DWinzit
December-11th-2006, 05:50 AM
Giants win but are much more fun when they don't
full article http://www.sportsline.com/print/nfl/story/9863368
By Gregg Doyal
CBS SportsLine.com National Columnist
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The New York Giants won on Sunday. Good for the Giants, but bad for Carolina -- and more importantly, bad for us.
A losing Giants team is a fun Giants team, assuming you're the type who thinks it's fun to grab a bug with a pair of tweezers and pull off its legs and thorax and then stare at its stunned head. When the Giants lose it's like an earthquake has opened on their sideline or inside their locker room, and good sense disappears into the fiery crevice.
When the Giants lose, receiver Plaxico Burress has probably done something dumbly diva-like. And if it's not Burress abusing his Hall of Fame skills by displaying his semipro heart, it's Tiki Barber saying the team has been outcoached or Michael Strahan bullying a reporter or Jeremy Shockey doing what Jeremy Shockey always seems to do, which is embarrass himself and his organization and every member of his family tree, dating to the first Shockey who emerged from the primordial ooze about 125 years ago.
Alas, after a four-game losing streak that had coach Tom Coughlin one arm into his straitjacket, the New York media one mental lobe into hysteria and the Giants' playoff hopes one step closer to oblivion, New York beat the Panthers 27-13.
The game started with such potential, too. New York's Eli Manning was making like Chuck Knoblauch, badly missing open receivers on short passes that your average high school quarterback completes.
And Coughlin was doing his best to keep it close. Even with Barber on pace to run for nearly 200 yards -- he had 102 early in the third quarter -- Coughlin replaced him (and Burress) with Brandon Jacobs and designated fullback Rich Seubert on short-yardage plays. No Barber, no Burress, no mystery. Jacobs' first five carries in those situations yielded minus-1 yard and a goal-line fumble. If New York could have found a way to cough up this game, someone in that locker room would have raised the issue of Coughlin's competence.
Shockey was blaming the media for making the Giants look like a bunch of morons. OK, Shockey didn't use the term "bunch of complete morons." That was me.
full article http://www.sportsline.com/print/nfl/story/9863368
By Gregg Doyal
CBS SportsLine.com National Columnist
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The New York Giants won on Sunday. Good for the Giants, but bad for Carolina -- and more importantly, bad for us.
A losing Giants team is a fun Giants team, assuming you're the type who thinks it's fun to grab a bug with a pair of tweezers and pull off its legs and thorax and then stare at its stunned head. When the Giants lose it's like an earthquake has opened on their sideline or inside their locker room, and good sense disappears into the fiery crevice.
When the Giants lose, receiver Plaxico Burress has probably done something dumbly diva-like. And if it's not Burress abusing his Hall of Fame skills by displaying his semipro heart, it's Tiki Barber saying the team has been outcoached or Michael Strahan bullying a reporter or Jeremy Shockey doing what Jeremy Shockey always seems to do, which is embarrass himself and his organization and every member of his family tree, dating to the first Shockey who emerged from the primordial ooze about 125 years ago.
Alas, after a four-game losing streak that had coach Tom Coughlin one arm into his straitjacket, the New York media one mental lobe into hysteria and the Giants' playoff hopes one step closer to oblivion, New York beat the Panthers 27-13.
The game started with such potential, too. New York's Eli Manning was making like Chuck Knoblauch, badly missing open receivers on short passes that your average high school quarterback completes.
And Coughlin was doing his best to keep it close. Even with Barber on pace to run for nearly 200 yards -- he had 102 early in the third quarter -- Coughlin replaced him (and Burress) with Brandon Jacobs and designated fullback Rich Seubert on short-yardage plays. No Barber, no Burress, no mystery. Jacobs' first five carries in those situations yielded minus-1 yard and a goal-line fumble. If New York could have found a way to cough up this game, someone in that locker room would have raised the issue of Coughlin's competence.
Shockey was blaming the media for making the Giants look like a bunch of morons. OK, Shockey didn't use the term "bunch of complete morons." That was me.