You can root for the Mets without being convinced of their doom
@sixpoint Brewery tweeted this on Sunday.
Nanokegs are between section 126 & 124 concourse at MetLife
This is awesome. Sixpoint nanokegs are the perfect complement to sporting events. To have a wide selection of them AND a dedicated stand is terrific for beer-loving sports fans. It was great to see Sweet Action available to everyone at Citi Field this year, but that’s just a tease compared to this.
I sincerely hope we get something like this at Citi Field next year. Especially if it has Diesel.
This weekend is about the New York Giants. It’s about the Super Bowl, and a championship. It’s about perhaps a parade on Tuesday and random rankings of Eli Manning among the greatest QBs in the game today.
So good luck to the Giants. I’m looking forward to this game, and like so many so-called experts on Twitter, blogs, radio and tv, I’m going to give you my meaningless prediction. 30-16 Giants. It’ll seem closer than that though. The Giants will score early in the second half to go up 23-13, and the Patriots will answer with a field goal. The next score will be halfway through the fourth quarter when Tom Brady is picked off deep in his own zone. He’ll then turn the ball over on downs on the Giants 44 yard line, and Eli will run out the clock slowly driving down the field and taking a knee.
The Giants, and NY and NJ, will celebrate. The Senate will drink NY beers bought by New England politicians. There will be a parade. Then, despite five other local sports teams playing professional sports, all eyes will turn to baseball. We’ll tick into single digits of days remaining until pitchers and catchers report.
And it can’t come soon enough. Let’s Go Mets!
Every year there are tons of examples of teams that were deemed to have no chance to be competitive that make surprising runs deep into the playoff rounds and sometimes win it all. The New York Football Giants were given very little chance to make the playoffs, and even less once they started piling up injuries in the preseason. Tom Coughlin’s job was in jeopardy nearly every week, and Eli Manning was laughed at for calling himself elite. The Giants were soundly criticized for mismanaging the cap and for doing nothing in the offseason.
Now there are only four teams left. One of them is the Giants, and no one’s doubting they have a serious shot at winning their game in San Francisco and going to, and perhaps winning, the Super Bowl.
Eli Manning won Super Bowl MVP in 2008 in Super Bowl XLII. That vindicated him some from the critics early in his career, but his failure to win a playoff since had brought back the doubts about his talent. Last year he had a lot of interceptions, and it really downgraded his status with a lot of people. In a way, it reminds me of David Wright.
I have hope that the 2012 David Wright will be a similar story to 2011’s Eli Manning. David’s strikeouts nicely represent Eli’s interceptions. Although he doesn’t have a title, Wright was a legitimate MVP candidate in 2007. In 2012 I expect to see Wright return to that form. After Eli outplayed Aaron Rodgers on Sunday there were people that were even comparing him to his brother Peyton, who may be the best ever. When the 2012 MLB season ends, no longer will we have to debate if he’s the best third baseman in the NL East. Instead critics will struggle to find a third baseman in all of baseball as good as he is.
I haven’t been a Giants fan long, but it’s nice to see a team I root for show some modicum of success. Watching Eli Manning play this year has been a joy.
I’m not going to attempt to break down football strategy here. I’m not qualified for that. I do think the Giants will win this game though. Eli Manning is awesome, and he’s got the receivers he needs to score on any defense as well as the talent to still make plays when the offensive line is failing in front of him. That’s without even mentioning his Carlos Beltranesque clutchiness.
On the defensive side it seems like the Giants have finally managed to stay healthy long enough that their very talented players have gotten in the practice time to be good again. I think getting two strong games under their belt did wonders for their confidence too.
Either way I’m glad the Giants avoided the “Should we fire Tom Coughlin?” and other associated offseason drama that happens with teams that fail. (See A. Mets, B. Jets)
The media, and some fans, will get on Rex Ryan for talking too much and claim they cannot believe a word he says anymore. Rex Ryan will continue to say crazy things. The media, and some fans, will take what he says as big news worth talking about while un-sarcastically talking about whether or not they should be talking what Rex says. (ESPN Radio’s Ryan Ruocco and Robin Lundberg are pros at this sort of double talk)
A scapegoat will be picked. Santonio Holmes and Mark Sanchez appear to be the popular picks right now. Every possible free agent at either of those positions will spark posts about how they can’t win with the player they have now, and need to make a push for this new guy.
A strategy will be touted as what the Jets need to do more, or less, of and favorite players and coaches that eschew the 2011 Jets perceived bad habits will be trumpeted around as guys the Jets have to sign.
We’ve seen it all before with the way the Mets are treated lately. The Jets will try to fan the flames some, but at the end of the day they’ll do what they feel they need to do to get better, regardless of what the fans or media think they desperately need.
One crazy trade that intrigues me as a Giants fan is Peyton Manning to the Jets. I think the two brothers playing in the same city and the same stadium would be an interesting sidebar to next season.
When’d that happen?
With all the injuries (gee, that sounds familiar) the Giants aren’t being picked to win much of anything, but if there is one thing that holds true across all sports, its’ that the experts are just guessing. Maybe the unknown players will turn out to be better than expected. Eli Manning has been getting downgraded by many off a sub-par season, so chances are he’ll out-perform what’s expected.
The Jets are ‘world beaters, who the Giants again’ story line seems to be the popular narrative this season, but the actual games rarely adhere to the stories reporters want them to. The Giants seem to have an easy first half scheduleso perhaps they take advantage of that, reassess who’s healthy and who’s contributing, and play good football in the second half and make the playoffs.
My posts have been lacking lately. Part of that is certainly that the Mets don’t produce much to be optimistic about right now, but I am also having a lot of computer issues involving memory and hard drives and multiple reformats of my laptop. I spend most of my time at the computer cursing at it and telling it get going; which is much like how I feel watching the Mets. I was holding out hope as things spiraled out of control with the Mets as is befitting the title of this blog, but my hope is dwindling as the math suggesting the Mets will make the playoffs, even if they were to morph into a powerhouse overnight, grows bleeker and bleeker.
They can still make the playoffs. They won’t, but the possibility does still exist. A strange confluence of events including David Wright not having another slump, Jason Bay coming back and accumulating all the stats that he would need to reach his career averages for the year in the final month, Carlos Beltran shaking off the rust/age/injury and playing well, Castillo putting up career norms for OBP and getting driven in regularly, would have to happen first. Some of these will happen, but it does not seem like it will be enough to matter.
My personal opinion is that the Mets have subtly given up on the season, but they do have a long term plan in place. Promoting the unready Tejada and the possibly unready Fernando Martinez suggests as much. I think the Mets should probably take the next step and start interviewing managers, if not GMs. Take the two weeks to figure out who should manage this team next year, and give them a month to get acclimated with Wright, Reyes, and the rest of the 2011 incumbants so they don’t have to do so in Spring Training. I think it would help the long term goals. One reason not to do this immediately is if the Mets plan on dumping Omar Minaya, in which case you’d want to take care of that before the manager situation, and you may just run out of time to do this all sequentially. Tonight is the night the draft picks have to sign by, so it’d be a perfectly opportunity to make a move forward after that. Give a new GM time to analayze the team and it’s holes and create a offseason strategy. Start the ball rolling, hint at the long term plan, and bring some more of the kids of up in September and I bet Citi Field won’t be quite as empty as some are predicting.
It’s sad that I’m aware that the Giants are playing a preseason game tonight. (Against the Jets too) I prefer years where I don’t even know the Giants record until late October. Or at least late September. I prefer football games as an appetizer to a big Sunday Night Baseball game featuring the Mets and a pressure filled push towards a playoff berth. (results aside)
One of the oft-repeated stories of this week is people’s reactions to Bret Favre and his scoring the extra touchdown at the end of the game against the Cowboys. This is one of the reasons I like baseball, there is never a point before the game is over that the game is over. In football you get situations like the Vikings game the other day where they are up by so much with so little that it’s impossible, barring something completely stupid on the Vikings part, for the game to be decided any other way.
Favre ran up the score, but I say, “So what?” It’s a football game, and that’s what you do when you’re a Quarterback on offense; you try to score. If the clock is still ticking, then the game is still live and I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t play with the same goal as the rest of the game. Why should teams turn it off just because the other team is playing badly? By standing on the field you are saying you are going to play football. As they say, “If you don’t like it, stop them.” Maybe they should just call the game when it gets obvious that it’s over. Why go through the motions if it’s a done deal? Maybe the defense shouldn’t take the field. Just declare it over and go into the clubhouse. These are all absurd options, which is exactly what being upset that the opposing team played football against you is.
This is similar to the debate in Baseball about styling after hitting a home run. If you’ve got a problem with how someone behaves after hitting a home run, don’t give one up! If you’re upset Joba Chamberlain is pumping his fist after he strikes you out, make contact next time! If you don’t want Brett Favre throwing a touchdown pass, block it! Complaining about the other team is just one way of complaining about losing.
In competitive sports, there is never a reason to get upset when your opponent is behaving competitively. Everyone goes into each game as equals, and if you have a problem with how the other team is behaving, you have every opportunity to shut them up and win the game yourself. As I see it a team can behave however they want, and score as much as they want. If it’s legal within the rules of the game, then it’s fine by me. Don’t worry about how the other team plays or acts, that should be reserved for yourself, or your own team.