Outside Yanks, Not-so-Empire State of Mind

What's good peoples? I've been a little under the weather the past couple days due to being around half a billion Yankee fans at the parade Friday, but the body knows how to recover. It looks like people in the New York area will need to savor the Yankee championship. Anytime you are out and you are getting at it, your excuse to party is 27, just keep yelling 27. I wouldn't plan on any of the other local times making too big a splash for being a champion contender. The Giants are without confidence and personnel, the Jets have a rookie quarterback with a first year coach and were highly overrated, the Nets have an organization does not care about the near future, and the Knicks are just waiting on LeBron James as are all 30 organizations. The Jets had a bye yesterday so they couldn't lose, however the Giants managed to.

Big Blue took a pretty heartbreaking defeat to the San Diego Chargers yesterday that in many ways could've been prevented. It was a back and forth ballgame that displayed why Philip Rivers and Eli Manning were swapped for one another 5 years ago. The defense for the G-Men wasn't as tragic as it had been the past several weeks, however they never made "the stop" when they needed it most. Terrell Thomas ended up making that stop with a big interception inside 3 and a half minutes and then gave a real valiant effort to finish it off but was stopped a couple yards of the endzone. The offense then went stagnant and just for good measure committed an inexcusable holding penalty on the first play. After this, the Giants played rather "not to lose" than "to win." Conservative football has been a Giants mindset for quite some time, but its a no-brainer that a touchdown wins the game and all a field goal does is invite a 1-point loss. Sure enough instead of going for the jugular, the Giants set themselves up for the loss indeed letting Rivers march right down the field in 2 minutes and 5 seconds. After all said and done, the Giants lost that game characteristically as compared to the losses against New Orleans and Philly where they gave up 40+. They gave up 21 points to a very talented offense, they got Jacobs going for the time he was on the field, however it went in the loss column.

The Giants normally hate their bye week, but this one is definitely needed. Injuries have been plaguing this team as well as defensive schemes. It would be a major help if cornerback Aaron Ross could get back on the field. He was not put on the PUP list even though he has not played a game this year. The man has been questionable since week 1. After getting some things together, the Giants can go out gunning for a quality Atlanta Falcons team at home and get some swagger back. The next test then 4 days later becomes the Denver Broncos, Thanksgiving Night, at Invesco Field. After these two challenges, the Giants have Dallas and Philly waiting in the wings. The Giants have been in some tailspins before and rebounded, ('07 Superbowl year) but they sure have their work cut out for them this year.