Twilight of the gods – Giants sack Eli Manning

November 30, 2017

After 13 years and 210 games, including two Super Bowl titles in which he was named MVP, Eli Manning will not be starting at quarterback for the New York Giants this Sunday against the Oakland Raiders.

Manning – who has always been gracious to me as editor of WAG magazine in his role as spokesman for Guiding Eyes for the Blind – fought back tears as he told reporters, “I don’t have to make sense of it.”

No, Eli, you don’t, because in a way it doesn’t. It takes a particularly lousy group effort for a team to be 2 and 9. And while a 36-year-old Manning – a healthy 36-year-old Manning – may no longer be the answer, does anyone think successors Geno Smith and David Webb necessarily are? ...

Capturing the king: Geno Smith and the theater of violence

August 12, 2015

Football is war as theater. Violence is endemic to the sport. So it comes as no surprise that New York Jets’ linebacker Ikemefuna Enemkpali should sucker-punch his teammate, starting quarterback Geno Smith, over a $600 plane ticket Enemkpali purchased for Smith that he has yet to reimburse.

Enemkpali, (in-em-PAUL-ee) who was arrested during his Louisiana Tech days for battery of a police officer, was immediately released by the Jets. Even as NFL altercations go, this hits a new low in stupidity, and, of course, the snarkarazzi was out in force. ...

Jim Harbaugh – Gone guy?

October 7, 2014

Who needs the Bard when we have the San Francisco 49ers? Talk about your drama.

From quarterback Colin “I’m not the baby daddy” Kaepernick to defensive end Ray McDonald, arrested but not yet charged with the abuse of his pregnant fiancée, the stories are endless if not always entertaining.

The latest narrative centers on teensy-bit-excitable Coach Jim Harbaugh, who may or may not be steering the team next year, even if the Niners win the Super Bowl. Harbaugh has already been to the dance, so to speak, where he and his miners lost to the Baltimore Ravens, who are coached by his brother, John. (You can’t make this stuff up.)

So Harbaugh, Jim, is pretty good at what he does. But there are rumors, and here you can take your pick: He’s too hyper, contorting his face on the sidelines like something out of “Chicken Run”; he treats the guys in the locker room like the college kids he once coached at Stanford; he did wrong by then-Niner QB Alex Smith by secretly courting Peyton Manning when he was a free agent. (Ultimately, Smith would go to the Kansas City Chiefs after losing his starting job to a concussion and Kaepernick,)

Enter SF CEO Jed York, who only fanned flames by tweeting that the team is trying to win a Super Bowl, not a personality or popularity contest. Translation: “Yeah, Harbaugh’s a jerk, but he’s our talented jerk.” ...

Sanchez is out: Is it finally Geno Smith time?

March 23, 2014

Just when I thought I’d get a day off from sports, there’s more bombshell news:

Mark Sanchez is out as the New York Jets’ quarterback, and Michael Vick, late of the Philadelphia Eagles, is in.

Boy, you could’ve knocked me over with a, well, Jets’ wristband. Did not see that coming. I mean, after the revelation of Coach “Sexy Rexy” Ryan’s tattoo of his wife dressed in a Sanchez jersey – how it makes one yearn for Colin Kaepernick’s battle of angels all over his sculpted back – as I was saying, after the revelation of Ryan’s Sanchez tattoo, I thought those two were joined at the hip. But nothing is forever, least of all in football.