reside in great basketball cities. Obviously there all now going to be good all the time as we’ve witnessed, but things would definitely heat up in the NBA (no pun intended) if the traditional basketball powers like the Knicks and the Sixers climbed back into serious contention, especially now that Lebron, D-Wade and Bosh have created a team that’s very good, very easy to hate and begging for a rival.

                This is obviously what the media would call an east coast bias, but whatever, basketball has historically been an east coast dominated sport and many of the years glory years was spent being celebrated by east coast teams, with the notable exception of the UCLA dynasty and the Lakers. I’m getting pretty picky with the NBA this year, all I really want is for the Knicks to be good again.