FOOTBALL

It’s about damn time for the season to start. Order up some pizza and wings and let’s get this party started. There are lots of storylines to watch for tonight:

1. Can Eli Manning bring his good playoff performance into the regular season? In case you forgot, he tied for the interception lead and had a regular season QB rating of 73.9, so it’s definitely not a given.


Did this really happen?!?!

2. How will Jim Zorn do in his first game as head coach? The West-Coast Offense looks to spice things up in Washington, and we’ll see if an opened-up playbook can avoid more terrible performances such as the Redskins’ last 2 pre-season games. It will not help that receiving options are limited with Thomas in a small role and Kelly and Davis not contributing.
3. Without Strahan and Umenyiora, how will the Giants D-line perform? It’s no secret that this was the key to their playoff run, so we’ll see if Tuck and Kiwanuka are suitable replacements. It may come down to whether these guys can keep up heavy pressure all game because while the rotation at DE is solid, it’s not exceptional like last year.
4. Will Greg Blache bring the heat as the Redskins new defensive coordinator like his old boss “double G” did? The scheme remains mostly unchanged, but with Springs inactive, Jason Taylor hurt, and LaRon Landry seeing his first game action in 8 months, I’m going to predict no, for this week.

An NFC Beast game to kickoff the season – What could be better?

All of a sudden Eli Manning is indispensible?

I fully expect the media to show lots of love to the defending Super Bowl champs, whoever they may be on any given year. But I think it’s time to chill out a little bit on crowning Eli Manning as such a great QB. Whether it be madden ratings or this “indispensible players” article, it’s well out of hand. We’re talking about a guy who’s regular-season QB rating last year was 73.9 and has never had a season-long rating higher than 77.0.

But, of course, everyone will point to his amazing playoff performance where he had a 95.7 QB rating. However, if you look into the stats, it seems that he plays worse when the Giants depend on him more. Take his 4 playoff games:

Game	Attempts	QB Rating
Divisional	18	132.4
Wild Card	27	117.1
Super Bowl	34	87.3
Conference	40	72.0

His rating drops alarmingly quickly when he attempts more passes. If he truly were “indispensable”, I would expect that his rating would at least be close when he has to take the team on his shoulders. It’s great that he had a rating of 132.4 against Dallas, but are you going to tell me that a guy who only completed 12 passes in that game was indispensable to the team? Certainly being a great football player is about more than just stats and a QB rating, but it seems to me that his new reputation is living too much on one timely (clutch?) drive in the Super Bowl than on actual evidence.

If we want to talk “indispensable”, we should be talking Michael Strahan. In 2006 the Giants went 6-3 in games where he played, and 2-5 in games that he didn’t (I feel like everybody knows that stat already). Justin Tuck is a great player, but he isn’t going to fill the huge void left by arguably the best defensive end in the game. Looks like it’s time for Eli Manning to step up for real.

Final thing – I can’t write an Eli post without including this unforgettable picture from a few years ago. Yep, good luck Giants.

French Open Update

We’re into the second week of the French Open, and my pick for the women’s final was completely destroyed. Sharapova lost a close 3 set match to Safina. Although Safina was a 13 seed, this wasn’t as big of an upset as it seems. Sharapova lost to Safina in 2006. This match was crazy though because Sharapova had a match point…and promptly lost the next 2 sets. The third set wasn’t even close, as Safina took it 6-2. Not a clutch performance there by Sharapova, and she misses out again on a chance to complete her career grand slam. Things could be worse though – she’s still probably the biggest women’s tennis player in the world, and has commercials with ESPN, Gatorade, Nike, and Cannon. {BTW…i’m sorry to discuss clutchness because I know that’s a very popular topic with our blog but…why is Peyton Manning in those clutch gatorade commercials? I think I’ll take Tom Brady over Peyton Manning in clutch situations every single time. That’s fine though..Peyton’s lead some game winning drives and is a super bowl champion and all now. But this is just ridiculous. ELI FREAKIN MANNING? IN THE LEAGUE OF CLUTCH? That was not a clutch play. The catch was a MIRACLE. That’s what you do in madden/ncaa08 when there’s a mad blitz…you run backwards about 10 yards, and then lob a high pass to your receiver. I don’t think Eli Manning’s clutch skills caused that pass. Fact. For evidence, watch any end game situation Eli Manning plays next season (except against the Redskins – their D’s awful) . Guaranteed to throw for >1 interception.}

But back to the Open. Both of the Williams sisters lost on the same day, in the second round of the French Open. That was pretty surprising considering they seem to be taking tennis seriously right now. I really believe that when on their games, the Williams sisters are the best tennis players in the world. Henin was the only one who could consistently compete and beat them; Sharapova still has to prove that. One thing that is cool about this suddenly wide-open French Open is that there are 4 possible overall #1′s at the end of the tournament: Sharapova, Ivanovic, Jankovic and Kuznetsova. Updated Prediction: Ivanovic will beat Jankovic in the semifinals and go on to win the French.

Men’s Draw

Most of the top players are still intact on the men’s side of the draw. Ginepri was the last American player standing and he was also recently eliminated. Hopefully the Americans work on their clay court games because their next Davis Cup matches (kinda like the world cup of tennis) will be on clay, at Spain. Nadal appears to be peaking at the right time – he absolutely dominated his quarterfinals match, winning 6-1, 6-1, 6-1. His next match should be a great one, as he faces Djokovic in the semifinals. The last Frenchman standing is Gael Monfils. He’s making his breakthrough. This kid’s a baller, and a lotta people like his chances in the years to come. Prediction: Everything’s still pointing to a Nadal-Federer final, and Nadal’s my predicted winner.