Tiki the difference maker

Last season we heard from Tiki Barber - often - on how bad a coach Tom Coughlin is. It continued through this year in a book he published, accusing Coughlin as being the reason for Barber going into an early retirement.

Barber was considered by many (outside the locker room) to be the leader of the Giants. We heard and read a lot about the Giants being "Tiki's team."

Barber criticized the head coach, and his quarterback.

To a man, the Giants that have publicly responded, blasted Barber.

Under Barber, Eli Manning showed little to no signs of progression from his rookie year until...well, until Barber left. This is largely the same team that Barber left.

Yet now they click.

Interesting that not a single former Giant teammate of Barber's has come to his defense, but they have all rallied around their coach and their quarterback. Even Terrell Owens, a noted locker room cancer, still had (public) supporters in the San Francisco and Philadelphia locker rooms after burning those bridges with nuclear devices. Barber has had none. Zero. Zip. Not one former teammate has come out and said anything even vaguely like, "look, Tiki's a good guy and a friend. He's not here this season, so he doesn't know how Eli, or Coach are this season," or even, "based on his experience here the last couple of seasons, Tiki's not saying anything that's not true, but it's a different atmosphere this year."

But none of that happened.

Instead, the biggest difference that Barber has made for the Giants this season was to take his divisive, malcontent attitude out of the mix.

Interestingly enough, the team got even better when their trash-talking, injury-prone tight-end ended his season on the injury list. The two biggest trash talkers (sure, Barber didn't talk trash so much about the opponents as he did his own team) on the team either leave or have absence enforced on them and the Giants get better and are headed to the Super Bowl. Coincidence? I think not.

What color is the sky in his world...

In post game comments Wade Phillips said that he believed the best team lost. That might be true. However, he also said that he believed that the Cowboys outplayed the Giants.

Which begs the question...

What game was he watching?

They padded stats, but they played poorly in crunch time, and the Dallas O-line got mauled late in the game, in spite of holding the ball for 13 more minutes than the Giants. In the fourth quarter, when the Cowboys front five should have been pushing around a tired Giants D-line, they were dominated by Big Blue.

When it came time to make plays, the Giants did, the 'Boys didn't. And that should have been obvious to even Ray Charles.

By the end of the game Tony Romo wasn't stepping into his throws, but he was ducking away from the rush. He missed open receivers, he threw the ball away when he wasn't under pressure, and held it when he was.

At this point in his career Romo is not a big game quarterback. Eli Manning has two post-season wins - Romo has none.

Now, the deluded coach with his 0-4 playoff record gets to sit at home and try to figure out how his team outplayed the Giants and lost.

Somebody close to him should tell him that his team had their hats handed to them in the fourth quarter.

Vick apologists go home and other QB issues

Andrew Perloff over at Sports Illustrated made a bold prediction about the Falcons this year. Less a prediction, really, than a statement that the Falcons "could go," 3-13 this season. This of course brought all the Vick apologists out of the wood work like little termites.

Vick's woes are everybody's fault but his own, including the fact that he has shown no progress in his development as a pro. One of my favorite statements on the forum responses to Perloff's blog regarding Vick was from some Falcons fan who claimed to have played QB in the CFL and AFL and stated that Vick only put the ball up 15-20 times per game.

Never mind the fact that his average attempts per game for his career is 23.4, and for the last two seasons around 25, according to this Falcons fan, Vick's completions per game, based on his completion percentage, would be between 8.07 and 10.76. Yeah, that's the guy I want under center. I'm not even going to get into his yardage numbers.

Hell, even at 23.4 per game, his completions still end up at a brutally low 12.6 per game.

On most teams that doesn't just get you benched. It gets you cut.

To put it in perspective - Tom Brady? 31.92 attempts per game and 61.9 percent completions, or 19.75 completions per game.

Ben Roethlisberger who is kept to a lower number of attempts, more comparable to Vick, because of the reliance on Pittsburgh's potent running attack? 25 AGP, 62.4 % completions, and 15.6 CPG.

How about Kurt Warner who was benched last season in spite of a completion percentage over 64? Who is in the twilight of his career in spite of two seasons where he averaged between 64.4 and 64.5 percent completions? Warner through his career has 31.75 APG, with a 65.6 % completions, with 20.8 CPG. And the prevailing belief is that he can't start in this league anymore.

So, I say it once again, until Vick shows me something...consistently, then just go home and be quiet, because Vick is the anti-A-Rod - a supremely talented athlete that puts up mediocre to poor numbers.

And before any of you use the argument about his rushing statistics last year, let me pose the question - just what did that 1000 yards Vick got on the ground get you? A playoff berth or a losing season?

Making a mountain out of a mole hill

Originally entitled by the NY Daily news, Manning Lobs Barb at Barber, the following was reported on SI.com under a slightly different title alluding to essentially the same idea...

Manning takes shot at Tiki
Posted: Thursday July 12, 2007 07:50AM ET
Eli Manning didn't hold back when asked about what he thought life would be like without newly retired running back Tiki Barber. "I don't think we're concerned," Manning said. "We're excited by the players that we have who wanted to return for this season, and who wanted to be a part of the Giants and play." When word of Barber's retirement leaked out during last season, many in the media questioned Barber's dedication to the team. Manning's parting shot, however, is the first time a teammate has openly criticized the Giants' all-time leading rusher.

Sure, this statement could be looked at a back-handed slap at the former Giants running-back, but it really looks to me like the press trying to create controversy where there isn't any. I'm not an Eli fan, but I really do feel this is reaching.

This strikes me as something along the lines of the following -
Spring 2006
Member of the press - "Hey David, what do you think the Sox chances are without Johnny Damon?"
Big Papi - "I don't think we're concerned. We're excited by the players that we have who wanted to return for this season, and who wanted to be a part of the Red Sox."

Is there anyone out there that would take that as a shot at Damon, or Ortiz just trying to build his new team-mates up? Anyone?