Category Archives: General Football

Impress Nick Mangold, win Jets tickets

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Long tweet so bear with me. The 10000th tweet contest for 4 tickets to Thurs. game will require you to do the #JETS chant while wearing green in a location in NYC (btw 48th and 42nd streets) tomorrow at 11am. With the 10000th tweet I will tell you the location. The winner will be the first to do the chant. Good luck!

– Nick Mangold, Twitter.

I would totally do this if I wasn’t going to be at the Terry Collins presser tomorrow morning and didn’t have plans for Thanksgiving.

The big surprise, though, is while you’re doing the J-E-T-S chant Nick Mangold pops up out of nowhere and pancake-blocks you.

Balls on the money

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Everybody look at Mark Sanchez:

No, seriously. Look at him:

On my walk to the studio this afternoon I overheard a couple guys walking in front of me recapping the Jets game. I didn’t pick up much of their conversation, but I caught this:

“He threw two balls on the money.”

Presumably the man was referring to Sanchez’s last two passes of the game, the 42-yard strike to Braylon Edwards and the six-yard game-winning touchdown to Santonio Holmes on the next play. But I think “balls on the money” is a pretty apt way to describe Sanchez’s performance the last couple weeks. And I say that even though I have no idea what “balls on the money” even means.

It’s beyond cliched to refer to Sanchez’s poise, now that Deadspin exposed the N.Y. media’s penchant for using the term to characterize the Jets’ young QB. But watch the Jets’ last drive and offer me a better description. Or just look at the second picture above — taken immediately after the touchdown pass to Holmes. Sanchez isn’t even smiling yet. Brad Smith is giving his quarterback a well-deserved celebratory hug, and Sanchez appears to be still focused on the task he just completed.

Yesterday, for perhaps the first time in his young career, Sanchez — with help from his receivers — carried the Jets to victory. In the fourth quarter, with the Texans surging, the Jets’ secondary, offensive line and ground game all fell apart. Sanchez picked them up.

Some will say the Jets were lucky to beat the Texans, like they were lucky to beat the Browns and the Lions, and they don’t really deserve their NFL-best 8-2 record.

To that I say: Whatever. Look at Mark Sanchez.

The Book of Eli

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Last year, of course, the Giants started 5-0, hit the halfway point at 5-3 and then went 3-5 over the final eight games. Instead of saying he planned to assert himself as a leader and remind his teammates to fight through adversity and learn from last year’s collapse, Manning seems to think what happened in the past stays in the past.

That’s short-sighted….

“Athletes don’t think that way. We don’t think that way.”

But doesn’t it go deeper than simply thinking about the next game?

“No, it doesn’t,” Manning said. “You prepare. You play Philly. You prepare for your next game and you go play. It’s all you can do. It’s all you think about. The only thing I’m worried about is Philly’s defense and their scheme and us getting ready for them.”

– Gary Myers, N.Y. Daily News.

As Chris M pointed out in the comments section yesterday, just last week everyone was penciling the Giants into the Super Bowl. They played poorly against Dallas, no doubt, but it’s still one game.

While it’s hard to fault Myers for pointing to the Giants’ second-half struggles under Tom Coughlin, it’s also difficult to determine exactly the source of those struggles. Certainly the ever-present spectre of randomness could play a part.

Otherwise, if we’re absolutely desperate for a good reason the Giants have gone 41-15 in the first halves of their regular seasons and 20-29 in the latter halves under Coughlin, I’d guess it has more to do with strategy and the coaches’ inability to adjust the Giants’ gameplans for teams that have a half-season worth of video to scout than the complacency and lack of accountability Myers seems eager to diagnose.

Because Manning’s quotes in the column seem to embody exactly the type of mental fortitude we usually celebrate in winning players and teams. Mariano Rivera, most notably, is constantly praised for his ability to put his rare mishaps behind him and focus on the task at hand.

I can’t say that this is necessarily the case for all athletes, but it seems that — and Manning suggests — they are generally better served planning for the next challenge then worrying about the past or distant future (those responsibilities fall on the coaches and GMs).

Plus Manning is probably in a no-win situation when asked if he’s thinking about the past: If he says he is, he’s sure to be lambasted for letting the “collapses” get into his head. If he says he isn’t, he’s guilty of “short-sighted” thinking.

For some reason, Steve Phillips afraid of Rex Ryan

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So there is no doubt, absolutely none, that plenty of NFL types – whether it be Ryan critics in the media, club executives or other assorted pigskin riffraff – would like nothing more than to knock that smile off Rex Ryan’s face before stapling his mouth shut. They would love to be holding that picture up Sunday after a Jets loss to Cleveland, saying: Is Rex laughing now? When’s his next Yuck Barn appearance?

“It (Ryan’s shtick) was unprofessional,” Brandon Tierney said Thursday on ESPN-1050. “…I’m having a hard time separating the ‘fun’ from the Jets not playing crisp football. They better win the game (Sunday).”

Even those who enjoyed Ryan’s hijinks were dubious. Such as SXM Radio’s Steve Phillips.

“As a (former) GM, watching him (Ryan) and listening to what he has to say makes me scared,” Phillips said on the air Thursday.

By no means is this anything new. When it comes to Ryan the song remains the same. In July, the chorus swore Ryan and Co.’s decision allowing HBO’s “Hard Knocks” cameras to invade the “privacy” of Gang Green’s Cortland training compound would return to haunt and hurt the team this season. The Jets were not only putting themselves in a position to be mocked, but giving the competition even more incentive to pound them.

– Bob Raissman, N.Y. Daily News.

Y’all know how I feel about sanctimony in general, but on top of that, it’s really weird to me how many people seem so certain that Ryan’s wig stunt represented some sort of nefarious and calculated plan to draw attention away from the Jets’ sloppy play against Detroit.

I mean, have none of these people ever had a sibling? Could the truth not be the simplest possible explanation: That Ryan is actually just having fun, and seizing the opportunity to taunt his twin brother? The awesome Times feature from earlier this week really made it sound like the Ryans have a pretty healthy, active rivalry going.

And Rob Ryan does indeed have pretty silly hair, and Rex is probably pretty excited to be able to lord his weight loss over his brother, so, you know, why not dress up like  him and take some potshots?

Perhaps I’m biased because I’m a Jets fan and I happen to think Rex Ryan is boss. I just don’t really get why we should be listening to odd and haphazardly directed sanctimony from Steve Phillips of all people, when it strikes me that NFL players probably get pretty motivated for games on their own, regardless of what the other team’s coach has said or done in press conferences that week.

And you don’t have to remind me that bulletin boards exist. I get that. But if you could somehow prove to me that mid-week trash talking actually affects the outcome of games even the tiniest bit, I’d be a lot more open to all the bluster.