Buenos Noches, Furyfans.
I was so moved by the events on that sloping, bright, heatswamp of a football field in Irving, TX that I broke out the old Blog for another go round. I'ma get right to the point.
Today's Giants v. Cowboys game was horrendous. Not just for the Giants and their fans because they lost, but for football, and the NFC East more specifically. All week the analysts called the NFC East the best division in football since they all had winning records and each team has beaten quality football teams to get to this point. The Giants/Cowboys game was looked at as 'The Game of the Week' by Fox, and it garnered the majority of the sports talk attention leading into Sunday. As a Giant fan, I love seeing the G-Men get the press, especially with Eli playing as well as he has this season(Eli haters take note, playing him last year hasn't hurt his development. A brilliant prediction by yours truly right here in The Fury) All the 'experts' predicted a shootout affair, or a defensive battle for the ages. We got neither. Yes, both defences played well(with the Cowboys playing relatively speaking, much better), and each team forced 4 turnovers which can seem impressive. But each team had 4 turnovers...good defense? Or sloptastic football? Vote for slopo.
Don't get me wrong, I lived and died with each snap, each stuffed run, each wobbly, errant pass, each wide open Cowboy receiver, each ball thrown at the feet of Shockey, each Bledsoe panic, each Coughlin anger explosion and each wry smile by The Big Gay Tuna. I was into the game, and it was fun to watch but it was a grade-A stinker. Awesome finish saw the Giants offense come alive for a total of 1:40 seconds. That's a deliberatly low estimate of the Giants final two drives of the game. The point is the Giants offense only played well in the last 4 minutes of the game. That's not the sign of a good football team or game. The Cowboys defense blew a 4th quater lead
again, and if Tiki didn't flub the golden rule of 'always pick tails', they probably would've lost the game. Also not the sign of a good football team or game. This was a supposed 'Clash of the Titans' in the NFC East, but in my eyes it was a game that exposed the weakness of each team: Inconsistency. You throw either of these teams into the playoffs against the Eagles in Philly, or God forbid a Superbowl against the Colts, Patriots or Steelers and it's Good Night, Irene. I guess the critics were wrong and they will all say on Monday 'Well, looks like we jumped the gun on the NFC East being the dominant force in the NFL this year.' But they won't, just take a look at the front page story headline on ESPN.com which posted just hours after today's game. It's an article about how the Cowboys defense is sooooooo f'n cock suckin' good that they will win the division. I think Donovan, TO and Michael Westbrook will have something to say about that. And the Redskins will laugh too, thinking back to a few Monday Night Miracles ago. That's the nature of the beast though, when you look at the schedule of games from today, the NFL had no other game to heavily promote, so it makes sense that they would jump on the NFC East bandwagon. I will revisit this issue in the coming weeks after the Giants lose their next 3 games and visions of Ray Handley dance in our minds.
On the whole, the season has been great so far for The Giants. When Eli, Shockey, Tiki and Plaxico are groovin' on a Sunday afternoon, the world is a wonderful place. When they play like they did today, I'd rather have a dart thrown into my hand at a bar by some shmuck. Not really, but you catch my drift. It hurts to see a team that can play so well come up empty in a big game. This game was an example of how as Giants fan, I need to keep a level head. They are not a contender, yet. But they are damn close.
