Hey! Welcome back!
Grab a seat and make yourself at home. If you’re thirsty there’s water in the fridge and--- wait
what? There’s no water? There’s no fridge either? Wait there’s not even a chair? Wow I’m really sorry, I just had my
blog renovated so the furniture must still be in storage. Well, anyway now that you’re here you
might as well stay for the
NEW
YEARS’ MEGABLOG
What
better way to ring in the New Year than with some good ol’-fashioned
blog-on-blog-on-blog analysis of anything and everything? But first, as always,
we need to go through the New Years’ Resolutions of some of our favorite sports
icons from 2012.
Mark Sanchez: “Hi
Santa! For Christmas I want a Calvin Johnson and a Larry Fitzgerald and a Super
Bowl ring and ooo and a pony! And---
Huh? What do you mean it isn’t Christmas anymore? Then who’s lap am I sitting--- wait, Tebow!?!? You’re not
Santa! NOOOO!!!!”
Andy Reid: “First
and foremost, I promise to stop hiding snacks in my mustache. Seriously, it's a bad habit and this year I'll actually stick to my promise. Second, I promise
to stop coaching the team with the worst turnover differential in the NFC
(Eagles: -24) so that I can coach the team with the worst turnover differential
in the AFC (Chiefs: -24). Finally,
I promise to make every Chiefs fan regret this hire.”
Mike D’Antoni: “I
promise to overuse Kobe during the regular season and make every Lakers fan
regret not getting Phil Jackson when they had the chance.”
Chip Kelly: “I
promise to leave Oregon to coach in the NFL before the sanctions hit."
Gary Bettman: “I promise to do everything in my power to make sure that the NHL lockout will continue and
that 2012-2013 hockey season will be cancelled. I also promise to keep the title of Worst Commissioner in
Sports safe from the clutches of Roger Goodell. Also I hate puppies.”
Wasn’t that heartwarming? Don’t you just love it when people try
to better themselves/perpetuate their shortcomings for the New Year?
Now
that we got that out of the way, let’s get down to business. A lot has happened
since the last post so fasten your seatbelts because we’re going rapid-fire:
JETS:
In perhaps the most predictable
ending to a season since Friends, the
Jets managed to not only to disappoint every one of their fans, but also
embarrass themselves on a national stage.
Mark Sanchez was so terrible that even Trent Dilfer was allowed to
criticize him, the defense was ranked 20th in points allowed, they
were eliminated from the playoffs in Week 14, Tebow lined up as a wide
receiver, and to celebrate the season Rex Ryan got an arm tattoo of his wife wearing a Mark Sanchez jersey.
Speaking of bad tattoos, here's your "Tattoo That Looked Better in My Head" of the month:
Back to business. Basically the best part of the New Year for Jets fans is not having to suffer through another game until September. The entire Jets season can be
summed up in this play.
The good news is that Jets
management seems to be making the right moves to ameliorate the chaos. They’re shopping Sanchez for whatever
they can get (which is at most a couple of breadsticks), they fired GM Mike
Tanenbaum, they’re looking to replace OC Tony Sparano with (possibly) Norv Turner, and
they’re keeping Rex Ryan for another year. I think keeping Rex is key because he's a good coach who was plagued by player injuries, weird and sometimes creepy mini-scandals, and devout loyalty to a quarterback who lost his job to Greg McElroy. If the Jets can get a serviceable quarterback in the
draft (Geno Smith?), revitalize their defense, and bag an upper echelon wide
receiver (Dwayne Bowe/Mike Wallace?) the Jets could be a Wild Card
contender. But that’s a lot of
ifs.
GIANTS:
Not
quite as humiliating of a season as their hometown rival Jets, the Giants still
managed to garner their fair share of embarrassment by squandering their
playoff hopes after starting the season 6-2. Many will point to injuries of Kenny Phillips, Justin Tuck,
and Osi Umenyiora on the defensive side, which exacerbated an already exposed
defense. This is true, but only half of the story.
The
other part of it is Eli Manning and the Giants’ offense. Granted, Hakeem Nicks and Ahmad Bradshaw
seemed perpetually on the injury report, but look at Eli’s numbers from the
first half of the season compared to the second half.
First 8 games: 2,301 yards (>300 yards 3 times), 12 TD, 8
INT
Last 8 games: 1,647 yards (>300 yards 0 times), 14 TD, 7 INT
Subtract
the five-touchdown day that Eli had over the 4-12 Eagles in Week 17 when the
Giants’ playoff chances were less likely than the chance that Kim and Kanye end
up raising their baby together, and Eli only has nine touchdowns in the final
eight games of the season.
Eli’s
turnovers were never the downfall for the Giants, but this year his lack of
efficiency in the passing game was.
When Eli is moving the ball through the air that clears the box for
Bradshaw/Brown/Wilson, giving the Giants a very formidable run/pass combination. We saw sparks of it in the second half
of the season (i.e. against the 49ers), but not enough for them to secure a playoff berth.
These
numbers tell it all:
Eli in Giants wins (9 Games): 2,495 yards, 21 TD, 9 INT,
98.4 QB Rating
Eli in Giants losses (7 Games): 1, 453 yards, 5 TD, 6 INT,
72.2 QB Rating
At the end of the day, the Giants
lived and died by Eli… and then died a little more from their 31st
ranked defense.
DJANGO UNCHAINED:
Django
Unchained was off the chain. In
case you were wondering, yes, I made that up, and, no, it’s not the first time
I used that joke.
THE CHRISTMAS VS CHANUKAH
VS KWANZAA DEBATE
I’m
ending this debate once and for all. I’m
a Jew and even I have to admit that Christmas is, by far, the best holiday of
the three. First of all, nobody
actually knows what Kwanzaa is, let alone celebrates it. I looked it up and saw a menorah thing and what looks like yamakas, so I can only assume that it’s
Chanukah for black people.
That being said, in regards to
Chanukah vs. Christmas, it’s not even a contest. People who argue for Chanukah say, “You get presents for
eight nights!!! [pause and wait for reaction] EIGHT NIGHTS!!!!”
What non-Jews don’t realize is that getting presents for eight nights
fucking sucks. You don’t get any
more presents than you normally would; you just get all of your presents spaced
out evenly for eight nights. Most
times you don’t even get eight presents, so you go dry for a couple of the
nights.
Also, since the Jewish calendar is
different from the regular calendar, Chanukah’s eight days are different every
year. Nobody except for the rabbi
actually knows when Chanukah is until it actually is Chanukah, which ruins all of
the fun of anticipating when you get your presents.
Finally, “Merry Christmas” sounds
so much better than “Happy Chanukah,” and a Christmas Tree is infinitely better than a Chanukah Bush.
Everybody knows that a tree is just a better, taller version of a bush,
and furthermore a Chunukah Bush sounds like some sort of creepy residue left
over from No-Shave November.
KNICKS:
I
could’ve done an entire post about the Knicks and why I’m fatally in love with
them, but it would go on for days, so I’ll just limit it to a couple of
paragraphs.
I
love that Melo has finally come on.
I know it sounds sadistic, but I think it was a good thing that Amar’e
was injured to start the season.
It gave Melo time to establish that he is the number one guy on the team
and that when Amar’e comes back it has to be in a complementary role. I think the Knicks’ success in Amar’e’s
absence has convinced Amar’e of this, which bodes well for both Amar’e’s future
health and the Knicks’ depth if they can have both J.R. and Stat healthy coming
off of the bench.
I
also love 2K13’s Mr. Potato Head a.k.a. Mike Woodson. He’s finally gotten everyone to buy into his system and it
shows. He has a great mind for defense and has handled big personalities well thus far. He's a much better overall coach than D’Antoni and the Lakers are starting to see why Run-and-Gun Mike was forced to “retire”
mid-season as coach of the Knicks.
What's more the Knicks point guard play with the rotation of Jason Kidd, Raymond
Felton, and Pablo Prigioni is one of the best in the league. Kidd
is a natural leader like Tyson, Felton looks thin and much better than he was
two years ago, and how could you not love the little Argentinian/Italian
thing that Prigioni does? Also, J.R.
Smith has shattered the record for most shots where everybody watching him goes
“NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO- YES!!!!!”
What
makes me nervous though isn’t the record setting pace of three point attempts
(which Charles Barkley think is “just turrrible”), but rather the Knicks low
post game. They’re currently being
outrebounded by their opponents 1278 to 1376, a differential of about 100. The Knicks are also ranked 27th
in rebounds per game and 22nd in opponents’ rebounds per game. This lack of a dominant inside presence
was put on national display on Christmas Day when the Lakers absolutely dominated
the Knicks down low, outscoring them 46-26 in the paint.
The
Knicks can survive, and even thrive, when playing small ball teams like the
Heat, but if and when the Lakers ever figure it out, the Knicks are going to be
in a lot of trouble trying to mark up against Dwight Howard. Hopefully this will change with a healthy Amar'e in the lineup.
With
that being said, a realistic goal for the Knicks should be Eastern Conference
Finals, as Carmelo said earlier in the year. A championship is the ultimate goal though, but that comes
later down the road as experience builds.
BCS NATIONAL
CHAMPIONSHIP
My
one-of-a-kind matchup is available courtesy of Yahoo! Sports:
(Shameless
self-promotion at its finest)
Here’s a little more shameless self-promotion for you, happy
holidays:
#DJLR
