My weekly look at key matchups and storylines to watch in one game at each time slot. (All times Eastern).
GREEN Bay, Wis. -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as a rather unconventional but fascinating homecoming weekend here in Titletown wrapped up with the Vikings' 38-26 win over the Packers ...
My weekly look at key matchups and storylines to watch in one game at each time slot. (All times Eastern).
My weekly look at key matchups and storylines to watch in one game at each time slot. (All times Eastern).
My weekly look at key matchups and storylines to watch in one game at each time slot. (All times Eastern).
Things we know (or at least think we do) one month into the NFL's regular season....
ARLINGTON, Texas -- There's so much ground to cover on this strange, almost surreal night here, deep in the heart of Jerry's World. So let's get right to it ...
Breaking down Sunday's New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys game (8:20 p.m., NBC).
ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- We are ready for some football. Great to see it back Sunday night, with Vince Young beginning what he hopes is his resurrection (now, if he'd only quit talking about it) in the Hall of Fame game against Buffalo.
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Sorry for the late column today, and a couple of notes before I get into one of my favorite people in the NFL, David Tyree.
My weekly look at key matchups and storylines to watch in one game at each time slot. (All times Eastern).
GREEN Bay, Wis. -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as a rather unconventional but fascinating homecoming weekend here in Titletown wrapped up with the Vikings' 38-26 win over the Packers ...
My weekly look at key matchups and storylines to watch in one game at each time slot. (All times Eastern).
My weekly look at key matchups and storylines to watch in one game at each time slot. (All times Eastern).
My weekly look at key matchups and storylines to watch in one game at each time slot. (All times Eastern).
Things we know (or at least think we do) one month into the NFL's regular season....
ARLINGTON, Texas -- There's so much ground to cover on this strange, almost surreal night here, deep in the heart of Jerry's World. So let's get right to it ...
Breaking down Sunday's New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys game (8:20 p.m., NBC).
ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- We are ready for some football. Great to see it back Sunday night, with Vince Young beginning what he hopes is his resurrection (now, if he'd only quit talking about it) in the Hall of Fame game against Buffalo.
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Sorry for the late column today, and a couple of notes before I get into one of my favorite people in the NFL, David Tyree.
Have you noticed the leading trend in the NFL this offseason? Teams just aren't putting up with the trouble-makers the way they once did. Dallas said enough is enough, and sent Terrell Owens on his way. Denver took all it could take of the Jay Cutler saga, and then swiftly cut ties. Jacksonville didn't look the other way this time with Matt Jones, and now he's an ex-Jaguar.
Transaction season has arrived, and SI.com's NFL writers are here to analyze the free-agent signing and trades that will shape the season to come.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Memory of Eli Manning just less than a year ago: He is standing in a lobby-level restaurant at the New York Giants' team hotel in the tourist desert outside Phoenix. Music is playing loudly and fans are clamoring for a glimpse inside. Friends and family are toasting a second consecutive Manning Super Bowl victory, this one far more improbable than the last. Two months earlier Manning was struggling to prove himself worthy of playing quarterback for the Giants and now he is at the top of his profession, singing 'New York, New York' with his brother Cooper and just riding a wave.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Grading out the performances during the Eagles' 23-11 divisional-round win (Recap | Box) over the Giants on Sunday.
For my money there's no better weekend on the NFL calendar than the Saturday and Sunday quadruple-header of divisional-round play, when the four top seeds play host to the four first-round winners for the right to move on to next week's conference championships. It usually makes for the best football of the entire season, as the higher seeds and the notion of home-field advantage get tested by the teams that already have a playoff win under their belts.
Last year's march through the playoffs to the Super Bowl title by the New York Giants showed how critical line play can be in the postseason. The Giants bruised and battered every team in their way on both sides of the ball, culminating in the devastating performance by their defensive line against Tom Brady and the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. In a league seemingly forever trending towards high-flying aerial attacks, the Giants proved the bully in the schoolyard can still win the fight.
If you're Asante Samuel, it must feel like you're either playing or getting ready to play the New York Giants every 10 minutes or so. For the fifth time in a span of a little more than a year, Samuel looked up early Sunday evening and saw the Giants looming in the distance. This time, as the Philadelphia Eagles opponent in next Sunday's NFC divisional round playoff game at Giants Stadium.
The most amazing thing I saw in this most amazing sports year was not especially important or historic or even decisive. No one won a medal at the end of it, no trophy, no championship, no world record. There were no playbooks involved, no chalkboards, no swimsuits, no balls, no bats, no clubs, no rackets. The man who performed the miracle was only doing what every child does, and at the end of it he seemed utterly unimpressed with himself. He would become world famous, but that was later.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Five things we learned from the New York Giants' mind-blowing 34-28 overtime win [Recap | Box Score] over the Carolina Panthers at frigid Giants Stadium ...
Breaking down Sunday's New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys game (8:15 p.m., Eastern, NBC) ...
NEW YORK -- Did someone say Miracle of the Ketchup Bottle?
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we enjoy a Week 14 of frosty, see-your-breath NFL venues and games chock full of playoff-race implications ...
Breaking down Sunday's New York Giants at Arizona Cardinals game (4:15 p.m., Eastern, Fox) ...
Forget Plaxico Burress the player, and forget the impact he's not going to have on the Giants' run to repeat as Super Bowl champions now that he's been placed on the non-football injury list. Instead, let's consider the three big factors the Burress fiasco will have on the Giants.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as the snow starts to really fly at a Lambeau Field left morose by the Packers' late-game fold job against Steve Smith and the playoff-bound Carolina Panthers ...
Sports Illustrated will announce its choice for Sportsman of the Year on Dec. 2. Here's one of the nominations for that honor by an SI writer. For more essays, click here.
Breaking down Sunday's New York Giants at Pittsburgh Steelers game (4:15 p.m., Eastern, Fox) ...
Kernels of conventional gridiron wisdom were crushed again in Week 6, ground into dust by the millstone of truth that is the Cold, Hard Football Facts.
First thought after Cleveland's rout of the Giants on Monday: Maybe there's no best team in football.
The news out of Jacksonville Monday morning that approximately 25 percent of the fans for Sunday night's Steelers-Jags contest were waving yellow Terrible Towels came as no surprise to me. The Steelers have the most dominant fan base in the National Football League and their ability to consistently travel, en masse, and infest other team's stadiums gives the Steelers a competitive advantage that no other franchise can claim.
Five weeks of the NFL's regular season are in the books and we're down to just two undefeated teams: The 5-0 Titans in the AFC and the 4-0 Giants in the NFC.
NEW YORK -- A really interesting Sunday. What do you want to hear about first? The origins of the Wildcat play, which has carried the woebegone Dolphins to wins over the two AFC Championship Game teams from last year? The future of Kerry Collins, who, in a month, has gone from a washed-up backup to one of the NFL's 20 most important players? The incredible case of Matty Ice? Plaxico Burress' future with the Giants?
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we witnessed the bruising heavyweight fight that the Titans-Ravens game morphed into on Sunday, before a demoralized M&T Bank Stadium throng ....
Musings, observations and the occasional insight from the Giants' season-opening 16-7 throttling of the low-octane Redskins, which strangely had all the intensity of a preseason game after the first half ...
ALBANY, N.Y. -- On the first morning of the first day of their first training camp as defending Super Bowl champions in 17 years, the New York Giants seized upon a familiar and yet strangely incongruous role for themselves: That of an disrespected underdog, determined to prove the doubters wrong.
For a man born into a military family and schooled in Germany and Texas, it's hard to imagine an athlete more suited to the bright lights of New York -- in all ways on and off the field -- as Michael Strahan was.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we count down to the start of the annual meat market that is the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis ...
"As Mike Tyson would say, 'Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.' "
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- That's the thing about perfection: It's so unforgiving. Just ask the previously unbeaten New England Patriots, who realized Sunday night that 18-1 just doesn't have quite the right ring to it.
MONTCLAIR, N.J. -- Five post-Super Bowl thoughts from the home office in the land David Tyree made famous:
The New York Giants' unlikely win over the New England Patriots is already being called one of the biggest shockers in Super Bowl history, and the amazing catch David Tyree made to set up the game-winning touchdown won't be forgotten anytime soon.
While the scoreboard offers the only mark that really matters, SI.com's Bucky Brooks takes a look at how each team's units performed in Super Bowl XLII.
Tim Rueckert of Liberty, Missouri, has been watching football since he was a child some 30 years ago, but he says never thought he'd see a team go 19 - 0. The New England Patriots have a chance to do just that when they take on the New York Giants in the 2008 Super Bowl Championship.
The New England Patriots and their fans have spent the last few weeks acting as if a victory in Super Bowl XLII is a fait accompli.
Here on Thursday, the interviewing ended. Put another way, the New England Patriots were allowed to stop talking and the New York Giants were forced to do likewise. This is literally true; 15 minutes after his last interview session was to have ended, the Giants' Michael Strahan at last rose from his microphone and was nudged away from his inquisitors (audience might be a more appropriate description) back to the team's inner sanctum. He was still talking over his shoulder as he disappeared behind a curtain, his voice trailing off like the closing chords of a song fading into the air but never really ending, as if big No. 92 is still talking somewhere, right at this minute.
Much of what you read in the lead to this column you won't believe. There is nothing I can do about that. Reminds me of the time last fall when Wade Phillips accused me of making up the quotes he told me about Spygate scarring the Patriots' success this year.
SI.com's Don Banks talked to a veteran NFC insider about the Patriots-Giants Super Bowl matchup.
In the Super Bowl XLII matchup between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, there is one overriding truth: Patriots quarterback Tom Brady must go down, and he must go down hard.
Before we get to this weekend's key matchups, it's worth noting a couple of statistical trends that almost always end up being the key to winning in the postseason:
SI.com's Don Banks had a veteran NFC insider assess the Giants-Packers matchup.
The healing began at a blackjack table, of all places, in a banquet room at Giants Stadium in the middle of baseball season. A June minicamp had come to an end, but New York Giants players and coaches were instructed to convene for one last meeting before going their separate ways. Seated at the table, carrying neither a whistle nor his familiar scowl, was coach Tom Coughlin, waiting for face cards. It was a team-only casino night, the first in Coughlin's four-year tenure and an uncharacteristic off-season overture from the coach to his players.
As they walked off the field Sunday night, the New York Giants had defensive linemen, linebackers and defensive backs dropping their chins and hanging their heads. It wasn't that they were ashamed or disappointed. It was they did not have enough strength left in their bodies to hold up their helmets anymore.
SI.com's Don Banks had a veteran NFC insider assess the Giants-Cowboys matchup.
TAMPA BAY -- With one minute remaining in the Giants' 24-14 playoff victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, Eli Manning faced one more blindside rush. As he stood on the sideline, Manning was approached by the Giants' chairman and executive vice president Steve Tisch, who offered his congratulations to the fourth-year quarterback on his first playoff victory. Tom Coughlin, the Giants coach, approached Manning as well.
SI.com's Don Banks had a veteran NFC insider assess the Giants-Bucs matchup.
• The Giants effectively used an assortment of five-man zone dogs to get consistent pressure on Tom Brady in the pocket. Using a mixture of three-and four-man fronts, the Giants often overloaded a side to free up an interior rusher. And Steve Spagnuolo made the zone blitz more effective by featuring a soft two-deep shell behind the pressure. By opting to use two-deep coverage instead of the standard three-deep zone often used with zone blitzes, the Giants were able to take away the Patriots' sight adjustment (slant) while limiting deep ball opportunities to Randy Moss and Donte Stallworth on blitz beaters.
Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we ponder what Bill Parcells thinks of his one-win Dolphins about now ...
With a diamond star pinned to the left lapel of his blue suit, Jerry Jones was waiting in the breezeway of Giants Stadium on Sunday afternoon when the door to the visitors' locker room swung open. In small clusters the Dallas Cowboys filed past him toward the field -- Terrell Owens, the mercurial receiver on his third NFL marriage; Wade Phillips, the quiet coach from the league's recycling bin; Tony Romo, the newly minted $67 million quarterback of obscure origin. When the team's new nosetackle, Tank Johnson, appeared in the door, Jones approached his latest reclamation project and offered some perspective on the set-to he was about to face. "Well, here we are," the owner told Johnson. "New York Giants, Dallas Cowboys. We're a little distance from four or five weeks ago." That's when the Cowboys were reeling from a painful loss to the Patriots and Johnson, who signed with Dallas on Sept. 18, had just begun practicing with the team.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- The calendar says there's still another seven weeks to play. But we don't need that long to discover the pecking order in the NFC East.
NEW YORK -- Next weekend, the NFL's great leap into international football will begin. And if the NFL has its way, you'll barely notice. Neither will the players.
Eli Manning's completion percentages in his four years as a part-timer, then full-time quarterback, for the Giants:
Andre Carter, DE, Washington: The Redskins were able to derail the Lions' high-powered offense thanks to the pressure of their front four. Carter sacked Detroit quarterback Jon Kitna twice, including once for a safety.
Lindsay Lohan's legal problems continue even while she recovers in rehab.
Can search term data predict the next American Idol?
When Tiki Barber left football for broadcasting this winter, every network went after him, and for good reason. The former Giants running back is telegenic, articulate and personable. Barber is even experienced -- he has his own Sirius radio show and is a regular guest on local and national television shows.
In case you haven't heard, a new "American Idol" will be announced on Wednesday night.
DALLAS COWBOYS
Got a great question in the e-mail bag, and I've thought about it on and off for a few hours now, and I truly don't know the answer. I'll present it to you, give you my thoughts, and see if it prompts even more thoughts from Packer Nation and beyond.
I got a kick out of Peyton Manning's Mastercard commerical where the guy serving coffee gets knocked over by a blast of steam in the face and Manning urges him to "rub some dirt on it." In this age of pitch counts and other bubblewrap training techniques and long preventative shut-downs, it can be hard to believe that the athlete's credo once resembled the black knight who loses assorted limbs in Monty Python & The Holy Grail and keeps fighting while insisting, "Come on, it's only a flesh wound!"
You remember those movies in which they show a run on a bank, a mob scene in which hundreds of investors storm the gates? That's what I feel like, after getting a look at the reaction to my daft, uh, draft rankings column. There I am, the poor assistant manager standing outside his bank, trying to quell the angry mob.
Ten final thoughts on the doings around the league on draft weekend:
Another wild draft has come and gone, and now the big questions become, which of these players are worth taking in fantasy drafts and where should they go? There doesn't seem to be as many hotshot quarterbacks with the potential for a starting job right away, or top running backs with the opportunity to break through. However, there could be a few more receivers with the chance to be decent contributors early.
Today's hypothesis: The NFL Draft is the biggest sporting event in America. Before writing that bold sentence, I toyed with various other adjectives until settling on "biggest.'' Among them:
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author David Halberstam, whose bestselling books -- including "The Best and the Brightest," "The Breaks of the Game," "The Reckoning" and "October 1964" -- chronicled politics, history and sports, was killed in a car accident Monday. He was 73.
1. Sexy back(swing): As the logical next step in his progression from Average Boy Band Singer to Hippest Man Alive, Justin Timberlake reportedly wants to play pro golf. Because really, who's going to bring the Sexy Back to the PGA Tour, Davis Love III? Now, before you dismiss this story (perhaps rightly) as just the latest example of English tabloid fluff, think about it for a moment. It's not unfathomable. The unnamed (natch) source just says that the 26-year-old Timberlake hopes to "make it into a pro event" or two before he turns 30, not earn a Tour card. Yes, even if he works on his game feverishly during those long days on (a concert) tour, the six-handicap JT would be a huge longshot to ever make it through a PGA Monday qualifier. But if he gets his golf game to, say, scratch, it's not inconceivable that a tournament director with dollar signs in his eyes might give him a sponsor's invitation, just as is done for the occasional local hero and Michelle Wie. Just don't waste an invitation on Lance B
Musings, observations and the occasional insight in reaction to the release of the NFL's 2007 regular-season schedule ...
KANSAS CITY -- Myth of the Month: If a team near the top of the first round of the NFL Draft wants to trade down, it can get a ransom for the pick.
March is all about player movement in the NFL, but if you were paying attention, you probably noticed that free agency didn't dominate the headlines to the degree it has in recent years. Last month's roster shuffling featured an unexpected element: the renaissance of the significant NFL trade, which had grown relatively rare in the era of free agency.
Editor's Note: The NFL officially announced the cancellation of its preseason game in China on Monday.
Ron Jaworski has replaced Joe Theismann as the football man on ESPN's Monday night variety show. This has not been lost on our hordes of e-mailers beating down the doors for a prediction on how this will play out.
1. The New York Daily News is reporting that youthful Giants quarterback Eli Manning got engaged Tuesday night. Eli needed to move fast while there were still women available who hadn't been impregnated by Tom Brady.
He hurried through the bowels of the L.A. Coliseum wearing only a towel, a frantic 49ers official at his side. For Ronnie Lott, a future Hall of Famer rushing to the locker room of the franchise that had discarded him -- because San Francisco's Charles Haley was in the middle of a scary postgame tirade, and no one else was capable of calming him down -- this was what complete vindication looked like in September of 1991.
Silliest thing I've heard since my last mailbag column is that the NFL's steroid and HGH testing program is in serious trouble because the league doesn't want to pay the testers as they would salaried employees. In other words, it would have to provide benefits, such as medical, retirement and clean straw to sleep on at night. Much cheaper to call them contracted help and pay them by the specimen.
If we've learned anything from the first few weeks of the NFL's unrestricted free agency period, it's that bigger bank accounts usually lead to riskier decisions within the marketplace. The recent increase in the NFL's salary cap -- it has grown by nearly $25 million over the last two years -- has given more teams more license to indulge in the kinds of moves that they wouldn't even consider a few years ago. I'm talking about aging running backs signing for good money and guards -- yes, guards -- finding fat paydays after years of being dismissed as the most expendable components of an offensive line. It's these types of trends that have made this offseason all the more interesting.
The first two weeks of March has considerably changed the landscape of the league's running back position, with a flurry of moves and acquisitions dominating the headlines and sending players to new NFL addresses all over the map.
Reading personal e-mails to me and e-mails to this column, I've been surprised at the vitriol in the Lance Briggs case. I agree with it, but I'm surprised by it.
Tennessee general manager Mike Reinfeldt sits in Nashville with $26.5 million in cap room not burning a hole in his pocket. Green Bay GM Ted Thompson does the same with $21.8 million to spend in northeast Wisconsin. And through the mayhem of the first 10 days of free agency, the two guys who run the football side of those teams -- coincidentally, former roommates with the Houston Oilers -- are gritting their teeth, watching money get spent foolishly in some cases, and waiting for the market to simmer down.
The multi-team field for the Adalius Thomas sweepstakes in free agency has quickly focused on two leading contenders: San Francisco and New England.
Brooks, a former NFL wide receiver and cornerback, spent the last seven years as a scout for the Seahawks and Panthers.
It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to play there.
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