Sunday, January 3, 2021

Root for a win or a loss? Today's fate of the NY Football Giants is the classic illustration of what is wrong with pro sports

For tortured fans of the Jersey Giants, today could be the biggest game of the 2020s. 

Our "heroes' play the Dallas Cowboys - a ruthless, neo-corporate, immoral and incompetent incarnation of the despicable Jerry Jones, (which all-too-often gets compared to the Yankees.) Today's winner has an outside chance of entering the NFL post-season as champions of the woeful NFC East. 

In a traditional sports outing - the kind where drunken hominids turn out to support their tribe - Giant fans would be rooting for their team to send the bastard Cowboys back to Texas, where they can suck the Covid droplets from Ted Cruz's girly beard. But the rules of pro sports in America - guidelines written to protect owners, not players - have upended the Giants' needs. 

And if you think I'm just writing about the NFL, beware. Because by July 30, the mighty Yankees - with their rotation of Winkin, Blinkin and Nada - could well be staring down the Orioles in a race to tank within the AL East. In baseball, it's all about pitching, pitching, pitching... and right now, the Yanks have none, none, none.

I direct your attention to the following chart from Tankathon.com, the most relevant web site in professional sports. It outlines the NFL draft order, heading into the season's final week.

If the Giants win today, they can watch TV tonight to see if the Washington Deadskins Football Team beats Philadelphia. If that happens, the Giants victory is moot. The Deadskins Football Teamers win the Eastern Conference, and the Giants finish at 6-10, to potentially draft around 15th - middle of the pack. 

And here's the rub: If the Giants win today and reach the playoffs, they'll get shellacked. They'll be bombed, blasted, walloped. Nobody expects otherwise. After all, they are a terrible franchise, long rotting from the top, whose billionaire, Connecticut white-bread owners only vaguely appear cogent because they're in a town with the Dolan family.

If the Giants lose today, they could draft as low as 5th or 6th, depending on other outcomes. That could be difference between drafting a future all-pro and, well - here's one from the past - nabbing the next Rocky Thompson. 

For the record, this whole tanking thing is wrong. 

As a fan, I absolutely resent that I am compelled to root against my team. It absolutely sucks, and someday - somehow - the whole apparatus must burn to the ground. But for now, as far as I'm concerned: Tank, Giants, tank!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I go into today's game looking at it like a win-win. First things first.

I can not root for the Dallas Cowboys to beat the NY Giants EVER. OK that's not true, if the stakes were something along the lines of the fate of the universe I might. MIGHT!

The Cowboys are more hated by me than the Red Sox because we would beat the Red Sox, (Well after 1976 anyway.)

Ted Lily... Calvin Hill... Roger Staubach... and that's before they became "America's Team" and insufferable.

Ezekiel Elliot looks like a deranged Muppet. No! We need to destroy them. Make people in Texas sad!

Here's the upside and why it's a win-win.

I agree that we need to draft higher than 19th. So we beat them because we must. And then the WTF, sorry I meant the WFT beats the Eagles. No playoffs. High draft pick and we get to watch the Cowboys and the Eagles lose.

If the WTF, sorry I meant the WFT lose and we make the playoffs. Then we make the playoffs. It's been a while.

Doug K.

JM said...

I hadn't realized that the Giants radio network is driven by the Hess toy truck. Somehow fitting.

Great opening drive, then missed extra point. Then fumble on a simple handoff. Then Dallas field goal. And just now, an amazingly pathetic series with two one-yard "runs" and a near-sack on a desperation tipped screen.

Imagine how well they do in a playoff game. Jesus.

HoraceClarke66 said...

I'm with Doug K.: anytime anyone, anywhere, can beat the Dallas Cowboys, I'm all for it. And I'm not even a Giants fan.

Buuuutttt...what an immensely entertaining game that was, despite the best efforts by half of the players on the Giants' offense to piss it away.

I don't know if the Giants can make the playoffs—stay tuned tonight!—and I don't know if they'll do anything once they get there. But they have at least done one thing our New York Yankees have failed to do this offseason: they have built one hell of a defense.

And that's usually the best building block in the NFL. Jones seemed like a credible QB for most of this season, and the Barkley of Broadway is coming back. All they need to do is add an RB and a WR or two who can hold on to the ball, and they will be a contender.

And while I can't say I know much about the draft, I would think the 15th best college football player in the country is pretty good.

Would that we were so close to being a genuine contender.

ranger_lp said...

Funny how Gallman almost pulled a Joe Pisarcik during the last minute of the game.

It would be cool if Philly beats Washington tonight. Giants would play the Bucs in the first round.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Boy, that was a joke. Don't know how Philly is allowed to do that. But hey, it cost a New York team something, so no biggie.

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