A Look at the Giants: Eagles Flying High Heading Into Giants Match-up

In an episode of Season 5 of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Charlie, Mac and Dennis debate the merits of being "birdmen". These are sort of like eagles, but as the song they end up singing states "'Cuz we're birds of war now, but we're also men!" In some ways, this is Michael Vick too. As an Eagle he's been  a bird (attacking through the air) as well as a man (attacking on the ground). It is with that convoluted story that I bring you to the greatest challenge for the Giants defense: how to contain Michael Vick.

The Giants want to see Vick on the ground a lot Sunday (SI)

Justin Tuck tells SI's Peter King that the Giants gameplan is to pressure Vick. After watching Vick pick apart a passive Redskins defense, the Giants have decided to disrupt Vick's timing which makes a ton of sense. I think with Vick's ability now to be a pocket passer (and also the fact that the Eagles very wisely play Vick out of shotgun to keep him away from the line) makes him too dangerous to just sit in the pocket. When Vick was with the Falcons, the Giants would basically allow Vick to run around the pocket with a "shadow" designed to watch him from the linebacking position. With Vick's passing ability, you can't do that anymore. Especially not with the Giants' serious issues on deep throws.

The real issue for the G-men on Sunday may actually not be Vick--it may be themselves. Already with injuries at the offensive line and wide receiver, the Giants saw Ramses Barden hit Injured Reserve and now Shawn Andrews isn't even a definite for Sunday. If Andrews can't go, Will Beatty will get the start at left tackle with Kevin Boothe at left guard. This normally wouldn't be such an issue if Eli Manning had his best short yardage receiver, Steve Smith, to go to. But with Smith out until at least early December, Manning will have to find some way to gain time to throw the ball (more tight end sets? more shotgun? more bootlegs? more playaction?). Or the Giants will have to win the game on the ground with Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs leading the way to victory.

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Adding Another MLB Playoff Team Would Be Bad For Baseball

Bud Selig has an amazing product (read: money printer) in Major League Baseball but like a spoiled, rich kid, Selig sees the National Football League and thinks: "hey, we're still not them". So with that in mind--and totally ignoring the fact baseball has a 162-game regular season or the fact that World Series are already played in November--this amazingly idiotic idea of adding yet another playoff team is gaining steam. As a Yankee fan, I should be happy since this basically guarantees the Yankees will make the playoffs every season, but I can't help but feel sad for the sport. Baseball actually made a great move with the first Wild Card back in 1995 but a second Wild Card would be totally counterproductive. To prove why, I would like to show you the "immortal" teams that would have finished as the second Wild Card team in each of the past few years:

The Yankees 2008 Games 3 starter, Sidney Ponson (NYDN)

The 2010 San Diego Padres: Totally collapse and lose the division? Don't worry, you're still in the playoffs! You may have not really been up to snuff, but this is America in 2010 and you get extra credit points for trying. Congrats, kids...you're going to the playoffs!

The 2010 Boston Red Sox: All those injuries weren't really your fault so we're just going to give you a ticket to the big dance. Besides, you had to battle hard to make sure you won the second Wild Card spot over those tough Chicago White Sox and Manny Ramirez!

The 2009 Florida Marlins: Your owner doesn't care enough to spend on the team? It's OK! That's what Uncle Bud is here for! You'll love all that extra revenue from making the playoffs and can spend it on your guys next year--well, if you want to, of course.

The 2009 Detroit Tigers: Sober up Miguel Cabrera, because you're going to the playoffs! Forget that epic collapse down the stretch! Forget that embarassing arrest! You can booze it up when the World Series is over right after Thanksgiving!

The 2008 New York Mets: Don't you worry your little heads about blowing that big lead--again. For a second year in a row, we've got you covered with Wild Card #2! Jerry Manuel is a hero leading you guys to the playoffs. The Wilpons will have to wait before bulldozing Shea.

The 2008 New York Yankees: You really shouldn't close the Old Yankee Stadium without some playoff games so here they are! Imagine a playoff rotation of Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina, Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson! The competition will be shaking in their boots!

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You Can Get With This Or You Can Get With That Week 11

Get with Shaun Hill not with Ben Roethlisberger

All signs point to avoiding Big Ben as QB in Week 11 (WaPo)

Looking at Roethlisberger’s gaudy stat line last week can be very deceiving. All 3 of his touchdown passes against the inconsistent New England secondary came in the 4th quarter when the game was already out of reach. Against Oakland this week, the game will either be a lot closer or more likely a blowout in the Steeler’s favor, which will mean more Mendenhall than Big Ben. Hines Ward is recovering from a concussion and Mike Wallace will be blanketed by Nnamdi Asomugha. Plus, let’s not forget the Raiders are the second best team in the league against the pass.

The Lions love to throw and they have Calvin Johnson on their team. I don’t care who their quarterback is, I’m signed up. Shaun Hill has been more than serviceable this year, with his hefty weekly yardage numbers more than making up for his occasional pick. This week the Lions get the underachieving Cowboys secondary, which comes in a little nicked up after last week. The game will likely be a shootout and I fully expect Hill to play his part.

Get with Felix Jones not with Knowshon Moreno

With a blowout win against Kansas City, the Broncos we’re able to hand Moreno quite the week as he topped 100 yards rushing for the first time this season. When healthy, Moreno has been very much up and down this season. Against poor rush defenses (Jags, Seahawks, Raiders, Chiefs) Moreno has been great, but against better rush defenses (Jets and Niners) the story hasn’t been the same. The Chargers are 4th in the league this year against the run. You do the math.

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NYAT’s Official Review of Jane Leavy’s Mickey Mantle: The Last Boy

I recently had the pleasure of reading Jane Leavy’s latest work, Mickey Mantle: The Last Boy.  Although this is certainly not the first book written about or by Mickey Mantle, I found Leavy’s work to be rather insightful, particularly for someone like me, who is several generations removed from the days in which The Mick roamed centerfield for the Yankees.

Mind you, Leavy’s work is not a traditional biography or biopic of Mantle. Her work is an attempt to not simply understand who the really Mickey Mantle was, but how he came to become the Mickey Mantle that we remember.  More importantly, she attempts to ascertain what it was that may have contributed to this distinction.

As you might be able to deduce from the title, Mantle was the last of his generation, a boy in a man’s world, playing a boy’s game yet also being asked to be a man at the same time.  Like many of his teammates, be it Billy Martin or Whitey Ford, it was easy to remain a boy in a man’s world, but even easier when you were Mickey Mantle and your potential for baseball greatness outweighed your need to mature into an adult.  At his core, Mickey Mantle was really just ballplayer who felt most secure on the baseball field and most vulnerable when he was not there.  Tormented by several factors, including the young death of his father, instances of child molestation from a former babysitter, and his consistent bouts with injuries, he turned to the psychologically numbing effects of alcohol.  His affection for liquor became his greatest and most public vice, as it stuck with him for almost his entire adult life.

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Applying the "Unearned Run" Principal to Other Sports Stats

In baseball, there is a such thing as an unearned run. It's a run that not the pitcher's fault because some player on his team made an error. Errors themselves are not exactly cut and dry: "could the player have caught the ball?", "did they touch the ball?" and "is this a catch you expect the player to make?" are all questions asked before an official scorer gives an "E" or a hit. I think this is a great way of figuring out the true performance of a pitcher. While the pitcher should be expected to hunker down and not let runners score even when an error is made, the fact that a run resulted from that error can't always be seen as a pitcher's fault. Here's a few other statistics in sports that need to be changed among the same principal idea:

Eli Manning's numbers would look a lot better if tINTs were taken out (WSJ)

NFL -- The Tipped Interception: Eli Manning has had a really good season overall. He has the 5th-most passing yards in the league and is tied for Phillip Rivers for the most passing touchdowns...but he has 13 interceptions to 19 touchdowns, a pretty bad ratio for someone considered an "elite" quarterback. Those 13 INTs put him second-worst in the league to Brett Favre. But anyone who has watched the Giants this season know that Eli Manning didn't truly throw 13 INTs--over half (the Wall Street Journal says at least seven) of those were balls that were either tipped or went through the hands of a receiver right into the arms of a waiting defensive back. Tom Coughlin calls it a "damn plague". In my opinion, those types of picks need to be separated from the chuck-em-up-into-a-crowd INTs (which Manning will throw some of as well). My proposal? A tINT stat that measures the amount of balls that were tipped for INTs. Now balls that the QB threw horribly, a receiver gets his fingertips on and is intercepted by the defense doesn't count here (some of it will take a scorekeeper's ruling like an error), but this will help separate real INTs from the Tipped Interceptions.

MLB -- Team Errors. I know we already have the unearned run in baseball, but we need the team error as well. A pop up to shallow right has the right fielder, second baseman and first baseman all racing for it. All 3 get there but then they look at each other as the ball falls to the ground. No one touched it so no one can be charged with an error, but is this truly the pitcher's fault? No. This should go as an error as well. E-Team. It is totally ridiculous that a player usually has to touch the ball to get an error (mostly in the outfield) since many of the time the issue is that the player doesn't touch the ball. If a player should have caught it but there really is no one to give the error to, just give it to the whole goddamn team. It's totally ridiculous that the announcers blame the ball for falling into the "Bermuda Triangle" when it really just falls in between a bunch of fielders who should have caught it. E-Team.

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What Will Derek Jeter's Next Contract Be? (The Guesses & Contest Winner)

Our contest got a ton of entries, but the first prize winner of a copy of Jane Leavy's New York Times bestseller, "The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood" is Peter McLaughlin (@pjmclaugh on Twitter). Congrats to him, but there were many, many more guesses of what Derek Jeter's contract will look like. It will be interesting to come back to these in a few weeks and see who wins the second book as the person who got closest (in years/dollars combination) to the actual result. Here are the predictions from our crowd sourcing prognostication (in annual value order and with options picked up):

Name	Years	Dollar	Average
@JayHyne	4	$48	$12.0
@Laurenmass	4	$60	$15.0
Alex O	4	$60	$15.0
@Scroiata	5	$75	$15.0
@NYsportSpace	4	$65	$16.3
@danreilly11	4	$65	$16.3
@hbk2369	4	$65	$16.3
Richie K	4	$66	$16.5
@eric_weinberg	4	$70	$17.5
@JobaRules26	5	$90	$17.9
@NYYEric	3	$54	$18.0
@AndyNY2	4	$76	$19.0
@pjmclaugh	4	$84	$21.0
@theharryadams	3	$65	$21.7
@treyalex09	3	$65	$21.7
Average	4	$67	$17.3

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A Look at the Giants: The Dreaded Coughlin Trap Game Bites the Giants...Again

Yesterday's Giants game had all the makings of a trap game: a bad team that just fired its coach, a Giants team with a few key injuries, no one giving the opposition a chance to win the game, and, most importantly, a big match-up coming up the next game that the Giants were looking forward to and maybe looking past their current game. Every year under Tom Coughlin the Giants seem to play one of these games. For a coach who is supposed to be a disciplinarian who keeps his troops focused, this seems like it never should happen. But yesterday afternoon, as the power went out at New Meadowlands Stadium, the power went out of the Giants. Let's take a look at the trap games losses throughout the years under Coughlin:

A big Eli Manning INT again led to a Giants "trap game" loss (Star-Ledger)

Nov 14, 2010 (Week 10): Dallas Cowboys at Giants. The Giants had spoiled the home opener of the Cowboys in their new stadium and then had walloped them a few weeks ago. You knew that the Cowboys were going to come in and play with a purpose (so you thought maybe the Cowboys would cover the 14-point spread). But a 13-point win marred by a ton of Giants mistakes and 3 key turnovers? Awful. The Giants had plenty of chances to get back in this game and instead gave up long 3rd down gains, had a huge touchdown pass to Hakeem Nicks overturned because of a penalty, threw a 101-yard Pick 6 after first down at the 1, and generally looked like, well, the Cowboys of the past few weeks (the Cowboys have the 4th-worst defense and point differential in the NFL). With the Eagles looming on the schedule, the Giants were definitely looking ahead to that game and totally underestimated their opponent. The Giants are now going from a possible 1st round bye to possibly having to fight for their playoff lives in a span of one week. Trap game, indeed.

Nov 26, 2009 (Week 12): Giants at Denver Broncos. The Broncos had lost 4 in a row and looked totally lost when the Giants came in town having just won a huge post-bye week game against the Falcons but had a quick turnaround to play a Thursday night game only 4 days later against the Broncos. With Dallas coming next, the Giants got caught looking ahead once again as they fell behind 16-0 and were unable to recover. The Giants committed three turnovers including a costly fumble by Eli Manning in the 4th Quarter to seal the deal for the Broncos. The Giants got killed on the ground game with Brandon Jacobs and Danny Ware sharing the rushing lead with only 27 yards. The Giants defense continued to get slaughtered as they would finish the season giving up the 3rd-most point in the NFL (26.7 per game). The Broncos finished the season 8-8 and the Giants missed a golden opportunity to win a game and have a chance at a playoff berth.

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In Favor of a Catching Competition This Spring

In 2003, Bernie Williams looked to be about done manning centerfield. He was only one year removed from a tremendous 2002 campaign, but after only playing 119 games in 2003 and with bad knees in centerfield to boot, the Yankees weren't content just letting Williams flounder around in center (his UZR was -20.2 in 2003 after -16.2 in 2002) and in the off-season they brought in Kenny Lofton as a free agent and told Williams he could fight it out with Lofton for CF and Ruben Sierra for DH. That's tough love for one of the most important Yankees of the past few decades, but it was just what Williams needed. That tough love--that competition--lit a fire under Williams. Williams would never be that pre-2003 player again, but at least in 2004 he gave the Yankees what he had given them in 2004, beat out Lofton in CF*, and, more importantly, he worked hard to win the job--and stuck around for two more years after that.

Montero will righfully have to earn it this Spring (LoHud)

The Yankees are in a similar situation with Jorge Posada. They have a very important player to their organization, a player who has probably been one of the top catchers of all-time (at least on the offensive side), a border-line Hall of Famer. But Posada's defense has gotten so bad and his hitting isn't anymore to the point where you can excuse that defensive liability just because of the hitting he provides. Having gone through the entire slate of external back-up catchers and realizing that Posada was eventually was going to turn into a pumpkin like Williams did, Brian Cashman and the Yankees organization has done a good job of stockpiling catching prospects. Jesus Montero, Austin Romine, Francisco Cervelli, Gary Sanchez, JR Murphy and others fill the Yankees organization throughout and provide themselves with an opportunity to not go out there and pay for old, mediocre players (as they did with Lofton in 2004).

But they shouldn't just hand the reigns of the DH to Posada nor the hands of the catching game to Montero, Romine, or Cervelli. After the 2007 season, the Yankees decided to hand the pitching over to a youth movement without any competition. Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes managed to win zero games in 2008 as the Yankees back-of-the-rotation starters. Now this would be fine if the Yankees could afford a rebuilding year because look at what Hughes and Kennedy did this past season--they won a combined 27 games in each of their first full years as starters. But this is the Yankees and with most of their top players on the wrong side of the baseball age, they need to field a team next year that will make the playoffs.

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A Look at the Giants: Say it ain't sO

What was the second-most anticipated game (behind the opener) in the New Giants (Meadowlands) Stadium kicks off at 4:15 PM this Sunday between the Cowboys and Giants. Before the season even began Giants fans were already circling November 14th for what was expected to be a division influencing game against a heated, and highly competitive rival. This game was supposed to be a big test for the Giants, especially after the infamous Eli signature in the opener at the new Cowboys Stadium infuriated the Boys; they made it clear they would like nothing more than to return the favor in their first game in the Giants new house.

Unfortunately, as so often is the case in the NFL, that incredible matchup that had tickets going at a premium is not the game the game we will see this Sunday. The Cowboys, at 1-7, are off to one of the worst starts in the history of their franchise and have seemingly given up on the season and avoided contact while being absolutely demolished in their last two games. The losing attitude became so pervasive that despite Jerry Jones commitment to keep moribund head coach Wade Phillips in place through the end of 2010 he was dismissed this past Monday, leaving former heir-apparent Jason Garrett to pick up the pieces.

Unfortunately for the Giants they are now not without their own issues. Their aging offensive line, one of their strengths back in 2007 when they won the Superbowl, has begun to break down and deteriorate. Injuries to Center Shaun O'Hara, Tack David Diehl and backup Center Adam Koets will force reserve Shaun Andrews and newly activated Kevin Boothe into starting action, with Guard Rich Seubert moving over to center. While the Giants were able to maintain continuity last week while shuffling their line up in Seattle, this will be a much taller challenge with Demarcus Ware starting across from this group. Look for the Giants to employ some extra protect schemes to keep Ware, who would likely love to avenge the Giants knockout of Tony Romo on Eli. The game will certainly test the Giants O-Line depth, but given how poorly the Cowboys have played they will likely get away with it for this week at least.

Now on to predictions. With Steve Smith unable to play and the O-Line shuffled yet again I expect the Giants will struggle a little bit on offense.

Giants 24
Cowboys 13

The Price Of Yankees Tickets in the Early 1980s (and Other Yankee Notes)

A few random thoughts on the Yankees and baseball:

• One of my co-workers, Adam, a die-hard Red Sox fan, had two Yankee season ticket stubs at his desk today from the 80s (a picture of them posted to the right from 1980 and 1982 for Field Box seats). Check out the price for a season plan on those tickets. The Sports Illustrated Photo Vault had posted the ticket prices from 1987 a few weeks back but these make you saw "wow" even more.

• While it doesn't look like the Yankees will be raising ticket prices to pay for Cliff Lee, the Yankees will be raising the parking prices. If people are still paying to park at Yankee Stadium, I'm very sorry. Meanwhile, the Red Sox will be raising ticket prices next year so they can retroactively have had enough money to sign Mark Teixeira.

• A report by Big League Stew at the end of October stated that the Florida Marlins were considering dealing their top prospect, Mike Stanton, for...wait for it...Ozzie Guillen. That amazing story had River Ave Blues and Tango trying to figure out what the Yankees could get for an actually good manager like Joe Girardi.

• When Joe Girardi was a Yankee, he went from the starting catcher to being slowly replaced by the young stud, Jorge Posada. Now Posada is the veteran who may be giving way this spring to super-stud prospect, Jesus Montero. With Posada only signed for one more season and Montero having nothing left to prove offensively in the minors, this makes all the sense in the world to me. I know he may not be great defensively but, really, is Posada or Francisco Cervelli being mistaken for Bench back there? Meanwhile, as Steven Goldman writes for Pinstriped Bible, Jorge is bowling for controversy with his comments. I think the Yankees should just tell the moody Posada he'll be lucky to catch more than 90 games in 2011 (though Joel Sherman thinks it will be a lot more). Make it simple

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