This is not your father's NFC East

The Giants scored 38 points and had over 500 yards of offense ... and lost.

There's something wrong here, and it's not just Bill Sheridan's fault, although his defense was atrocious again and he deserves to be thrown into the East River with a cinderblock tied to his ankle.

Still, if you give up a defensive touchdown and a special teams touchdown, you're not going to win very many games, and those were only two of what felt like a dozen mistakes the Giants made last night against Philly. That game was an example of everything wrong with the Giants this season.

Every time the Giants looked like they were back in the game, they would come up small. The defense let Philly drive right down the field after the opening kickoff, probably the easiest six-play, 67-yard touchdown drive you'll ever see. Then Brandon Jacobs' fumble turned into a Sheldon Brown touchdown, and before I could even finish my first beer, the Giants were down 14-0.

Eli Manning did his best to keep them in the game and thanks to some god-awful tackling by the Eagles' secondary, Hakeem Nicks's 68-yard catch-and-run got the Giants within 14-10.

It was 17-10 when DeSean Jackson, who seems to be taking over for Brian Westbrook as the Eagle who absolutely kills us at every opportunity, made his first big play of the game. Now, I am not a special teams coach, but from everything I know about football, you want the punt returner to field the ball near the sideline in order to prevent him from having too many options about where to run.

Sound strategy, yes. Of course, when your coverage unit forgets the critical element of TACKLING the returner, someone like Jackson gets to run 72 yards untouched to the end zone.

Eli and the offense answered with yet another touchdown drive late in the half to once again get within a touchdown, and it was time for the defense to suffer their own brain fart.

Osi made his first big play in ages by stripping the ball out of McNabb's hands and into the air. Yes, Michael Boley should have caught it and scored the tying touchdown, but he didn't, and the ball then sat there, and sat there ... and sat there.

Maybe they were all just stunned that Osi managed to find himself in the same zipcode as an opposing quarterback, but for whatever reason, nobody picked it up. The play was eventually blown dead, and the Eagles again shoved the ball down our throats for a 30-17 halftime lead.

Amazingly, the Giants were ahead 31-30 less than 10 minutes into the third quarter, a lead that lasted exactly 15 seconds. McNabb to Jackson, 60 yards, touchdown.

It was another failure of the blitz to generate any pressure whatsoever, and of the secondary to even come within five yards of Jackson down the field. How many times are they going to let him get a free release off the line before someone decides to bump him a little? I realize the secondary is depleted, so maybe they should be doing something besides letting Philly's only viable receiving threat run free?

But what do I know, I'm not Tom Coughlin's bestest buddy in the whole wide world like Sheridan. Glad to see Coughlin gave him the old vote of confidence today, because when you're coaching a unit ranked 28th in the NFL, you're clearly doing a great job.

Curious about which four defense are worse? Chiefs, Bucs, Rams and Lions. Combined record of those four teams: 7-45.

And yes, the Browns defense is ranked ahead of the Giants.

Let me put this bluntly, Sheridan sucks, his defense sucks, and as a result, the Giants suck. Sheridan has made me forget all about how much I hate Kevin Gilbride, and that should tell you everything you need to know right there.

The defense had a chance to come up big in the fourth quarter, but instead allowed the Eagles to kill over seven minutes on a 12-play, 91-yard drive which was the football equivalent of the prison shower rape scene in American History X.

Amazingly, this team still has a reasonable chance at making the playoffs, which is a sad commentary on the depth of the NFC this year. With games left against the Redskins, Panthers and then Vikings (who will probably be resting players in Week 17) the Giants have an outside chance at finishing 10-6. With the Cowboys in the midst of their annual December collapse and the Giants holding the tiebreaker, that would probably be enough to sneak in.

It might not even take 10 wins, they could also probably get in at 9-7, but in looking at this team, would you even want them to? Assuming they got in as the 6th seed in the NFC, they would either play in Philly or in Arizona. The Eagles have scored 85 points against the Giants in two games, and Kurt Warner would be licking his chops if he got to face this defense out in Arizona. With Fitzgerald, Boldin and Breaston, the Cardinals might drop 60 on us.

The Giants will probably make the playoffs just to make us all sit through that on Wild Card weekend.

This F'ing team.

The Giants have a pulse after all

Heading into Sunday's game against the Cowboys, I was fully prepared for the Giants to be humiliated at home and sink into a tailspin to end the season.

What I forgot, is that the Giants never make ANYTHING easy, and that includes playing out the string of a season. It would have been easy for them to pack it in after six weeks of mostly brutal football, but they didn't, and as a result they're still in the mix in the NFC East.

As it turns out, I should have listened to the two Cowboys fans I work with, both of whom were positive their team would fall flat on their faces.

A lot of the credit has to go to the Cowboys, who continue to find ways to lose in December that boggle the mind. With just three minutes left in the first half yesterday, they had a 10-0 lead. By halftime, it was 14-10 Giants, a two-and-a-half minute span that may have saved the season for Big Blue, at least temporarily.

Then, as the first half wound down, Flozell Adams reminded the world what a colossal asshole he is by waiting until nobody was looking and shoving Justin Tuck to the ground from behind. This is the same fat bastard who hurt Tuck in Dallas during the Week Two game when he stuck his leg out and tripped him before Tuck turned Tony Romo into a stain on Jerry Jones's new field.

Today, Flozell came out and called Tuck a "nobody," which made me wonder why he would waste his time cheap-shotting him twice. Whatever the case, I'm sure Flozell will have plenty of chances to use yesterday's maneuver in his future stay at a correctional facility.

After a terrible interception by Eli Manning in the third quarter, the Cowboys were able to take the lead again on Tony Romo's second TD pass to Roy Williams, who apparently decided to show up for Week 13 after sabotaging my fantasy season from the moment his name came out of my mouth at the draft until I cut him a month ago. Screw you, Roy.

Then, the Cowboys showed up again, this time failing to cover Brandon Jacobs out of the backfield and allowing a three-yard pass to turn into a 74-yard touchdown.

The game's other big play came in the 4th, when Domenik Hixon broke a 79-yard punt return for a touchdown that essentially nailed down the win. I don't know how many Cowboys had a chance to tackle Hixon, but none of them did, and as a result we got to see yet another entry into the ongoing series of "Wade Phillips is confused" sideline camera shots.

I don't really know what to make of the win from the Giants perspective, obviously they needed it to stay alive and did what they had to do, but I still wonder how much the result had to do with the Cowboys' annual December incompetence. Nevertheless, I'll take it.

The positive sign for the defense was the play of Jonathan Goff at middle linebacker, a performance that probably means Antonio Pierce should expect his walking papers after the season is over. For the first time in weeks, they didn't give up big plays, and when you force Tony Romo to drive a long field in short increments, eventually he's going to screw it up, that's just the way it is.

So, it was a satisfying victory, and a necessary one, but there is still a lot of work to be done before the playoffs are a reality. Remember what I wrote after the rusty coat-hanger abortion that was the Giants' Thanksgiving night performance in Denver?

At 6-5, the Giants are entering "must win" territory beginning next week when the Cowboys come to New York. Naturally, they beat their annual Thanksgiving Day patsy (in this case, the Raiders), and now have a two-game lead in the division.

Knowing the Giants like I do, they'll do something stupid like win that game and the following one against the Eagles, then lose to the Redskins and Panthers.

Yeah, that's still in play, and don't think for a second that a win Sunday night over the Eagles would guarantee anything as far as the playoffs go either. I'd rather not be pessimistic AND prophetic, but again, these are the Giants.

The situation for them remains the same, they have to win this week. It's incredible that as badly as they've played since starting 5-0, they are only a game back in the division.

Rich athlete cheats on his wife - stop the presses

Let me preface what I'm about to write with the following warnings, in addition to the one in the header of this blog.

First, to members of my family, particularly my mother, aunts and other females, I apologize in advance, and offer you this chance to close this page without reading. I love you all.

Second, to other women out there who may someday have the pleasure of my company: what I'm about to say is in no way representative of my view of monogamous relationships. In addition to being one of the most attractive, kind-hearted and thoughtful men in the whole wide world, I'm also fiercely loyal, and do not condone cheating in any form.

(E-mail address to the right for dates).

Now, let's do this...

I've had enough of the non-stop barrage of sanctimonious sports writers, radio hosts, network anchors and society at large over the simply stunning revelations that Tiger Woods has been cheating on his wife with a wide array of surgically-enhanced tramps nationwide.

Let's just make this clear so that everyone understands, professional athletes all cheat on their wives. That whole "family man" thing is a load of crap. When you're wealthy, famous, athletic and travel constantly, it's a virtual certainty that you're going to be offered guilt-free sex on a regular basis.

Then you have the people who say, "but his wife was a Swedish model, why would he cheat on her?" Yeah, she WAS a model, now she's a mother of two who Tiger has been plowing for years. Been there, done that, bought the post-ride photo.

There's a saying I love to use in situations like this, and I want you to read it and commit it to memory, because truer words have never been spoken.

No matter how hot a woman is, somewhere there's a man who is tired of her shit and bored of screwing her.

That's what most people don't understand about things like this. I know sportswriters, and the reason they can't grasp the concept is that most of them are wearing a sweatshirt that still has a mustard stain from a free press meal they ate in 1997.

In their wildest dreams, they couldn't get a woman like Elin Woods to look at them twice. You know why everyone points out that she was a model? It's because every one of them has rubbed one out to her pictures at some point in their lives, which they probably downloaded using a free pressroom WiFi connection.

Normal men are faithful to their wives because they have no options. They found a woman who can tolerate the sight of their naked bodies and hung on for dear life. Even a good-looking "normal" man doesn't have a difficult time keeping it in his pants, because he's not offered sex on an hourly basis by women whose only purpose in life is to nail famous people.

Think about a normal day for Tiger Woods during the golf season. He flies on a private jet, probably with at least one or two smoking hot flight attendants.

He arrives at a four star hotel, which has an entire staff of ridiculous women on hand just to cater to every whim of their celebrity guest.

Then, he goes out and wins golf tournaments. Have you ever been to one of those? Do you have any idea how many gorgeous women are at these things OUTSIDE the ropes? That doesn't even include the dozens of them working in the PGA hospitality tent, or the various corporate sponsorship tents around the course.

I once watched him playing $10,000 hands of Blackjack at the Atlantis Hotel in Nassau. You know who else was watching him? Women, lots of them.

Ask yourself this: how many times in your entire life has a woman walked up to you and offered sex? It's never happened to me, and I'm devastatingly handsome. I'll bet it's never happened to most men.

It probably happens to Tiger once a day. It's got to be hard saying no over and over again. Frankly, it's just rude.

Now, Tiger hasn't really accepted his role in the universe, because if he had, he wouldn't be releasing carefully-worded statements about his "transgressions", he'd be standing on his front lawn saying, "hell yeah I nailed those two women, and probably dozens more that you'll never know about, want to make something of it?"

His other mistake was giving them his real cell number. That's how you know Tiger is a dork. Michael Jordan would never make a mistake like that, which is why in his entire career you never heard anything about his extramarital life. Jordan kept his women in line, another area Tiger failed in.

That voicemail he left for that one woman was pathetic: "uhhh, hey it's Tiger, could you please take your name off your outgoing message so my wife doesn't know it's you."

Yeah, that'll work. What he should have said was, "look, cancel your phone service right now, I'll have a new one at your house in 30 seconds. In the meantime, keep your mouth shut."

I actually have to blame MJ for this a little bit, this should be first day stuff at the Nike headquarters.

So what's the point of all this? It's pretty simple, people need to stop acting surprised when a married athlete turns out to be a philanderer. That's not to say that it's "right", but that's just the way it is. Every athlete or celebrity you've admired is probably a scumbag in some form. Deal with it.

In a way, it's more embarrassing that people who cover sports for a living are so surprised by it. They should know this.

In high school, athletes got girls. The best high school athletes are recruited to college, and on their visits they have girls thrown at them left and right. Watch the scene in He Got Game where Jesus Shuttlesworth is shown around campus by Rick Fox and ends up in a threesome with Jill Kelly and Chasey Lain. That stuff happens everywhere.

Once at college, surprise, athletes get loads of girls. I knew a girl in college who used to hookup with one player because he happened to live with the player she really wanted. You might call her a dumb college girl, but dumb college girls with no morals end up as dumb professional women with no morals.

You know who dumb professional women with no morals end up nailing? Athletes, often ones with wives and children.

Are you getting the idea? Stop being naive all your life and realize that there is a world that doesn't exist for the vast majority of the population, where vapid and idiotic women whore around with wealthy and athletic men.

Tale as old as time.

Thanks for nothing, Giants

Let me start off by saying that I love Thanksgiving. The food is delicious, it's great to see family I haven't seen in a while, and nothing beats a turkey and red wine nap.

Of course the Giants had to ruin the whole day by stinking up the joint out in Denver, with a performance that nearly brought the 5 pounds of turkey, stuffing and pie back up my esophagus. Watching them play on a normal NFL Sunday is gut-wrenching enough, but to have them ruin the end of a holiday with that stinkbomb of a performance is just too much, especially considering that I'm one of the poor saps that has to work tomorrow.

(Note: to those of you planning on Black Friday shopping in the Times Square/Rockefeller Center area, the sidewalks are for walking, not gawking.)

Getting back to the Giants, I have a friend who periodically posts on this blog who is one of those "glass half full" type people. I'm curious to know what positives he can take out of the utter disaster in Denver.

The offense managed only 267 yards, most of which came long after the outcome was no longer in doubt. During the competitive phase of the game (the first half) they had just 38 yards of offense. To paraphrase Jim Mora, "they couldn't complete a pass, they couldn't run the ball, they couldn't get a first down, they couldn't do diddly-poo."

Just a pitiful showing.

Defensively, they weren't much better. The Broncos - a team that had averaged just over 9 points per game during their four game losing streak - marched up and down the field in the first half to take a 16-0 lead at halftime, and held the ball for more than 35 minutes in the game.

You tell me what the positives are. Only 45 penalty yards, I guess that's something. Also I heard there was a good in-flight movie on the trip out there. After that performance, they should be forced to watch Red Planet on the way home. Twice.

At 6-5, the Giants are entering "must win" territory beginning next week when the Cowboys come to New York. Naturally, they beat their annual Thanksgiving Day patsy (in this case, the Raiders), and now have a two-game lead in the division.

Knowing the Giants like I do, they'll do something stupid like win that game and the following one against the Eagles, then lose to the Redskins and Panthers. They only really have the luxury of one more loss anyway, since it'll probably take 10 wins to secure a playoff spot.

In any event, I'm casting my vote against the Giants ever playing on Thanksgiving again.

Hope you all had a lovely holiday despite the game.

Seven's the key number here

In the previous three games before last night's matchup with Columbus at the Garden, the Rangers scored a total of six goals.

In a span of just over 22 minutes during the 1st and 2nd periods last night, they scored seven.

This is a team that had scored more than three goals in a game only once since October 26, and had been held to two or fewer 8 times in that 11-game stretch. I have no idea where last night's outburst came from, but we can only hope that it's a sign that the offense is going to start getting back on track and not an incredible fluke against a brutal defensive team that has allowed a whopping 79 goals this season.

My money is on the latter.

Still, for one night at least, it was nice to see the puck actually going in the net. I didn't get the game on until about 7:30, at which time the Rangers were already down 2-0. I fought the urge to just turn it off right away, and was rewarded almost immediately by Marian Gaborik (big surprise).

In less than six minutes, the 2-0 deficit had become a 3-2 lead. Li'l Michael Del Zotto scored the 3rd goal, as he continues to be the Rangers' best defenseman on a nightly basis.

Then in a span of just 1:11 in the 2nd, the Rangers scored three times, thanks to a combination of Gaborik's wizardry, brutal goaltending and absurdly criminal defensive zone play by the Blue Jackets. I thought for a second Michal Roszival and Marek Malik were getting a regular shift on their blueline, that's how bad it was.

Gaborik had another four points and makes it look incredibly easy on a nightly basis, and at least for one game he wasn't asked to do it all for this team. Sean Avery seems to be showing some signs of life in the last couple weeks, and they need him to keep that up.

Of course knowing the Rangers, this will be their goal-scoring output for the entire week and they'll lose the next three on the road.

Never a dull moment

Say this for the Giants, they really know how to keep games interesting right to the bitter end.

Sure, they could have taken their 14-point 4th quarter lead and put yesterday's game against the Falcons away, but what fun would that be when you can let a banged up team drive down the field for two touchdowns in the last six minutes to force overtime?

If you didn't know that was going to happen, you really should have. This is who the Giants have been for years, maybe even decades.

On the plus side, they actually didn't let the game completely slip away, thanks to the toss of a coin. If the Falcons had won the toss before overtime, you can bet this blog would have a decidedly more angry tone to it, because there was a zero percent chance the defense could have prevented them from driving for the winning score.

None.

Fortunately that didn't happen, and instead of talking about how the 5-5 Giants are plummeting out of playoff contention, we get to talk about how at 6-4 they are right in the thick of the race despite another less-than-stellar performance.

Anyway, a win is a win and I'll take it. It's amazing that Eli was able to put up the numbers he did behind that offensive line, especially without the threat of any running game whatsoever. It is nice that Eli and Kevin Gilbride figured out a way to get Kevin Boss involved, I almost forgot what it was like to see him catch a pass.

Still, if the 2007 season taught us anything it's that you only have to make it into the playoffs, then anything can happen. I sincerely doubt this team is strong enough on either side of the ball to replicate that magical run, but then again I wouldn't have believed that was possible either.

Now, it's off to Denver on Thanksgiving night. The Broncos have completely fallen apart, losing four in a row since starting 6-0. Yesterday they lost 32-3 at home against the Chargers, the fourth straight time they've given up 27+ points in a game.

It's a game the Giants should win, which means I have absolutely no confidence that they will. The game also cuts into my usual Thanksgiving nap time, which is a major pain in the ass.

After that game, it's the Cowboys then Eagles in New York. Win two of these three, and the playoffs look good.

Some Giants Perspective

Reading the boards and listening to the talking heads this morning one would think the Falcons left the stadium yesterday a winner.

They didn't.

This is probably going to sound ridiculous, but the Giants did a lot right in pass defense yesterday and the numbers bear that out. Ryan dropped back to pass 53 times yesterday; his 268 yards passing is a very low total considering the number of pass plays called. Granted, 250 of those yards came in the second half, but still on 35 attempts. They did call some shot plays and hit none of them, primarily because of a big bounceback game from Corey Webster. They hit one completion of over 25 yards; this is an improvement over what we've seen from this pass defense in the recent past. And if Tuck had better hands a well-timed zone blitz call by Sheridan would have put the game out of reach with an interception.

What happened yesterday is Ryan nickel and dimed the Giants to death, and on critical downs there was no answer for the immortal Tony Gonzalez. Covering the TE is going to continue to be a problem for the Giants as long as they remain slow at middle linebacker. Boley's speed and physicality have been a refreshing improvement to a painfully slow linebacking corps that certainly will need a free agent acquisition this spring (hello D'Qwell Jackson). As Boley, and hopefully Ross and Canty, continue to get healthier it should reflect positively on the pass defense. The pressure yesterday on Ryan was fairly consistent and he was forced to make a large number of throws under duress. To his credit he was largely successful doing so in the second half, especially on third down.

Chalk yesterday up to the offense and especially Eli Manning, but don't discount the trends of defensive improvement shown over the last two games. The big plays are down and the defensive pressure is up. Thursday's game in Denver is a good opportunity to build on that against a flagging Broncos team. If this team can win 2 out of these next 3 they should be at worst a live dog in the playoffs if for no other reason than no team wanting Eli Manning walking into their building for a one and done game.