Dec
28
Switching places
December 28, 2009 | 1 Comment
And so the last hope for a New York playoff appearance are the . . . Jets? That’s not a common occurrence, but more on that in a minute.
What can I say about the Giants? That putrid performance, combined with the nice weather, allowed me to get a run in yesterday afternoon. This wasn’t exactly the classic Giants D on display as they allowed a backup qb to roll them. Despite that pathetic performance, and despite my protestations afterwords that they deserved to miss the playoffs, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still pull for the Skins to upset the Cowboys. Of course, relying on the Redskins to win a game in order to keep one’s playoff hopes alive is guaranteed to end in disappointment, and so it was.
The eerie thing about this is that my half-joking post about the relationship between the Mets and Giants and the ill portents for the Giants season has actually come to pass. Though the Giants are guaranteed not to have a losing season, considering expectations, this was a huge disappointment. Both teams can cite injuries as a reason for their respective failures, much more plausibly in the Giants’ case, but both have some work to do in the off-season. The Giants’ secondary is just a sieve, and the return of guys like Phillips and Ross may not be enough to cure what ails this defense.
As for the Jets, things don’t usually bounce the way they did for this organization this weekend. Normally when a team has to win a game and hope that just about every other team ahead of them loses in order to have a shot at the playoffs, one part of the sequence – if not all – goes awry. Yet the Jets not only beat the Colts, but every team they were in contention with lost, starting with the Jags on Friday night. For an organization where the worst expectations are usually met, this is a pleasant surprise. And it is with some irony that they get to close out Giants Stadium, and on a happier note than the primary tenants.
Regarding Jim Caldwell’s decision to bench Manning, it was the wrong thing to do, but not for some of the reasons you might think. The Colts were under no obligation to the rest of the league to play their starters throughout the game. If you are at the point where you’re relying on other teams to win in order for you to get into the playoffs, you have no right to bitch and moan when those teams fail to do the job that you should have done yourselves.
No, I have a problem with the decision from the Colts’ perspective. The fact that they let an undefeated season go by the wayside is of secondary importance to the fact that this franchise continually makes the same mistake. Twice before this team has gotten burned when they rested their players for weeks before the playoffs. It is no coincidence that the Colts have averaged 12 wins per season this decade and have only one Super Bowl triumph to show for it, and that the only Super Bowl win came in a season when the Colts had to play three playoff games before big game. Again and again and again history shows that teams have to have some kind of momentum heading into the post-season (2008 Cardinals excepted), and that resting your players for what amounts to a month’s worth of action is folly. And again and again the Colts, whether coached by Dungy or now Caldwell, make the same mistake. Again, there’s a reason the Colts have one SB trophy and the Belichick-lead Patriots have three: the latter team and coach have a killer instinct that the Colts’ lack, and I hope Peyton Manning is as furious as he should be over the decision to play run and hide for a three-week period.
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Of course, relying on the Redskins to win a game in order to keep one’s playoff hopes alive is guaranteed to end in disappointment
Especially if you are a Redskins fan.