Just minutes after being born

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Thanks to Hootman and WillGFass for the suggestions...we'll be seeing some of those in the future

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I made some of these a couple of years ago and I may try to post one of these a week. They are just for fun, but give me some feedback like too easy, too hard, too lame, etc.

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I've seen many opinions over the last several weeks stating that some fans would rather lose the rest of our games in order to get Coughlin and Fewell fired (although this number is less than it was before the Dallas game) than win and make the playoffs with the risk of keeping the current regime. I am strongly in the camp of not wanting to lose in order for change to occur and would rather see our team in the playoffs than not, so I came up with a scenario that makes EVERYONE happy.

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Family in town for the next two weeks, so I thought I'd toss a softball up there for you guys.  Anyone born before 1990 should have no problem with this one.

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It's been really interesting for me looking up all this information.  Giving me more knowledge of the team I have loved and supported for over a quarter of a century.  I guess I'm saying I enjoy making these as much as I hope you guys enjoy doing them.

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This one hopefully has no mistakes

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Someone on the Mets blog did one of these and I thought it would be a great idea for us too - I'll try to do one weekly.

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While I think most of us are in agreement that Rolando McClain would be our optimal choice for the Giants first round pick to fill our need at LB with someone who can step right in, we may need to trade up to do so (like our 4th round pick to swap with Jacksonville).  I know that a lot of us are so hyped up on McClain that it is McClain this and McClain that, so since we are all McClain happy, I thought I would take the opportunity to show how a young NFLer can take lessons from another McClain...John McClane

• John McClane is the optimal police officer.  Even when off duty, he is still in cop-mode and willing to defeat the bad guys at a moments notice.  He eats, lives, and breathes cop.
• John McClane listened to the advice of others, but didn't let it be used as an excuse for his failures.  Remember the guy on the plane that told him to take is shoes off and walk around with his feet balled up to combat jet lag?  McClane didn't whine throughout his defense of the Nakatomi Building that his feet hurt or complain when he had to cross broken glass...he just did what he needed to do to get the job done.
• John McClane adapts to his surroundings.  Whether he is getting double crossed by Mr. Evans from Good Times or being run around a city solving riddles and trying to prevent bombs from going off, John McClane learns and adapts.  Although fooled by the guy that played Mr. McDowell from Coming to America, who was the one who ended up in the jet engine after fighting on the wing of the plane?  Who was the one that figured out that Scar from The Lion King wasn't trying to blow up the gold, but keep it for himself?
• John McClane accepts help when he needs it.  Although a very capable person, John McClane knows his limitations.  He needed help solving riddles and picking locks from the robber who held up McDowell's in Coming to America and who better to help him with figuring out how to overcome the fire sale than Silent Bob and The Mac from those TV commercials.
• John McClane makes others around him better.  Sipowicz from NYPD Blue had his head up his ass about the entire airport takeover, but came around in the end.  Nick Fury stepped up and risked life and limb to help the people of New York City and Dean from Waiting manned up, took a bullet, and shot a guy.
• Bottom Line...John McClane gets the job DONE.  He's a perfect 4-0 when it comes to thwarting the plans of diabolical masterminds.  He won by whatever means necessary, even thinking outside the box.  He threw Professor Snape off a building, blew up a whole plane of bad guys with a lighter including Heywood from Shawshank Redemption, had telephone wires crash the helicopter carrying Tiberias from Kingdom of Heaven, and shot through HIMSELF to shoot the killer from Scream 2.  The last one being simple, but effective.

If Rolando McClain can be half as good at his job as John McClane is at his while applying the principals stated throughout this rant about John McClane...he will be an NFL beast, which is why we need to move up to be assured that we get him for our team.

The three teams I absolutely dispise are out of playoffs and therefore have no chance to win the Super Bowl.  Those three teams being the Cowboys, Eagles, and Chargers.  The last one only because of the whole Philip Rivers - Eli Manning comparison that will exist long after they both retire.  Most of the fans of these teams are annoying in their homer attitude without regard for actual facts (of course, there are exceptions).  Thankfully, I don't have to hear it anymore...now I can just enjoy football without rooting for anyone.

I was still optimistic after the Saints loss where we had a total defensive collapse and chalked it up to a bad week - everyone has them

I continued to be optimistic after the Cardinal loss as our offense looked out of sync, but still had a chance despite playing horribly.

It is hard to remain optimistic after a third week in a row.  I can't write it off anymore as just a bad game, our team has serious issues that need to be addressed:

Defensively, something HAS to be done.

1)  I think giving Aaron Rouse more snaps with the first team in the middle of the week will prepare him better to jump in on Sunday and contribute more than he did yesterday.  He covers better than he whose name we shall not speak of and can help more in the secondary.

2)  Other than that we just have to wait for Michael Boley and Aaron Ross to come back to the lineup - Chris Canty would be nice too, but I am not as concerned there as I am about our LBs and DBs.

Offensively, we need to shake things up a bit

3) Domenik Hixon is NOT a receiver, he is a return man.  Look at the difference between Hixon letting Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie take the ball from him on the deep post and Hakeem Nicks going up and getting the ball when covered one on one -receivers go get the ball and return men let the ball come to them.

4) Regardless of the score we need to play our game.  For two weeks we were screaming about how we got out of our game too quickly offensively - too much passing, not enough running, but towards the end of the third quarter we got just that - running ball controlled scroing that took time off the clock and everyone is in an uproar.  If we took the field goal the previous possession instead of going for it on 4th and 8 we would have only been down 13 with a whole quarter to play.  Kill clock and let the defense rest...that is how we can win games and come back in games.

5)  Let's change our audibles and signals.  Defenses have studied us and know what they are getting.  Let's switch up the audible calling and signal calling and throw a few fake calls in there.  Chris Collinsworth pointed out last week that when Eli Manning yells "Omaha" the real snap is coming.  The Eagles listened as they were off the ball quicker than our O-Line on too many occassions.  Next game yell "Omaha...hut, hut" and watch everyone jump off sides and get some free plays.

6)  Lastly, Eli needs to see the field better.  On more than one occassion over the last few weeks, receivers have been wide open, but he is zeroed in on the other side of the field and we aren't taking advantage of the opportunities that are there.  He needs to go through his reads and throw it away if nothing is there.

This is a list of 5 things just off the top of my head that should be easy to fix (the exception being the injuries) and can hopefully make an impact.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results (mistakenly credited to Einstein, Mark Twain, and Benjamin Franklin, but actually written by Rita Mae Brown), if we don't change some things WITHOUT changing our fundamentals, I think the Giants will cause insanity for us all.

Going into this game, I was using this as a gauge of where we stand in the NFC.  A win meant we are the at the head of the class, a close loss meant we can hang with anyone and just needed a few breaks to go our way, and a bad loss meant we have some work to do.  Well after watching the first three quarters (I couldn't bear it anymore after that), I had to change my opinion.  Although this loss looks bad on paper, it actually wasn't as bad as the score indicates.  A few observations on plays that could have turned this game around for us.

1) On the first drive for the Saints, Corey Webster has a sure pick go in and out of his hands that could have at least taken the crowd out of the game initially and set the tone for the game.  Instead it comes out of his hands and into Lance Moore's for a first down (it was third down at the time) and the drive resulted in a touchdown.

2) On the 2nd drive for the Giants, a wide open Steve Smith is overthrown by Eli for a sure touchdown.  We hit that and again we are looking at building momentum and putting more than three on the board.

3) The officiating was terrible.  This ends up being several situations, so they get their own category with it's own numbering

a)  The kicker for the Saints, Morestead grabs at Hixon's shoulder to tackle him and pulls him down by the jersey.  Great play...saved a touchdown.  On our kickoff coverage, a linebacker takes a guy down the same way and there is a 15 yard horsecollar penalty (I was calling it horse$h1t, but whatever)

b)  Later on that same drive, Corey Webster and Marques Colston feet get tangled and Webster is called for pass interference, but on the other side Roman Harper (#41) doesn't turn around on a play where either Manningham or Nicks was underthrown (third quarter), runs into the receiver before the ball gets there and no call is made. 

c)  The pick call on Hixon who was running a fly pattern and the defensive back (not sure who) ran into his path.  Smith wasn't running an out where a pick would have been helpful...he ran an in.  Now that play was an incomplete, but without the pick, illegal contact could have been called

d) When Eli fumbled and I think Scott Shanle (#55) picked it up and was tackled and he refumbled it but it was overruled, the ball clearly started to come out BEFORE his knee hit the ground.  Boss recovered in the endzone and it would have been a touchback.  Then we are in the locker room at worst at 27-17.

e) The phantom holding call on O'Hara that negated a touchdown to Brandon Jacobs.  They only rushed three and I was watching everyone on the replay and NO ONE held anyone.  I know when a play goes on like that, there is a good chance of that happening, but this was NOT the case.

Now I know Saints fans will argue that the pick Eli threw to Sharper was negated by a roughing the passer call, but that call was legit.  I forget who hit him, but when they hit the quarterback and start raising their hands in the air like they didn't do anything, they usually have.  On all my above questionable calls, the announcers (Troy Aikman usually hates the Giants) even said that they were calls that they disagreed with.  It doesn't take away from the fact that Eli made a bad throw and Sharper made the play that he always makes against Eli, but the defender's roughing the passer negated what should have been a pick six.

4) Bradshaw picks up that block like he's supposed to and Eli has time to make a good throw - no interception.

5) We started throwing the ball deep way too early.  In the second and third quarter we had at least 4 third and less than 5 that we went for it all.  Get the first and try that play on first down or second and short.  I think Gilbride might have given up on our gameplan too soon. 

All in all, I took away a lot of positives:

1)  The defense really stepped up in the second half and made the adjustments they needed to (how many of you were as relieved as I was to see them stop the Saints on their first drive of the second half).  The offense didn't play as well in the second half as they did in the first and the defense got tired.

2)  We moved the ball well when we weren't throwing deep and taking what the defense gave us.  Eli was connecting on the short routes and the speed of the DBs for the Saints kept them from completing those deep passes.

3)  This was only one game and if I remember correctly, how you do against an opponent in the regular season has NO bearing on the playoffs (see the Giants Super Bowl run of '07 beating Dallas, Green Bay, AND New England who all beat the Giants in the regular season...Dallas twice).  We need to go 2-1 in the next three to continue our command of the NFC East.

Just for clarification, I am in NO WAY saying that the refs cost us the game, but I AM saying that certain things play out differently and we could have been right in it to the end, so although it looks like a blowout on paper, each teams play was much closer than anyone on SportsCenter will realize or talk about.