The Jersey Giants start tonight and I don't give a damn

All my life, I've followed the New York "Football" Giants with a passion only slightly less than the Yankees. This is because when I was young, the Giants appeared to be the Yankees of the NFL. They had Andy Robustelli, Sam Huff, Jim Katcavage, Frank Gifford, Kyle Rote and Y.A Tittle - and I believed they would always dominate, just as I believed the Yankees would forever win.

Well, the NFL wanted no part of having a Yankee-style dominance, especially in New York, so it disbanded the three coaches that had built the Giants into a powerhouse. The defensive coach, Tom Landry, went to Dallas. The offensive coach, Vince Lombardi, moved to Wisconsin. And the team clipboard, Allie Sherman, stayed. We got the wrong of that deal, and the rest is history.

For the last 55 years, more or less, the Giants have been a roller coaster franchise, generally mediocre but with occasional bursts of unexplained joy. Nobody ever figured out how Tom Coughlin - who couldn't build a team that lasted more than six games - won two Super Bowls, but he did.

But today, with the Giants opening their season, all I feel toward the team, the league and the NFL is muscle memory. The reason: Injuries.

I mean, seriously, why should anybody devote five minutes to the Giants’ chances this year? Tonight, we could lose both our star defensive ends for the season. What we do know is that everybody – every single player on every single team – will get hurt at some point. This is because the players have gotten so big, so strong, so fast that the sheer blunt force of collisions is killing them, or at least posting threats to their futures that no athlete - pro or amateur - should ever face. 

If the Giants avoid injuries to their big players, they'll win the division. If not, they're done. What more is there to say?

They could win tonight and lose the season. It would be nice to beat Jerry Jones in Dallas – hell, I still hate the Cowboys - but you know what Giants fans should be hoping for? Injuries to the Cowboys. I should be literally hoping for players – real people – to get hurt, and who wants to live that way? I’m too old to give up football entirely. But if I could, I would.