Friday, December 29, 2006

No Contest

Everyone writes their year-end 'Somethingest Something' list. For 2006, there's no question what the best story was.

It happened in Greece, New York. Jason McElwain, the 5'6" autistic team manager for the Greece Athena High School basketball team, scored 20 points in his first and only 4 minutes of action in his career. There was much rejoicing by all.

"I ended my career on the right note. I was really hotter than a pistol!" Nice Jawb, J-Mac!

Thursday, December 28, 2006

If I ran the New York Giants


I'm a fan of the Chicago Bears. I don't give two damns about the New York Giants, other than to laugh at them from afar ever since they hired Tom Coughlin.

Part of it was sheer relief that the Giants taking Coughlin off the market would prevent the Bears from making that mistake.

The Peter Kings of the world clapped like seals, believing the Giants needed a leader of men who was a throttler of throats. King said the same of Detroit hiring drill sergeant Rod Marinelli when predicting the Lions would win the NFC North in 2006. They're about to wrap up a 2-14 campaign. Good work, Pete.

Looking at their play the last 7 weeks, the last thing the Giants players want is to be shouted at by Coughlin in January, or any other part of 2007. No one is more disappointed with the NFC's putrid playoff picture than these players. How many games do we have to tank to end this shouting? Enough already.

I chuckled when Coughlin changed up the playcalling duties to Kevin Gilbride, the man Buddy Ryan punched in the face, for the final week of the death march. Way to be proactive, coach. Coughlin said they just needed to change things up and try to spark something.

If I'm running the Giants, I follow Coughlin to the podium and repeat the "We need a spark" speech, fire Coughlin, and name Tiki Barber interim coach. Not really sure I buy the talk earlier in the season that Tiki's retirement announcement sparked the team, but it seems like the guys like him OK. They'd want to win for him, if for no other reason than as an F You to the old ferret-faced shouting man.

It's not like the Giants can keep Coughlin around next year, so why waste another week and miss the playoffs?

Once they're dismissed from the playoffs, Tiki can move on to shooting right-wing hook shots with his eyebrow and the Giants can unite big fat Charlie Weis with his dream job.