![]() I love the idea that baseball is the sport that’s on the eve of destruction with everything that’s been happening in the National Football League this season.Īre we going to need a beat reporter just for Phil Jackson this season?Īfter just one episode of “Madam Secretary,” I think Tea Leoni might already be a better Secretary of State than Hillary was. Sometimes you get the idea that the Jets’ head offensive coach and the team’s head coach don’t share an equal love for ground and pound. Jets running on empty, Where’s Hal? & Wait for the report … Jeter isn’t close to being the player he used to be. The bigger night, going forward, might have been Eli’s, if the Giants really are for real. Thursday was Jeter’s night, without question. But he has won two big games as big as New York has ever had in anything. We still know what it reads like and sounds like when he doesn’t do the job.īut he is the face of the Giants the way Jeter has been the face of the Yankees. We know about all the interceptions Eli threw last season, and the bad one he threw down the field in Week 1 against the Lions on the road. We know the Giants have now missed the playoffs four of the last five years, at this same time the Yankees have missed the playoffs two years running. ![]() We know about Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the leg and ruining the team’s chance to make it two Super Bowls in a row. We know what has happened since Eli’s first Super Bowl. “I have never seen you so in charge of the offense.” But here is what he told Eli after the way his son played against Washington and the way the team looked: And the quarterback, with some protection, a brand-new weapon in Larry Donnell, played like a star.Īrchie Manning doesn’t like to talk X’s and O’s with his sons, especially not during the season, and isn’t about to start doing that now. hadn’t returned that punt for a touchdown in the Cardinals game in Week 2 - aren’t in the clear, didn’t become a powerhouse, haven’t mastered the new West Coast offense because of what they did to Washington. Understand: The Giants, who looked so bad in their first two games - even though you now wonder what we’d be saying if Ted Ginn, Jr. The final chapter on Derek Jeter closes on Sunday, making this Eli Manning’s city. Then the Giants were playing the unbeaten Patriots a hard game during the regular season, then they were beating the Cowboys on the road and the Packers when it was 20 degrees below and beating the 18-0 Patriots at University of Phoenix Stadium because Eli took them down the field when he had to. But that game against the Bears, on the road, after what had happened the week before, started to show everybody. And Tom Moore said to Peyton Manning, “Your brother has b-s.” Peyton already knew that. Then the Giants went into Chicago and won 21-16 the next week. If you are a Giants fan, you remember the Vikings game, remember what it was like around here, what the papers were like and what talk radio sounded like, in the days and nights after that. It was in Chicago and the week before, Eli had looked as bad as he could look against the Minnesota Vikings at home, throwing four interceptions, the Giants’ record falling to 7-4. In the Manning family, they tell a story about Tom Moore, Peyton Manning’s offensive coordinator, watching a game Eli was playing during Eli’s first Super Bowl season, in 2007. “Eli is strong,” his father, Archie Manning, was saying on Saturday morning. We are not talking about Derek Jeter here, even in Jeter’s extraordinary week in New York. But he has done that while honoring his status, his position on his team, and his place in that team’s history.Īnd, oh by the way, he had a big night on Thursday when his team won a very big game. He has benefitted financially, and tremendously, from that, of course. In this time of well-publicized bad behavior in sports, all over the map, he has been a gentleman, taken on all the responsibilities of being a star for a New York team. We talk all the time on how he was raised right by his parents, how he benefitted from their example and still does. He has been famous here for a long time, and has conducted himself with grace and class and professionalism, whether winning or losing. In the most important moments of his career, when he has found his way to those moments, he has been as much of a money player as any New York team has ever had in any sport. No matter what he does the rest of the way, he will go in with the great winners in the history of his franchise.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |