Hero of a Thousand Dance Moves

How Belichick's Arch-Nemesis, Again, Beat the New England Patriots

By now, my vast legions of readers (both of you) are familiar with my theory that Bill Belichick is not a mere mortal, but rather a powerful sorcerer – possibly a Sith Lord – who has decided to use his powers to be the greatest coach in any sport the world has ever seen.  And to make it more interesting for himself, and throw off the suspicions of anyone who might figure out what he really is, puts obstacles in front of himself.  Like, for example, starting college lacrosse players at wide receiver.

The AFC Championship game offered further proof of my theory.  Confronted with a ridiculously easy path to the Super Bowl (does anybody even remember who the other AFC playoff teams were?), The Mighty Belichick did the following:  had one of his minions slice Tom Brady’s hand in practice, got Gronk bonked on the head mid-game, spotted the Jaguars a big lead, and most amazingly – he really is something else – turned Blake Bortles into an actual NFL quarterback.  Despite these self-imposed obstacles, the Patriots once again cruised into the Super Bowl.

How then, to explain the loss to Eagles on Sunday?  If Bill Belichick’s powers are so otherworldly, how could the Patriots possibly lose to a backup quarterback on a team from a city whose most famous title is fictional?

Well, my theory is still spot-on accurate, obviously.  But I made a shocking omission.  If Bill Belichick is Sauron, Emperor Palpatine, and Voldemort all rolled into one ridiculous hoodie – who is the hero that vanquishes him?  Who is Frodo, who is Harry Potter, who is Luke Friggin’ Skywalker?

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the Heroic Journey, but in case you’re not, a quick primer.  In 1949, Joseph Campbell published The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in which he showed that many different cultures across many years have told hero stories with very similar, even identical elements.

This archetype has been followed closely by the creators of some of the most popular stories of our time. That is why the following description matches Frodo Baggins, Harry Potter, and Luke Skywalker – and parts of the description fit everyone from Batman to Jesus:

- A young person (usually male), is being raised in a fairly boring place by people who aren’t his natural parents (Tatooine, 11 Privet Drive, the Shire; assorted uncles and aunts)

- The parent(s) have a relevant backstory

- He learns there is a vastly more interesting world out there; Campbell calls this ‘crossing the threshold” (Princess Leia’s hologram, letter from Hogwarts, putting on the ring)

- And, that he himself is possessed of great powers, though he needs instruction to master them

- But, a great evil is in the land, and it is his destiny to vanquish it (Sauron, Voldemort, Darth Vader/Palpatine)

- Luckily, he doesn’t have to do this alone – he has friends who are brave, loyal, and often provide some comic relief (Han & Leia, Hermione & Ron, Sam & Merry & Pippin)

- Also, he’ll have a mentor – a gray-bearded wizard who instructs our young hero, and always seem to know more than he lets on (Obi-Wan, Dumbledore, Gandalf)

- The graybeard “dies” (Obi-Wan struck down by Vader; Dumbledore killed by Snape; Gandalf’s fall with the Balrog)

- But he’s not dead!  He returns, sort of, at the climactic moment!

- And of course, our hero defeats the villain, ushering in a new age

For us English majors, nursed on the mother’s milk of English literature, the archetype for all these stories is King Arthur and the original gray-bearded Wizard, Merlin.

Where was I?  Right, Bill Belichick is an evil sorcerer etc. etc.

Anyway, until this year it wasn’t quite clear who the hero was.  Peyton Manning seemed the obvious choice, since he went 3-2 against the New England Necromancer in the playoffs.  But he’s now making commercials and Bill rolls on.  Rex Ryan has had some success against the great sorcerer*, but he too has been relegated to the television dimension far from the gridiron and his successes were mere speed bumps on the Belichick Highway.

* by the way, if I was an AFC GM/Owner I’d give Rex Ryan a blank check to coach my defense.  In 17 years he’s the only coach who’s really given Belichick trouble, despite never having a good starting quarterback

But now it’s obvious:  our hero is Elisha Nelson Manning.

We should have known all along of course.  The two great Super Bowl wins.  His kinship with Peyton.  The fact that all disciples of Belichick and his apprentice Brady go crazy at the mere mention of his name – to all of New England, the words "Eli Manning" is an incantation with great power.

But his fade to playoff obscurity since the last Super Bowl had me discounting his destiny.  Then, this happened:

Yes, just as it seemed a certainty that the Patriots would take the hopes and dreams of all Eagles fans, and stomp on them like Godzilla on Tokyo, Eli appeared.  He performed a highly ritualized dance sequence…and everything turned to shit for the great sorcerer.

And thus I realized, Eli Manning is the NFL incarnation of the Heroic Journey:

- He was raised by his natural parents, but he was famously a Momma’s Boy, spending time with her while his quarterback Dad roamed the mythical land he would one day roam, fighting foes

- He crosses the threshold to New York City in the NFL, a far more interesting land than Ole Miss

- He is possessed of great powers, but he faces trial and tribulation before he can master them, ridiculed by social media and even his own fans

- But he has friends to help – Tyree and Manningham and Plaxico.

- And an elderly wizard – Coughlin the Redface

- The elderly wizard “dies” (or at least, is fired)

- But he’s not dead!  He goes to Foxboro with his Jaguars and softens them up a bit

- And finally – Eli does his Magic Dance, and the Patriots are dead!


Hopefully there won’t be any Ewok Party now to ruin things.


NB: for Campbell fans out there, yes I am aware that I somewhat simplified the hero's journey.  This was already a goofy, ridiculous post that would be read by only 7 people and appreciated by 2 - tops.  So I figured including "Refusing the Call" and "Application of the Boon" would just make things worse...

Thumb's Up

Possible Outcomes in Today's Patriots - Jaguars Game

Tom Brady's injury - or non-injury, or whatever - is the biggest development in Thumb History since the invention of hitchhiking.  Since nobody outside the Patriots' camp has any idea if TB12 is severely injured, moderately injured, or uninjured, I thought I'd take a few moments to explore the possible scenarios:

Patriots are Lying/Brady Plays/Patriots Win
Bill Belichick has always considered the NFL rulebook a quaint set of guidelines designed for other teams.  Here is the policy:

Clubs are responsible for reporting the information accurately to the public, to the opposing team, local and national media, broadcast partners and others.

The Patriots have ignored, abused, and leveraged the policy for years, using the injury report as just another tool to spread disinformation, confusion, and propaganda.  "In wartime, the truth is so precious she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies", said Winston Churchill, and while there may occasionally be a scrap of truth in the Patriots' injury report, it is usually attended by a bodyguard of lies.

But, while I put nothing past the great Sith Lord Belichick, I doubt he would sit Brady at practice on Thursday just to confuse the inexperienced Jaguars' coaching staff.

Patriots are Lying/Brady Plays/Patriots Lose
Then again...

I am quite serious when I say, that if Bill Belichick had been in charge of the CIA in the 50s and 60s, the Soviet Union would have fallen 20 years earlier.  The man is a born spymaster, a master of deception, a prober and exploiter of weakness.

Would he take a minor Brady thumb jam, see it as an opportunity to sow confusion, find some other way for TB12 to get his reps, and...nah.  I don't think so.  The Patriots might know damn well that the Precious Thumb will be healed by Sunday, but there must have been some kind of legitimate injury for him to miss Thursday's practice.

Well, if nothing else, if a healthy Brady plays and the Patriots lose, they have a built-in excuse.

Brady Not 100%/Brady Plays/Patriots Win
If we've learned one thing in Patriots history, it's that if the Patriots win, Tom is the only player who gets any credit.  Lost in last year's Super Bowl comeback was the fact that the Patriots' defense held the historically great Falcon offense scoreless in the 2nd half.  It was one of the great championship performances ever - but nobody talks about it, because Tom doesn't play defense.  In the Pat's championship seasons, Malcolm Butler's interception, Adam Vintatieri's kicks, or just that the fact that the first 3 Super Bowl wins were powered by defense - these are all footnotes in the bible of the Church of Brady.

So if Brady plays, and they win, I feel pretty confident saying that no matter what role coaching, special teams, defense, Jaguar mistakes, the weather, the stock market, Trump's tweets or any other thing play in the outcome of the game - we will hear an awful lot about Tom's Courage.

Brady Not 100%/Brady Plays/Patriots Lose
Given recent reports out of New England that Kraft essentially forced the Garoppolo* trade on Belichick to protect his BFF Tom,  this would be the most fascinating outcome.  Garappolo has yet to lose a game as a starting quarterback, and the Patriots have a short history of shrugging off Brady injuries to win anyway...so if this outcome happens, we're going to be hearing an awful lot about how the Patriots might have blown a chance at another title by trading Jimmy G.

*  If Jimmy Garoppolo is as good as Pro Football Focus says he is, we're going to have to learn to spell his name.  It's a tricky one, but remember;  2 P's and a lot of O's.


Brady Injured/Doesn't Play/Patriots Lose
Same as above - lots of Jimmy Garoppolo talk if this happens.


Brady Injured/Doesn't Play/Patriots Win
As I've written before, the Brady vs. Manning Debate is the greatest "Who is Better?" sports argument of all time.

Brady has taken the lead from Manning in most people's eyes, as he has added awesome offensive production to a full handful of rings.  Manning will still likely have better passing statistics (unless TB really does play until he's 62), but Brady's stats are close enough and, combined with the rings, will likely claim the title.

Except for one little chink in the armor:

- When Brady doesn't play, the Patriots are fine.  Brady is out for the entire 2008 season?  Hmm, here's a guy on his roster who hasn't played since high school, let's make him quarterback!  Pats go 11-5 with Matt Cassel under center.  Brady is suspended for 4 games (remember that little rulebook thing above) of the 2016 season?  Pats go 3-1 under their 2nd and 3rd string quarterbacks.

- When Manning doesn't play, everything goes to hell.  In 2010, the Colts went 10-6 and went to the AFC Championship game.  They were coming off 9 straight double-digit win seasons, and had won 12 or more in 7 of them.  But Manning missed the 2011 season and the Colts went 2-14.  And their backup quarterback, Curtis Painter, was a much more accomplished quarterback than Matt Cassell - he had broken many of Drew Brees' records at Purdue.

Even Bad Peyton can't be replaced.  Manning wins the Super Bowl in 2015, playing poorly.  He retires, and Broncos win only 14 games the next two seasons, after having won 12 in Manning's last.

If Brian Hoyer leads the Patriots to a win today, it makes you wonder whether or not Bill Belichick even needs professional players to win NFL games.

+++++

There is a final scenario of course.  Tom Brady's thumb was actually ripped completely off his hand last week, but under the care of his Guru Alex Guerrero and the TB12 system - and perhaps an assist from Kramer driving the bus - the thumb was reattached, automatically regenerated, and is more powerful and accurate than ever.  He plays at his Bradyesque best, Blake Bortles' breaks down in tears after throwing his 6th interception, and the world has to, once again, watch the goddamned Patriots in the Super Bowl.

Too bad Eli isn't there to stop them.

A Gate Worthy of Its Name

Shady Brady Sacrifices the GOAT

For 40 years, lazy journalists have tacked the suffix -gate onto every scandal imaginable.

Travelgate.  Irangate.  Spygate.  The ever popular Nipplegate (or if you prefer, Wardrobe Malfunctiongate).  Gate scandals have gone global, in Argentina, Korea, and Germany.

My personal favorite is Gategate, a mini-contretemps in England involving an actual gate.

But very few of these Scandalgates resemble the original Watergate scandal in any meaningful way. Until now.  Deflategate is a delicious scandal*, not just because it rhymes but because in significant ways it follows the story line of the original Watergate scandal.

* full disclosure: it's also delicious because I enjoy watching Tom Brady and the Patriots suffer.  I'm a Giants fan, and the two Giants-Pats Super Bowls, well, I don't want to say those days were happier than my Wedding Day and the birth of my kids, but well...and also, in the great Manning vs. Brady debate, I'm a Manning partisan.  When the cameras showed a shades-inside Brady sauntering into the Mayweather-Pacquiao flight, fresh from his private jet from Kentucky Derby, I muttered at the TV, "Take off the sunglasses inside, you insufferable douc-"...Okay, it's possible I'm not totally objective on this story.

Here's how Deflategate is like Watergate:

The Cheating was Unnecessary
When the scandal first broke in January, Patriots fans rushed to Facebook and Twitter to say, "It's irrelevant - the Patriots beat the Colts 45-7!"  Wrong answer.  What's irrelevant is the score.  Cheating is cheating, and whether or not you needed to is irrelevant.

Take, for example, oh I don't know, the original Watergate scandal.  A group of low-level guys loosely affiliated with the Nixon campaign broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office complex in June 1972.  5 months later, Nixon won in a massive landslide reelection - 49 states to 1!  He put a bigger whooping on George McGovern than the Pats put on the Colts.

I don't recall any of the Nixon Administration figures, grilled before the Senate, saying "Hey, it doesn't matter what happened - we won 49 states to 1, baby!"


The Cover-up was Worse - and Clumsier - than the Crime
Richard Nixon may not have invented 'the cover-up was worse than the crime', but he elevated it to an art form.

Tom Brady is no Richard Nixon.  And unlike Tricky Dick, Shady Brady seems to have been in on this plan from the beginning.

But still, there are intriguing  Watergate parallels.  The missing texts are the missing tapes.  The cover up included easily proven falsehoods like Brady claiming not to even know the equipment guy's name.  And of course, there were the constant protestations of innocence even as investigators were finding more and more evidence.


It's All About the Legacy

Richard Nixon's reputation was pretty darn good before it all unraveled.  His trip to China earlier in 1972 was a huge foreign policy achievement. He was on the verge of ending the Vietnam war.   And was popular enough to win reelection on a scale no Bush, Clinton, or Obama could even imagine.

Then came Watergate, resignation, disgrace.  

Tom Brady won't - and shouldn't - be forced to end his career like Richard Nixon.  But in the end, what matters most about this scandal is that it tarnishes his legacy.

Tom Brady is in the GOAT* conversation.  GOAT conversations aren't decided by blue-ribbon panels or by the leagues .  They're not decided by sportswriters or broadcasters - though they play a role.  They are not decided by stats geeks or league historians.  There's no vote.

*  Greatest of All Time

They are decided, if at all, by consensus.  We, the Collective Sports Fan, talk.  And we argue and we compare stats and titles.  And we call sports radio.  And sometimes, sometimes, we reach a consensus.

Wayne Gretzky.  Michael Jordan.  Jack Nicklaus.  John Wooden.  There is consensus that these are the GOATS in their field (though Bird and Magic and Tiger have their supporters.  The Great One and The Wizard of Westwood stand alone).

When Tom Brady won his 4th Super Bowl, he took a long stride towards winning the NFL GOAT award.  No player in history had combined Rings and Stats like Brady.  It was going to be difficult for Peyton Manning fans to argue the guy with one ring (and all the passing records) was the GOAT. It was going to be hard for Joe Montana fans to argue the guy with 15,000 fewer yards and 150 fewer TDs (and the same amount of rings) was the GOAT.

Tom Brady had laid claim to arguably the greatest sports laurel available to the American athlete - the greatest football player ever.

And now?  Well, everybody from New England will still vote for him.  And there will be pockets of Brady supporters everywhere.

But the consensus is lost.  With every pound per square inch the Patriots' equipment managers released from those balls, they released a bit of Tom Brady's claim to be the Greatest of All Time.


Bonus Material

The break-in guys in Watergate were the plumbers; and the deflaters did their work in the bathroom.

Ryan Grigson is Deep Throat.*

*  this is one of the interesting story lines that hasn't gotten enough attention.  Colts GM Ryan Grigson sent an email to the NFL before the game, alerting them to the possibility of deflated footballs.  Presumably this means this wasn't the first time Tom Shady sent his equipment boys into the bathroom to sit on footballs.  

Will Roger Goodell play the role of Gerald Ford, and pardon Tom Brady?

Update:  Apparently Not!  4 games, a million bucks, and 2 draft picks is no Ford pardon.

And finally, is Bill Simmons departure from ESPN the week of the Wells report a coincidence? Surely not...

This is just too much fun.  Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get back to crank-calling my Patriots fans friends.  When they answer I just go "ppppppppppppsssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhtttttttttt."

Eli to Canton: The Math

It's been a week since the Super Bowl and I still wake up each morning with a smile on my face.

A wise man (my buddy Rob) once noted that being a sports fan is a losing proposition. Even Yankee fans end more seasons in heartbreak than not, and for fans of normal teams it's an endless cycle of disappointment punctuated by the occasional glorious title. (Or as Rob put it: "I'm 3-90, lifetime!")

Well, Giants fans have been blessed with two very special championships in 4 years. Sure, all titles are special, but these had a little extra seasoning. The combination of their serendipity, the closeness of the games, the quality of the opponents*, and the class of the organization...I'm getting weepy just thinking about it.

* Combined records of the 8 teams the Giants beat on the way to its 2 Super Bowls: 108-26. Six of the eight teams were 13-3 or better in regular season.

I'm not going to do any game analysis here - it's all been done to death. I really want to make two quick points, and then have an extended discussion about Eli Manning's Hall of Fame chances.

First, the two quick points:

• Underrated star of the postseason was Hakeem Nicks. He had a spectacular season (76 catches/1186 yards/7 TDs in only 14 games). But he was overshadowed by the even more spectacular Victor Cruz (82 catches, 1536 yards, and 9 TDs in 14 games, with a crazy-good 18.7 average). Cruz deservedly became a New York folk hero, but Nicks lit up the postseason: 28 catches, 444 yards, and 4 touches. In the combined 18 games, he passed Cruz in catches and TD catches. Nicks got way less love than he deserved*.

* Bonus video coverage: I think this catch was a much harder grab than the Manningham catch. And if you've never seen this highlight from a catch he made at North Carolina, check it out. It's as amazing as the Tyree Helmet Grab).

• I'm hoping the phrase "I can't throw the ball and catch the ball" catches on, as a general phrase for "I can't do everything." (I know, the original phrase was "My husband can't..." but I don't have much use for that.)

Now, on to Eli's Hall of Fame chances.

A Canton Career?

A lot of ridiculous nonsense has been spouted by people in the past week. Indeed, I believe that any writer*, announcer, or pundit of any kind who argues that Eli has now surpassed Peyton in greatness should immediately have their credentials stripped from them.

Peyton has won 4 league MVPs. Guess who has more? NOBODY! He has won more MVPs than anyone who has ever played the game. He's 3rd all time in passing yards. He's 3rd all time in touchdowns. He's thrown 125 more TD passes than Joe Montana. He's been in 11 Pro Bowls. He's one of the greatest of all time, and even Eli's most devoted supporters (of which I'm one) know he is not that.

* A special award for outrageous stupidity should go to Foxsports Jason Whitlock. On Showtime's Inside the NFL he made his unsupported-by-facts "Eli will surpass Peyton" argument. After Phil Simms and Cris Collinsworth (who clearly knew they were dealing with a moron) pointed out how the Colts crashed without him this year, he argued that was Peyton's fault, too, since he built the team around himself. How does this dolt have a job as a professional sportswriter and I'm writing this blog that only you are reading?

Eli may not be on Peyton's level, but he's building a fine career on his own. Many folks have made the Eli to Canton argument, and they talk about the Super Bowls and the fourth quarter comebacks and his unruffled demeanor. But you see, when you're talking Halls of Fame - football, baseball, basketball, whatever - it's essentially a math problem. You look at the numbers, do some projections, and voila' - you can make a pretty good guess at their chances. And guess what: Eli has a damn good chance of making the Hall of Fame.

Here's my methodology for projecting Eli Manning as a Hall of Fame candidate:

• I looked at the last six QBs elected, all of whose career started in the 80's or later (Elway, Marino, Moon, Kelly, Young, Aikman)
• I focused on six key metrics: passing yards, touchdown passes, interceptions, TD/Int ratio, SB MVP, and League MVP*
• I projected the remainder of Eli's career. I assumed a 14 year career, which would actually be below average compared to the aforementioned 6 (all played 15 or more but Aikman [12] and Kelly [who wasted 3 seasons in the USFL]
• I assumed, for Eli, an average of 3,500 yards and 20 TDs per year, over those six years. That is very conservative, I think, especially considering he went for 4900 yards and 29 TDs this year, and has two great young receivers
• Finally, I added another calculation, showing a more aggressive projection. I assume 16 seasons, at 3,750 yards per and 25 touchdowns per. Again, this is below his numbers the past few years, and 16 seasons is reasonable

* I chose these stats because they are the ones most valued by Hall of Fame voters. Completion percentage, for example, is not valued by the Hall, or Chad Pennington (highest all time) would be writing his Acceptance Speech.

LINK TO CHART: ELI MANNING VS. LAST 6 HoFers

So how do those proections match up with those six? Using the conservative numbers, pretty damn good. Nearly 50,000 yards passing and over 300 TDs. More Super Bowl MVPs than anyone. Only Aikman has more titles, but he destroys Aikman in yards and TDs*. His yardage and TD numbers also blow away Young and Kelly, and of course his titles blow away Marino and Moon.

* You can make a good case Aikman doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame. He was a pretty good quarterback on a team with a fabulous defense and the great Emmitt Smith.

His career would be most comparable to Elway - indeed, using my numbers, they would be nearly identical to Elway. Of course, Eli threw in a more pass-happy league than Elway. But Eli has one big advantage over Elway: his Super Bowl teams, especially this one, were built on his arm. Elway's Super Bowl teams were built on Terrell Davis' legs.

With these numbers (and they could be much better, if he plays like he did this year for a few years), he'd rank in the Top 10 of all time, maybe even the Top 5, in the two key Hall stats. Only 4 QBs in history have thrown for over 50,000 yards, and only 6 have thrown over 300 touchdown passes. Brady and Brees will likely join that group as well, but no other active quarterback is ahead of Eli's pace.

I thought the interceptions would hurt him more, but I was wrong. Yes, he led the league twice in picks, but again, using my projections, his career is a near-perfect match to Elway. And his TD/INT ratio is better than Aikman, Elway, Kelly, and Moon. (Again, Aikman's performance here is less than Hall-worthy).

And of course, he has the intangibles. He already has more 4th quarter comebacks than HoFers Staubach, Aikman, Griese, Dawson, Starr, and others. He'll likely pass Fouts, Bradshaw, Kelly, and Montana before he's done.

And finally, if you're wondering if he's just a beneficiary of the pass-happy NFL, the answer is "not really". Among active players, Peyton and Brady* are already all-time greats and Brees is cruising to Canton. But Eli is ahead of his 2004 classmates, Roethlisberger and Rivers, and Aaron Rodgers will suffer from a late start in his career. No other active player projects comfortably for the Hall of Fame right now.

* These two guys are playing for higher stakes right now: the chance to be known as the greatest of all time. But those quests took huge hits this year, as Peyton's assault on the record books was checked, perhaps irrevocably, and Brady...well, you know what happened to him.

Eli does have one big knock against him: Pro Bowls. He's only been to two so far. And in a conference featuring Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Matthew Stafford, it will be no easy task to make them in the years ahead. Of course, if he wins a 3rd Super Bowl he'll be a lock.

Of course, these are the conservative numbers. Use the aggressive numbers and you're approaching 60,000 yards and 400 touchdowns. Toss in another Super Bowl or two, and you have a career that Joe Montana would envy. Hey, a guy can dream, right?

Either way, the math looks good. Of course, in the violent world of the National Football League, health is the key. Eli Manning has been an amazingly durable player, but so was his brother. Eli needs to play a lot more football before he gets a plaque in NFL Hall of Fame. But at this rate, it's looking pretty darn good.

See ya in Canton.

Bonus Fun Fact for Jets fans who are sick of hearing about Eli: Sometime in the first game of next season, the announcers will inform us that Eli Manning has just passed Joe Namath in passing yardage

C Student in X's and O's

There's a lot of plays on that call sheet.

I have a confession to make. I don't really understand football.

I know a lot about football. I know that 4 yards a carry is a good average, that a facemask penalty is 15 yards, and that a slot receiver lines up off tackle. I could break down, in enormous detail, the differences between Dan Marino's 1984 season, Peyton Manning's 2004 season, and Tom Brady's 2007 season*. When a flag is thrown, I usually know what the penalty is. And recently, while driving home with the Rock Star, we tried to name every Super Bowl winner, and damn near got 'em all right (though I had a few out of order; it's tough to put those 70's Cowboys, Dolphins, and Raiders in the right order).

* In fact, I did.

But when I'm actually watching a game, I'm pretty sure that 90% of what is happening on the field is going over my head. In fact, I'm pretty sure that 60% of it is going over the head of a Pop Warner coach.

Football has always been an enormously complicated game - 22 players on the field have rather specific assignments on each play. Sometimes those assignments are simple, sometimes they have options and variations mid-play. How can you track all of them?

But today's NFL has taken to it another level. A few years back, ESPN Magazine broke down everything that goes on in the head of Peyton Manning prior to a snap. The defense is set up in a pass D - or is it a run D disguised as a pass D? The middle linebacker sneaks up one step...Manning keeps his eye on him. Strong safety takes two steps left. Manning barks out a few signals and changes the play...or did he? Hike. Linebackers shift, safety shifts, Manning throws a ball to an unoccupied spot in the end zone - where Reggie Wayne arrives a moment later to catch it.

Who could break that down as its happening? The answer is: nobody. Even Peyton Manning, sitting in a broadcast booth five years from now, won't be able to thoroughly break it down as he watches, say, Andrew Luck against the Steelers. To do so would require not only Manning's superhuman football IQ, but an inner knowledge of the workings of Luck's offense, detailed study of the Steelers pass coverage schemes, and certitude of the original called play, to know if Luck audibled or fake-audibled.

If Future Peyton doesn't know what just happened, what chance does an average fan have?

I bring all this up because, as you may have heard, the Giants and Patriots have a rematch of Super Bowl 42 coming up. The exhausting, mind-numbing coverage have focused almost entirely on non-football stuff. The Rematch. Eli playing in his brother's building. The personalities of the coaches. The history of Tom Brady's hair.

We do all this because, frankly, most of us can't have an intelligent conversation about zone blitzes, run blocking schemes and defensive audibles. That's why, on NFL Mondays all around the country, sports radio features non-stop discussions of things like clock management and body language. Few callers are smart enough to talk about a defense's failure to adjust to the right guard's interior blocking, so instead we call up and blame the loss on the head coach's sideline demeanor, or the fact that he went on it at 4th and 1 from his own 48.

We are, however, breeding a smarter generation of football fans. Tomorrow's football fans will have thousands and thousands of hours of Madden behind them - selecting defenses, calling plays, even strategizing seasons. This is much better preparation for Advanced Fanship than what I bring to the table.

I'm trying my best, I really am, to ignore all the silly stuff that has no impact on what happens between the lines. I like the way the Giants' offense matches up against the Patriots' defense; I worry about our safeties covering their tight ends; and I think, if Vince Wilfork brings his A game, look out.

But then I can't help noticing...the Patriots are 13-2 since Brady cut his hair...

Handful of Dust: An NFC Poetry Slam

Remember the Coffee Klatsch?

The Klatsch is a bunch of friends I worked with in the 90’s. Shin, Cormie, Stod, and I had many things in common: we worked in publishing, were literary dilettantes, admirers of select female colleagues, and nostalgic sports fans.

We also differed on important subjects, like war and economics and modern literature and Jennifer Aniston (for the record, I'm in favor of two, against one, and conflicted on another).

Anyway, back in 1990 when the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers met in the regular season Shin and I made a bet: if the Niners won I would write a poem in their honor; if the Giants won, he would do the same*. We repeated the bet for the NFC Championship game and later playoff games.

* Did I mention we were literary dilettantes?

The Niners won a classic game, of course, and I wrote a sports masterpiece that sadly, like most of Sophocles’ plays, is lost*. Shin repaid in January, and we went back and forth a few times over the years with various sports and teams.

* All the stars on those Niner teams had names that were also words, which I used to brilliant effect. Brilliant, that is, if you were a six year old who loved bad puns. There was ‘running Watters’ and ‘hit a Lott’ and ‘no white on that Rice’ and ‘Young arm’ (Steve) and "Young massive torso" (Bryant)...well, you get the point.

Over the past week, Shin, Cormie and I – with a nudge from Stod and a whisper from BAM (our Stu Sutcliffe, sans tumor) – engaged in the nerdiest trash talking of the year. Here, I give you, the NFC Poetry Slam:

Pre Game Trash Talk

Shin:

The roars were audible from Brisbane to Nyack

When Alex said simply, "Boys, get on my back"

Smith ran round Osi and right over J. Tuck

Grabbed his crotch and said "Eat my PeePee, JPP, you miserable f*ck"

He's vanished his demons, fulfilled all his whims

Hell, he's almost Montana, much better than Simms.

Corm:

There once was a guy from New York

Who got mad when we called Simms a dork

He talked lots of smack

But took much of it back

Through a rhyme scheme that almost did work.

Keatang (last line should be read like you're Seinfeld's mother):

He was picked number one and the orchestras sung,

But for a half dozen years he played like horse dung,

A sweep left for a score,

To Vernon for one more,

And suddenly he's Montana and Young?

Shin:

Since the day I was born I have loved me some Giants*

Just the sound of the word is like a brand new appliance

So yes, I hate me some Dodgers

And they should have picked Rodgers

But they'll clobber New York in defiance

* ed: he refers to the San Francisco Giants

Corm (channeling Robert Burns, after Eli missed practice with a stomach ailment):

Wee, sleekit, cowring tim'rous beastie

Eli, what gurglins in thy breastie

Thou need na start excuse so hasty

Wi burbling belly

Fear the Niners wad rin an chase thee

Wi murdering prattle.

Corm (channeling Thomas Percy, letting Alex know he’s not quite there yet):

And when yon task be fifteen yeere old

Then shall you be crowned kinge

Brisbaine’s Tana, that was once uprore

You did to quiet bring.

First strike the Giants from the realm

Dared they opprest this land

To Canton then, throughe manly feates

of football, head and hand.

BAM (poor guy’s a Browns fan, and has no dog in this fight):

Now NFL Football it ain't my best game

The Cleveland Browns they're just f*cking lame

But on a bandwagon I jump

Both Giants and Niners I trump

So either team can win, I'm the same.

Post Game Loser’s Poems

Shin:

On account of how I now know more of their names

And that yesterday was the first in forever where I watched two football games

I can say Brady's a fighter, and, it looks like, a lover

Manning's a winner, maybe even better than big brother

The Harbaughs a nice story but that one is over

Victor from UMass should be rolling in clover

The Giants are mighty and making big millions

And they should send partial share to Kyle Effing Williams.

Corm (channeling T.S. Eliot):

January is the cruelest month

Giants from back east, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Niner brains with spring rain

Fall kept us warm, a season's

Generous dose of forgetful snow, feeding

a fan's life with dried tubers

Eli surprised us, coming over the middle

To Cruz balls dropped like rain, tween our colonnade

And ran to sunlight, into the Superbowl

We drank beer, and talked it over

Bin kar keine Niner, stamm aus New York echt Giant 20

We cannot say or guess, for no one knows

A heap of broken images, where Williams stands

And the dead season gives no shelter, no relief, 17

From this dry stone no water,

Only Eli, whose shadow rose to meet us

Ending our year in a handful of dust

Reverse Jinxing the Giants

About the New York Football Giants...

I feel like the backup second baseman on a team where the pitcher has a perfect game going. Nobody is supposed to say anything to the pitcher for fear of jinxing it. But especially not an insignificant person like the backup second baseman. The catcher might obliquely discuss strategy with the pitcher, the star hitter might exhort the lineup to score more runs, the shortstop might remind his teammates to stay sharp on the infield. But bench warmers should sit meekly in the corner and say NOTHING to NOBODY about NOTHING!

That's sort of how I feel about this run the Giants are on. After a 7-7 start where the G-Men lost to some bad teams, needed 4th quarter comebacks for 5 wins, and were, in total, outscored by the opposition, this team is suddenly playing like an elite football team. And fans are wondering if...

Well, hold on there. I don't want any jinxy-cat thoughts to float into my head. I dream of exorcising the Trey Junkin demons*. I dream of shutting up every Patriot fan who thinks SB42 was a helmet fluke. I dream of making Ray Lewis cry on the sideline, erasing the stain of Super Bowl XXXV. But I'm nervous about giving voice to these dreams - I have a fear of jinxing this team like I never have before.

* Watching the clip still hurts, not just because of the epic meltdown but because the Niners should have been flagged for pass interference on the play. Mike Pereira, who has been a great addition to the Fox broadcast team, was head of officiating at the time, and he made the official decision that it was a blown call, and the Giants should have had a second chance to line up - this time for a chip shot field goal - to win the game.

Regular readers know I didn't have this superstition aversion in January 08. I had multiple blogasms back then. But this time, well, let's say I'm knocking more wood than a carpenter with the yips.

I'm a deeply rational guy. I don't believe in astrology or ghosts or sixth senses. I don't believe in black cats or unlucky numbers or curses. When someone has a feeling that something is going to happen, and that thing actually happens, I don't think it's because they have some sort of second sight - I think that a) they are incapable of recognizing the underlying rational thoughts that led to their feeling and b) they have conveniently forgotten the many times their feeling was wrong.

But when it comes to sports, I'm worse than a medieval peasant in the Transylvanian forest. For example, my daughter gave me some blue and white Mardi Gras beads to wear to the Cowboys game in Week 17. I wore them to MetLife Stadium and voila - Giants won the NFC East! Naturally I took them back to the stadium for the Falcons game and - they worked again!

Would they work on television? Sure enough, I wore them for the Packer game and even though Green Bay is 1,004 miles away from my living room, they worked! I'm sticking with the beads, baby.

I get this from my father. Poppa Keats is a religious man - he's a lector at his church, the pastor of his fire department, and wouldn't miss Mass on Sunday if he had to swim the Mississippi, climb Everest, and parachute from a skyscraper to get there. But he believes in a higher power - he believes the single biggest factor in the outcome of every Giants' game is whether or not he's watching. We frequently have conversations like the one we had Sunday night:

Me: What'd you think of the game Sunday?

Dad: Ah, I missed it.

Me: You missed it?! You missed the playoff game.

Dad: Well, I was watching, but Rodgers threw the TD pass to open the 2nd quarter so I turned it off. I put it back on again in the 4th, and he threw another one.

Me: Dad, I read a lot of articles about the game, and nobody seems to think your turning the TV off was a factor.

Dad: They won, didn't they?

In light of all this, I want to avoid any conversations of "If we win Sunday...". So in an attempt at a little counter-jinx, here's why the Giants won't win Sunday:

• The 49ers had a regular season point differential of +151! The Giants actually gave up more points than (400) than they scored (394). No team has ever won a Super Bowl with a negative regular season point differential.
• As for the myth that the Niners have a weak offense and the Giants a strong one...not really true. Niners are ranked 26th in offense and the Giants 8th, but that measures yards. In points scored they are 11th, the Giants 9th.
• You may have read this elsewhere, but the Giants are ranked Last in rushing. And not just rushing yards, but Last in yards per attempt, too. The Niner defense is ranked First in rushing yards allowed, and First in yards per attempt. That seems like a bad combo.

So yeah, the Niners struggled down the stretch, barely eking out wins against the Seahawks and Rams, and losing to the Cardinals. Sure, the Niners lost to two teams the Giants beat this year (Cowboys and Cardinals). And yeah, the Giants' point differential in each of the past four games is higher than their entire regular season combined (+15, +17, +22, +17), and they came against teams with a .500 record or better. And it's true that the last time these teams played the Giants best rusher and best linebacker were home nursing injuries.

But the important thing to note here is that I am not making any positive assumptions about this Sunday. I hope the gods (now that they are through with Tebow) are listening.

Tebow Has All the Tools...but One

Here at FreeTime, we like to kick them when they're up and lift them when they're down. This is partly because we're pathologically obsessed with The Overrated and The Underrated*, and partly because debate is sort of like Olympic diving - degree of difficulty matters.

* In fact, when I was coming up with a name for this blog, one idea was Overrated/Underrated, with every story focused on someone/thing that was overrated (Jeter! Clooney!) or underrated (John Adams! Eli Manning!). Notice how the Underrated guys need their full name spelled out?

Which brings us to the matter of Tim Tebow. I had a Tebow column halfway written on December 11, after the Broncos defeated the Bears. Tebow was riding high: the Broncos had won 7 of 8, his passing yards had increased 5 straight games, his TD-to-INT ratio was 8-1, and his critics were cowering in the corner. It was time to strike.

But alas, on December 12th I was diagnosed with a detached retina, and two days later had surgery. While I was recovering Tebow fell hard. The Broncos got crushed by the Patriots, trampled by the Bills, and in week 17, an important game against the Chiefs to guarantee a playoff spot, Tebow put up the following line:

6 for 22, 60 yards, 0 touchdowns, 1 interception.

The Broncos scored 3 points and needed the Raiders to lose in order to backdoor the playoffs. I don't care how much you mistrust stats: that is some seriously crappy, unclutch, non-winning football. And as anyone who saw the game will attest, it wasn't just a statistical nightmare; it was an avert-your-eyes horror show.

So the moment had passed. I couldn't pile on then.

But now Timmy's back! He had his best game as a pro Sunday. It had the usual Tebow dramatics but with a twist: big passing numbers! He even broke John Elway's Broncos' record for playoff yards. So, it's time for me to enter the fray.

Now let me stipulate a few things first:

1. I like Tim Tebow. He seems like a genuinely good guy in a sports world filled with bad guys.

2. I like the Tebow story. It is like every sports movie every made - the underdog who is told he can't do it but pulls it off in dramatic fashion.

3. I especially liked the fact that Tebow beat Ben Roethlisberger, who is, let's say, not a good guy.

Finally, he has many qualities that are useful in an NFL quarterback. Useful, but not necessary. For example:

1. He is big and strong, which is useful but not necessary (see Drew Brees).
2. He is very good at running the ball, which is useful but not necessary (see Peyton Manning)
3. He is fiery and animated, which is useful but not necessary (see Eli Manning).
4. He had great success in college, which is useful but not necessary (see Tom Brady).
5. He is a morally upright person, which is useful but not necessary (see Ben Roethlisberger).

Those five quarterbacks won 8 of the last 10 Super Bowls. All but the injured Peyton made the playoffs this year, as usual. And while all of them are different, they share one thing in common: they are really really good at throwing a football.

And that's my problem with the Tebow Debate. It's become, like most sports arguments, a litmus test on Stats vs. Winning*.

* And unlike most sports arguments, a litmus test on religion. But I'm not going there. For that, I recommend this piece by Fran Tarkenton in today's Wall Street Journal.

But all of this ignores the most important question: Can a quarterback have long-term success iin today's NFL if he can't throw well? And Tim Tebow cannot throw well:

• His YPA (yards per attempt) is 6.4, 29th in the league behind, well, pretty much everyone but Curtis Painter. YPA is arguably the single most important passing stat.
• His completion % is 46.5%, 34th among the 34 QBs who threw enough passes to qualify. He is the only QB in the league under 50%.
• TD % is 4.4 (meaning, he throws TDs on 4.4% of his passes). Not bad, at 13th in the league, but still beyond such stalwarts as Christian Ponder, Mark Sanchez, and Matt Moore
• His INT% is solid. At 2.2 he is 9th in the league.
• But that is offset by his QB rating. At 29th, he is behind Colt McCoy, among other mediocrities. QB rating measures efficiency and loves a low INT %. But the rest of Tebow's game is so horrendous, the paucity of picks doesn't help much.
• His Yards Per Game is 34th. The only starter in the league who is lower is Josh Freeman.

And finally, there is Game Winning Drives*. Ah, the fans say, what do you have to say now, Smart Guy? He's tied for the league lead with 6, which is impressive. But there are two problems with that. One is that a guy like Aaron Rodgers has only one - not because he can't do it, but because he's so damn good all day long he generally spends his final drive taking a knee.

* Definition: An offensive scoring drive in the 4th quarter or OT that puts a team ahead for the last time.

But the other is this: do you know who has been better than Tim Tebow at game winning drives? Go ahead, I'll give you a minute. No, it's not Eli Manning, who also has 6 but was the starter in more games. It's not Alex Smith, with 5, though he was good, too. Drew Brees? Good guess, but he only had 4.

No, the best comeback quarterback in football this year was John Skelton. Casual fans don't even know who he is, but football fans know he took over the Cardinals' starting job in November. He played in 8 games for the Cards this year, starting 7 - and had 5 game-winning comebacks. 5 comebacks in 8 games? That's amazing...but something tells me he won't be on the cover of Madden next year.

Finally, the last worrisome thing for those who picture a Tebow plaque at Canton someday...

Tim Tebow isn't playing in the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, or even the first decade of this century. He's playing at time when explosive passing attacks have taken over the sport. You've seen all the stats elsewhere, but this paragraph by Gregg Easterbrook captures well what a passing league the NFL is right now:

It's the year of offensive stat-a-rama throughout the NFL. There have been five 5,000-yard passing seasons in NFL history; three of them were this year. Drew Brees and Tom Brady both eclipsed the previous passing yards record in the same season. Records were set for passer rating, completion percentage and team yards from scrimmage. In the regular season, NFL teams averaged 235 gross passing yards per game, surpassing the previous high of 221 in 1995 and way above the 1971 average of 156 yards. Three of the top five rushing teams missed the playoffs while all the top five passing teams made the postseason. Detroit just gained a spectacular 882 yards passing in two games over six days -- and lost both because opponents gained 928 yards passing. The Packers and Patriots, with the league's lowest-rated defenses, just used scoreboard-spinning to win the conference top seeds. The league's No. 1 defense, the Pittsburgh Steelers, is already out of the playoffs, torched by Denver. In this year of offensive stat-a-rama, even a sputtering offense trumped the best defense!

I like Tim Tebow. It's a truly great sports story. And I'll be rooting for him this weekend against Patriots.

But enjoy the show now. This is the modern NFL, where a quarterback has to be able to consistently throw balls into very tight spots. And that is the one thing Tim Tebow cannot do.

Mann Down

The Latest Twist in Manning-Brady Rivalry

Quarterbacks, more than any other athlete performing any other task, rely on their teammates.

Up to half a dozen man-mountains block for them. Freakishly large-handed speed demons catch the passes thrown by them. QBs hand the ball off to quick and powerful men who run for them - which helps make it easier for them to throw. They are guided by a team of brilliant workaholics who come up with detailed and intricate plans, who literally write books about what quarterbacks should do.

I'm not saying quarterback is an easy job. In fact, it's arguably the hardest job in the world to excel at. Think about it: at any given point in time, there's only about 15 people on the planet who are doing a good job as an NFL quarterback. Are there more than 15 good neurosurgeons in the world? Does the 16th best particle physicist on the planet perform at a higher level than Joe Flacco? Could you find twenty to thirty outstanding nuclear submarine captains in a pinch?* The answer to all of these questions is yes.

* There are several hundred nuclear submarines in the world. I'm thinking the 16th best captain is pretty damn good.

The challenge is separating a quarterback's greatness from all those other factors. What if, for example, Joe Montana was drafted two picks earlier in the 1979 draft, by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? Instead of the brilliant Bill Walsh, he would've inherited John McKay as head coach. His premiere wide receiver in the 80's would have been Kevin House rather than Jerry Rice. The average defensive rank of his team from 1980-1989 would have been 20th rather than 7th*. And he would've had to wear those ridiculous orange uniforms.

* The Niner defense was genuinely great in the 80's, not merely a nice complement to a great offense. Their rank in Points Allowed from 1981 to 1989 was: 2, 23, 4, 1, 2, 3, 3, 8, 3.

What kind of career would Joe Montana have had if he'd been picked by the Bucs? I should add that I did not choose the Buccaneers by random. I chose them because in the mid-80's Steve Young spent a couple of seasons as the Tampa quarterback. It did not go well. He won 3 games, threw twice as many interceptions as touchdown passes, completed 52% of his passes, and looked ridiculous in that orange uniform.

In 1992, however, he replaced Joe Montana and had five brilliant seasons, one of the great runs in quarterback history. He got behind the wheel of that 49er sports car and drove it faster than Montana.

All of these variables - head coach, receiving corps, defense, running game - make it therefore very difficult to truly judge the value of a quarterback, and nearly impossible to conduct something close to a controlled experiment.

But something very close to that is being performed in Indianapolis right now.

Painting a Picture

A while back, I made the case that Tom Brady-Peyton Manning was the best "Who's Better?" debate in sports history. My argument went like this:

From 2001-2006 Brady-Manning followed the usual script of great player debates. Like Wilt-Russell, Marino-Montana, and ARod-Jeter, one player put up the monster stats and one player put on the rings.

But in 2006-2007, the players reversed roles. In 2006 Manning became Brady. The Colts beat the Patriots multiple times, including a thrilling comeback victory in the 06 AFC Championship game. The Colts went on to win the Super Bowl and Manning was crowned Super Bowl MVP.

More shockingly, in 2007 Brady became Manning. A guy who had been an efficient 3500 yards/25 TD guy suddenly went off for 4800 yards and 50 TDs. After missing all of 2008, Brady has continued as a brilliant quarterback, an elite passer in the NFL. (And to complete his transformation into early 2000s Manning, he stopped winning Super Bowls.)

A handful of rings and elite passing statistics? It's never been done before. Add in the fact that Manning plays in a dome and Brady in the New England winter? As a longtime Manning supporter, I was forced to admit that Brady just might be the better quarterback.

But here's where we come to our controlled experiment. In 2008 Tom Brady got hurt in Week 1 and lost the season. A kid named Matt Cassel, who literally had not started a game at quarterback since he was in high school, got under center. (In fact, he is the only QB in league history to start an NFL game having never started one in college).

How'd he do? The Patriots went 11-5 and had the 5th ranked offense in the NFL. Cassel threw for 3700 yards and 21 TDs with a 63% completion rate. Not bad, huh?

This year, Peyton Manning is out for the season. Curtis Painter is under center for the Indianapolis Colts. Painter has a much more impressive resume than Cassel had. As a sophomore at Purdue, he set the Big 10 passing record. He broke a bunch of Drew Brees' records at Purdue, and would have broken more if not for an injury Senior year.

Painter hasn't been terrible. He's only thrown one interception, and his completion rate and QB rating are both very respectable. He's actually 3rd in the league in Net Yards per Pass Attempt, behind Brady and Rogers.

But the Colts are ranked 31st in total offense, 27th in points scored. And they're 0-6. Since Manning's second season, the Colts have won 10 games or more every year but one*. This year, they've already lost 6.

* That one was 2001 when they went 6-10. It wasn't Manning's fault - the Colts had the #2 offense in the league in 2001. But as has often been the case in Manning's career, he had a bad defense. Colts were ranked 31st in Points Allowed in 2001. The average rank of Colt D since 1998 is 16th in the league. In 2006, Manning won the Super Bowl with a defense ranked 23rd.

Remove Brady from the Patriots' offense and it slows down. Remove Manning from the Colts' offense and it comes skidding to a halt.

It's another interesting twist in the greatest individual "Who's Better?" debate ever.

Finnegan's Revenge

In 2002 Bill Simmons wrote one of his most famous columns, The 13 Levels of Losing, updating it five years later with 3 more categories (one for my 2007 Mets. Ug.) The incredible, devastating, painful, shocking, humiliating, debilitating, mind-numbing, gut-wrenching, soul-destroying loss – no, loss is too weak a word - murder suffered by the New York Giants this past Sunday doesn’t quite fit one of the 16 categories perfectly. It matched eight of them.

XV. Achilles Heel: A fatal flaw is revealed (we knew special teams would cost us eventually)

XIV. Alpha Dog: A stud on the other team is too much (the Mutt-Murderer)

XIII. Rabbit’s Foot: Where seemingly everything goes wrong (let's not relive those 8 minutes)

XII. Sudden Death (no, it wasn’t overtime, but the clock showing zero as DeSean Jackson proved he’s the league’s next wide receiver ASSH0LE* made it feel like it)

XI. Monkey Wrench: Your coach makes an idiot decision (TMQB breaks down Coughlin/Fewell's Quartus Horribilis)

VI. Broken Axle: Where the wheels come off (um, yeah)

IV. The Guillotine: Where even the fan feels like he contributed to the karmic evil (I confess I started thinking through the playoff scenarios with Giants as a 2 seed)

III. Stomach Punch: Where the opponent makes an improbable play and/or your guy screws up (see above, multiple times)

* I don’t usually curse here at FreeTime, but DeSean Jackson – who has clearly learned from TO, Randy Moss, Ochocinco, and other members of today’s wide receiving prima donna community, cannot be described with a lesser word. How is that one position attracts so many individuals so badly in need of a beating?

Yes, the Giants collapse against the Eagles used up 8 of the 16 levels of losing! But you know that here at FreeTime we traffic in Optimism. We’re all about the silver lining, our cup is half full, we look on the bright side, we turn lemons into lemonade – yes, we’re delusional as Martini in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest!

So I’m going to ask my Giant fan friends to take a step off the ledge…yes that’s it, open the window, yes, c’mon back in the room. Okay, finger off the trigger, put the gun down. Okay? Listen to me. This loss was many horrible things, it contained 8 of the 16 levels of losing all wrapped up in one giant fetid steaming smelly pile of elephant dung. Bu here’s what it wasn’t:

A Level I Loss: That Game
A Level IX Loss: The Full-Fledged Butt Kicking

“That Game” is Simmons’ name for Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. And “The Full-Fledged Butt Kicking” – well you can figure out what that is. (Interestingly, the example he uses for this is the New York Giants 41-0 beatdown of the Minnesota Vikings in the 2001 NFC Championship Game. )

It’s important to remember this is not a Level I loss because Level I losses end seasons. The Giants 39-38 playoff collapse to the Niners in 2003 – a game in which they led by 24 in the third quarter - was a Level I loss. The 23-22 playoff loss to the Vikings in 1997 when the onside kick bounced off Chris Calloway’s chest and the Vikes scored 10 points in the final minute was a Level I loss. They had all the horror of Sunday’s game but no chance at redemption.

Nor was it a Level IX loss. The NFL had a wonderful example of a Full-Fledged Butt-Kicking recently – the Patriots’ 45-3 humiliation of the Jets. When the most common phrase said about your team the following week is “exposed as a fraud”, that’s a tough loss.

But the Giants did not get their butts kicked Sunday. And they did not end their season Sunday. Indeed, they remain well-positioned for a playoff spot.

So as you look for some scrap of optimism to hold onto, think about it this way: if you asked Tom Brady and the Patriots if they would like to face the Jets in the playoffs, that locker room would erupt in cheers. But if you asked Michael Vick to answer in complete honesty whether or not he wants to face the Giants again – indeed, whether he ever wants to be in the same room as Justin Tuck again – I suspect he’d answer like Apollo Creed at the end of Rocky: “Ain’t gonna be no rematch.”

As for redemption…I think we all know what that looks like. A six seed for the Giants, followed by a victory against the Bears in the playoffs, followed by a trip to Philadelphia in the 2nd round.

In these days of sensitivity around football injuries I’ll say what I know all Giants fans are feeling: no matter what happens after that, that loss will be expunged if the Canine Killer and TO's Spawn leave the field on stretchers - not seriously hurt, mind you; just a little shaken up - and the Giants leave it in victory.

Oh, and as for the title of this post...Finnegan is my dog's name. He hates Michael Vick.

Losers & Nobodies

If you were the GM of an NFL team with a head coaching vacancy, which of the following should you hire:

a) A proven winner, like Super Bowl Champ Bill Cowher
b) A proven loser, like Cam Cameron
c) A complete nobody, like Jim Harbaugh’s brother

If history is any guide, hire the nobody. If he’s not available, hire the loser.

There have been 41 Super Bowl champions. Every single one of them has been won by a Head Coach who came to that team with exactly zero Super Bowl titles on their resume. ¾ of them have been won by losers and nobodies.

Here’s the breakdown:

Complete Nobodys (25 titles)
These 14 guys won 26 titles. The day they were hired by the team they won the Bowls for, their fan base said, “Who?”

Chuck Noll (4 titles)
Joe Gibbs (3)
Bill Walsh (3)
Vince Lombardi (2 - plus a bunch of NFL titles)
Tom Landry (2)
Bill Parcells (2)
Tom Flores (2)
George Siefert (2)
Don McCafferty
John Madden
Mike Holmgren
Brian Billick
Bill Cowher

(Yes, I'm aware that many of these guys had distinguished careers as assistants before getting their head coaching job, as illustrated by the picture above)

Proven Losers (5 titles)These two had experience – of the losing kind.

Bill Belichick (3 titles…losing record in 4 of his 5 Cleveland seasons)
Mike Shanahan (2 titles in Denver…8-12 with the Raiders)

College Degrees (3 titles)These guys won college titles, but had never been in an NFL locker room:

Jimmy Johnson (2)
Barry Switzer

Celebrity Coach (1 title)
Ditka deserves his own category. The Bears were his first head coaching gig, but he was neither a complete nobody nor a proven loser. At least I won’t call him one…

Ring-less Success (3 titles)These 3 guys each had some success as a Head Coach before switching teams and winning a Super Bowl.

Jon Gruden
Dick Vermeil
Tony Dungy

Quasi-Exceptions to the Rule - But Somebody Had to Win (3 titles)
In Super Bowl III Weeb Ewbank, who had won 2 titles with the Colts in the late 50’s (pre-Super Bowl Era) faced off against Don Shula, who would go on to win 2 Super Bowls with the Dolphins. Shula, had he won, would have been the exception to the rule.

Ewbank’s Jets won, giving Weeb his only Super Bowl title. Coupled with his Colts' titles, he is the only head coach to have won an NFL title with two different teams (good trivia question, huh?)

Won Super Bowl...Switched Teams and Won Another Super Bowl (0 titles)

Well, nobody has done that. Won't happen this year, either. If the Pats win, the Losers get another title. If the Giants win, Coughlin joins Gruden, Dungy, and Vermeil.

What happened to the Champs?On 13 different occasions an NFL team hired a head coach who had already won a Super Bowl. None of them won again.

Gibbs - round 2 with Redskins
Flores - Seahawks
Johnson - Dolphins
Lombardi - Redskins
Parcells - Jets/Pats*/Boys
Siefert - Panthers
Stram - Saints
McCafferty - Lions
Ditka - Saints
Holmgren - Seahawks*
Vermeil - Chiefs

* won Conference championship

Update: Fassel, a Qualified Loser, lost the Skins job to a Nobody, but makes a convincing argument that Losers Beat Nobodies. I address it here...

Eli vs. Phil

[Warning: Unless you are interested in football statistics, you might want to skip this one...]

One's opinion of just about anything – a restaurant, a vacation, a book – is largely shaped by expectations. This is especially true of athletes. We create expectations for them, based on their salary, their potential and other factors, and then measure them by those expectations. Further, since we root for teams in a way that we don’t root for restaurants or books, we care far more about whether they succeed, which further impacts our expectations.

Take Eli Manning. It is possible that no athlete in recent memory has been burdened with greater expectations. The combination of being a quarterback, a #1 pick, a Manning, a New Yorker, and a guy who forced his own trade before throwing an NFL pass have all combined to put a particularly high-powered microscope on him.

And to judge by sports radio in New York, Giants fans do not like what they see. We are in the middle of his 3rd full NFL season and much of Giants nation has already declared him as a man incapable of ever winning a championship.

What is most curious about this is that Giants fans absolutely revere Phil Simms. So it got me to wondering…just how does Eli stack up against Phil, and other Giants QBs through the years. Let's take a look, shall we?

TD PassesEli threw 24 TD passes in 2005 and 2006, and is on pace for 21 in 2007. Simms career high was 22. In fact, when Eli threw 24 in his first full season as a Pro, it was the first time in 40 years a Giants QB had thrown that many TDs. Eli has now done it both of his full professional seasons.

InterceptionsEli threw 18 INTs in 06, one more than 05. He has 17 so far in 07. In Simms’ last few seasons, he kept the picks down; but from 1979-1987, nearly a decade, he averaged 19 interceptions per 16 games. In 1986, the season that vaulted Simms to the Giants’ pantheon, he threw 22 picks (against 21 TDs).

Accuracy
Is Eli inaccurate? His completion percentage this year is 58.3% through 13 games. It has improved every year he’s been in the NFL. Phil didn’t get his completion percentage this high until 1990, his 11th season as a pro! (That is my first non-ironic use of an exclamation point in any blog posting, so pay heed)

Scoring
The most important thing a QB does is lead an offense, and the most important thing an offense does is score points. How well has Eli’s offense done that in his short career? Better than any Giant offense since Nixon was in office.

The Giants scored 422 points in 2005. That is more than any Giants team coached by Bill Parcells, or since. More than the Super Bowl teams. More than the 94 team, which was Phil's best season statistically. And likely more than any of the putrid teams of the 70's.

In 2006 the total dropped to 355. But 355 still ranks as the 5th best season in the last 23 years (and likely, the past 40). In 1990, the Giants' second Super Bowl year, and Simms' best season until he got injured, the Giants scored 335 points.

This year…well, the Giants’ offense stinks this year, right? Well, not exactly. Through 13 games, the Giants have scored 290 points, and are on a pace to score 356 points, on par with last year.

Defense
Eli does share one thing in common with his older brother: for at least part of his career, his defense sucked. While Eli and Co. were putting up 355 points in 2006, his defensive teammates were giving up 362 points. The Giants have only given up more than 362 points once since 1983. This year, the defense has tightened significantly, and the Giants are 9-4.

Winning
In 2005, Eli took his team to the playoffs. In 2006, Eli took his team to the playoffs. In 2007, Eli will take his team to the playoffs. Questions?

Yes, you can argue the Giants backed in to the playoffs in 06 with an 8-8 record. But remember, that season Big Blue played the 3rd hardest schedule in the NFL; lost their left tackle (2nd most important position on the team) and most dependable wide receiver to injuries, had a terrible defense, and according to the same fans who fulminate about Eli, were poorly-coached.

In 05 Eli was terrible in the first round playoff loss. But in 06, he improved markedly, leading a tremendous touchdown drive in the 4th quarter to tie it. Will he take another step this year, with a first round win against Tampa or Seattle?

Heart
Do Giants fans remember that game-tying playoff drive last year? 2nd & 30, down 7 points, in the 4th quarter, in a playoff game, at Philadelphia of all places – and Eli completed consecutive passes of 18, 14 and 11 yards to Plaxico Burress, the last one in the end zone. How can you watch that and not think this kid has what it takes?

That was not his first, or last, 4th quarter comeback. His first win, against the Cowboys, in 04. The Cowboys again in 05 (blown by the D). The Broncos in 05. The Bears in 07.



Obviously, these statistics doesn’t tell the full story. Indeed, I'm overstating the case a bit because I think Eli takes too far too much heat. But it does tell part of the story. And it's nearly indisputable that Eli is a much better quarterback through the early part of his career than Phil was, even if he doesn't yell on the sidelines quite as much.

On January 25, 1987, Phillip Martin Simms walked out onto the Rose Bowl field in Pasadena, California, and had one of the great games in the history of the NFL. There were two kinds of Giants fans that day – those who had given up on the 1981 first round draft choice, as he struggled through a very shaky career start, and a faithful few that saw a spark, and kept the faith.

Will Elisha Nelson Manning have a day like that? Which kind of Giants fan will you be on that day?

Note: Apples to apples

Many people, when confronted with these arguments, start talking about how the NFL has changed to more of a passing game, so comparing passing statistics across eras doesn't work. This is true if you go back to the 70's. But Bill Walsh and Don Coryell started changing things in the early 80's, and it shows in the statistics.
In the 70's, the 10 season passing leaders averaged 3,434 yards per season (including pro-rating for 14 year seasons). Only Dan Fouts in 79 passed 4000 yards. In the 80's, the average jumped to 4,587 in the non-strike years, which is actually higher than the average so far in the 2000s (4492). So yes, you can compare Eli to Phil and call it apples to apples.

Manning-Brady: Best "Who's Better?" Debate Ever

Wilt-Russell. Marino-Montana. ARod-Jeter.

Most of the "Who's Better?" barstool debates follow the same script. One player (Wilt, Marino, A-Rod) puts up monster stats and sets records, but generally comes up short in the post-season. The other (Russell, Montana, Jeter) puts up good stats, but wins far more championships. *

Team allegiances aside, the guy who thinks Bill Russell's 11 rings and 15 point scoring average trumps Wilt Chamberlain's one ring and 30 point scoring average, is likely a Montana-Jeter booster as well. And vice-versa. (For the record, I tend to support the stats guy. It's not Marino's fault he didn't get Jerry Rice, Roger Craig, and the Niner D as his teammates).

Until 2006, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning followed the script perfectly. Manning put up monster stats but did little in January. Brady won 3 Super Bowls with efficient but not eye-popping statistics.

Then Peyton became Brady. This isn't unusual - great players who don't win are often told they lack that special winning quality - but they often prove their critics wrong (see: Elway, John). It started on November 7, 2005 when the Colts, who had lost 7 straight to the Pats, went into Foxboro and whipped the Pats. They beat them in Foxboro again a year later; and again in January 07, this time in the AFC Championship game, and with one of the greatest comebacks ever. Peyton Manning and the Colts went on to win the Super Bowl, giving his barstool supporters a huge edge in the Manning-Brady debate.

But now something truly unusual is happening...Brady is becoming Peyton. Tom Brady, who never threw more than 28 TDs in a season and had only thrown for 4K yards once, is on a pace to break all of Manning's and Marino's single-season records. The barstool debaters are flummoxed.

This doesn't happen. Jeter doesn't suddenly hit 50 homers one year. Russell doesn't win an NBA scoring title. Montana doesn't throw 40 TD passes.

The only thing that can make this story better is if the Colts beat the Pats in January. Then the role-reversal will be complete. And the barstool boosters will have to reverse their roles, too.


* I've ignored individual sport rivalries like Ali-Frazier, Tiger-Phil, or Borg-McEnroe. In those sports, winning truly is the only thing that matters. As for Mantle-Mays, I think baseball fans were smarter in the 50's, and realized that Mantle won more titles than Mays because of Berra, Whitey et. al. rather than some magical winning superpower.