Football
drorzel | December 8, 2008SteelyKid was kind of fussy for the early part of the afternoon, and my Giants lost. It's hard to say whether she was fussy for reasons of her own, or just picking up on my irritation at the Giants' lousy play. In any case, the correlation between Happy Baby and football victories remains intact-- she cheered up later on, and Kate's Patriots won.
Blame for the loss falls largely on the receivers, who dropped a bunch of good passes. Philadelphia was stacking their defense up to stop the run, and trying to force Manning to throw, but they couldn't get the completions to loosen things up at the…
drorzel | December 3, 2008The Daily Show nails the lessons of the Plaxico Burress fiasco:
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The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
Jon Stewart Touches Kids - Plaxico Burress
Barack Obama InterviewJohn McCain Interview
Sarah Palin VideoFunny Election Video
Sweatpants, for God's sake.
drorzel | November 30, 2008It has been observed that my New York Football Giants are undefeated this year in games where SteelyKid was present for the game, and happy. The one game they've lost, an inexcusable thrashing by the otherwise hapless Browns, was a night game, and Kate took her upstairs for a final feeding before kickoff, and put her to bed immediately afterwards, so she wasn't on hand for the ugliness.
We put this to the test today, thanks to a delay on Interstate 88 near Unadilla. We should've been home right around kickoff, but an accident closed the highway, and we sat parked on the road for a good 45…
drorzel | November 19, 2008I got a bunch of really good comments to yesterday's post about athletes and attitudes toward education. Unfortunately, yesterday was also a stay-at-home-with-SteelyKid day, and she spent a lot of time demanding to be held or otherwise catered to, so I didn't have a chance to respond. I'd like to correct that today by responding to the main threads of argument in those comments.
Taking these in no particular order, Moshe writes:
Not sure there is a serious argument here, athletes are different in so many ways, but I'll bite - here is another difference. Some students and athletes have their…
drorzel | October 14, 2008Going into last night's game, my New York Football Giants were 4-0, leading the NFL in a whole bunch of statistical categories. SteelyKid watched at least part of every one of those games with me.
Last night, just before kick-off, Kate took SteelyKid upstairs for a late-evening feeding. After eating, she dropped off to sleep fast enough that Kate just set her down in the crib, where she slept for a good four hours. And the Giants got thumped by the 1-3 Cleveland Browns, with Eli Manning throwing three interceptions, one run back for a touchdown.
I think the lesson here is clear...
... namely…
drorzel | September 14, 2008I started watching the Giants-Rams game today with SteelyKid on my lap. The Giants marched right down the field, and scored a touchdown, and seemed to have the game well in hand. It was lunchtime, though, so Kate took SteelyKid upstairs, and the Giant offense sputtered after that, producing only two field goals.
In the third quarter, I went upstairs and retrieved SteelyKid, and resumed watching with her in my lap. After I brought her back downstairs, the Giants outscored the Rams 28-7, including an interception run back for a touchdown by defensive end Justin Tuck.
The conclusion is obvious…
drorzel | September 4, 2008We're in Boston to visit Kate's parents, and while we wait for SteelyKid to wake up and demand food, we're watching "Mike and Mike" on ESPN2 (the live simulcast of the radio show). They've been talking about how tonight's NFL kick-off (our long national nightmare is over...) was pushed up so as not to conflict with the Republican Convention.
I can't help thinking, though, that given John McCain's charisma (or lack thereof), the Republicans might be better served by having the football game run opposite McCain's speech. That way, their core audience will opt for watching the game live, and…
drorzel | March 7, 2008SportsCenter this morning is basically a big Favre-a-thon, with wall-to-wall coverage of Brett Favre's tearful retirement press conference yesterday. I watched the footage of him choking up, and said "Yeah, he does look pretty old. Probably time to hang it up."
Then I realized: He's less than two years older than I am.
I guess I've pretty comprehensively missed my chance to be a pro athlete, haven't I?
drorzel | February 4, 2008Pro:
1) THE GIANTS WIN THE SUPER BOWL!!!!! w00t!
2) Michael Strahan and Amani Toomer get championship rings, which is particularly sweet, because they suffered through some really awful teams.
3) Eli Manning drinks for free in the tri-state area. This'll buy him at least six months of peace and quiet from the New York press. That was one of the all-time great fourth quarters. I have no idea how he got away from that one sack, and Tyree's catch was amazing.
4) This breaks up Boston's sports hegemony for the year, which couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of fans.
5) THE GIANTS WIN THE SUPER BOWL…
drorzel | February 3, 2008I predict that I'm going to throw something at the tv if Arlen Specter doesn't go away. Like the Senate Judiciary Committee doesn't have anything more useful it could be doing than making a stink about an utterly pointless pseudo-scandal. And giving Gregg Easterbrook an excuse to be smug, on top of everything else.
I hope somebody catches Specter soliciting sheep at a truck stop somewhere.
That said, if you have a moment between bouts of fretting over the scientifically approved way of dipping chips into salsa-- a surprisingly rich topic-- and want to try to predict the outcome of the…
drorzel | February 1, 2008A quick review of an important concept going into this weekend's Super Bowl:
The "point spread" for a football game is set at the level required to get equal numbers of bets on the two teams.
The spread is not the consensus opinion of expert observers as to the likely outcome of the game. The two are often similar, but the point spread is fundamentally about the behavior of bettors, not the prediction of outcomes.
This ought to be trivially obvious from the fact that you don't see anybody on ESPN taking the Patriots and giving the points. It's surprising how many people who make their living…
drorzel | January 21, 2008A few more detailed comments on the games leading up to the Chateau Steelypips Showdown in two weeks:
The Patriots looked a little shaky, but again, I was never that worried that they would actually lose. Their defense isn't as intimidating as it was a few years ago, but they did enough to get the job done, holding the Chargers to nothing but field goals.
Tom Brady looked distinctly mortal, which probably had something to do with the lousy weather. He had a number of passes wobble in the air, and got picked off an astonishing three times, but still held it together well enough to score when…
drorzel | January 21, 2008The good news:
Kate's New England Patriots beat the Chargers to win the AFC championship
My New York Giants beat the Packers in overtime to win the NFC champioship
The bad news:
They play each other in the Super Bowl in two weeks.
This is perhaps not the most positive sporting development for marital harmony...
drorzel | January 20, 2008I stopped by a Sports Authority store yesterday to buy a couple of whistles before tonight's intramural basketball game (a persistent problem in the last few years has been that the students refereeing the game don't have whistles, and thus fould go uncalled). There were laser-printed signs taped to the front doors saying (approximately):
When the Patriots win on Sunday, we will have official locker-room championship hats and T-shirts for sale after the game.
Now, this is a corporate entity unaffiliated with the team, so I'm not sure if the woofing theorem applies, but if San Diego wins…
drorzel | January 15, 2008Steroid scandals in sports, most particularly baseball, have been dominating sports media for a couple of years now. I thought that there really wasn't anything I could possibly care less about, but the New York Times proved me wrong with an article on steroid use among hip-hop artists.
Actually, the Times story is a report on an investigation by my local paper (I'm so proud), but I read the Times first in the mornings. The Albany Times Union does come through with a handy guide to hip-hop artists accused of using steroids. Look quickly before it goes behind the paywall.
What these stories…
drorzel | January 14, 2008Yo, E! (Do you mind if I call you E?)
I'd like to draw your attention to an item on your web page: NY Giants 21, Dallas Cowboys 17. Yeah, shocking as it may seem, the Giants won that game. Go figure. Hey, it surprised me, and I'm a Giants fan!
Still, in light of that item, doesn't it seem odd that 90% of your coverage of the game has been about Dallas? Which is to say, about the loser Cowboys? D'you think you could, I don't know, run some items about the New York Football Giants who, after all, won the game? (And why do we play? That's right, Mr. Edwards, we play to win the game. A gold star…
drorzel | January 13, 2008The New York Giants, who played all their starters in a "meaningless" game against the Patriots in the final week of the season are now 2-0 in the playoffs.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Indianapolis Colts, and Dallas Cowboys, who played their starters only sparingly at the end of the regular season to "rest up for the playoffs" are now 0-3.
I'm pleasantly stunned by the Giants victory. Though it might be better to call it a total meltdown by the Cowboys, who committed a bunch of stupid penalties in the fourth quarter to bail out the Giants' patchwork defense and preserve the victory. Though,…
drorzel | January 13, 2008So, how much does it suck to be David Garrard? He was 22-for-33 for 278 yards, with two touchdowns and only one interception, an excellent performance by any normal standard, but he was the second-best quarterback in the game. Tom Brady was 26-for-28, 262 yards, three TD's, no interceptions. And one of the incompletions was a flat-out drop by Wes Welker, who took his eye off the ball at the last second.
That's just outlandish.
Jacksonville made a good showing of it, but after the first drive, I never really had any doubt that the Patriots would end up winning. For most of the game, there was…