Well, 2008 has just begun and it proves to be a wild one. Roger Clemens has almost singlehandedly started the year off with a bang. And if I were Roger, the fact that Congress is pushing back its hearing with him, Andy Pettitte and Brian McNamee almost a month (from January 16th to February 13th) is an ominous sign. Clemens' head lawyer Rusty Hardin responded to the news by saying, "Roger hasn't done anything. The federal government looking at Roger is fine with me."

At this point, if Hardin really feels that way, why not publicly declare that Clemens will not invoke the Fifth Amendment (the right not to incriminate oneself) during the hearing? Trust me, after the whole Mark McGwire debacle in Congress, if Clemens ever wanted to get the undecided sports people onto his side, waiving his Fifth Amendment right would be a heck of a way to do it.

What will probably happen is that the hearing will be abnormally uncomfortable for Clemens. He's going to be grilled not only about steroid and HGH use, but also about his supposed lidocaine and vitamin B12 injections, as well as his own stated Vioxx abuse. He's going to be grilled about various things he has said in public which just don't line up with what really happened. He's going to have every interview he ever gave lined up to show where he says something in one interview and then contradicts it in another.

And he's going to be skewered for setting up a call to talk about McNamee's son as a pretext for trying to entrap McNamee and get something to bolster his own case. What it demonstrates is that he'll do anything to win, and that's probably as good a reason to guess that he did steroids and HGH as any. Honestly, now Clemens is going to understand why lawyers want their clients to say as little as humanly possible.

So we move from that stupidity to the Golf Channel suspending anchor Kelly Tilghman for two weeks. Why? Because she complimented Tiger Woods by saying that his game is so dominant that the only way that other players could possible hope to challenge Woods would be to "lynch him in a back alley".

I know that the word "lynch" has some very negative historical connotations. But does Tilghman deserve a two-week suspension? The Golf Channel deserves a lot of blame for picking her to be the first female golf anchor. Maybe they did it as an affirmative action move, but there are very very few people who think that she got there on merit. And her most recent comment demonstrates that she's far from a polished anchor.

Let's be honest, a big reason she was picked is because she's very attractive and athletic looking. Don't believe me? Heck, why did they not groom Nancy Lopez for that position? Lopez has 47 LPGA victories and was inducted in to the World Golf Hall of Fame at age 30. She's far more qualified than Tilghman will ever be. But Nancy has one disqualification: she's not as attractive as Tilghman. That's not an opinion, it's a fact.

Still, I think Tilghman's suspension is ridiculous. She apologized in a sincere manner to Tiger Woods and the viewers. Shouldn't that be sufficient? If she had slandered Woods, then it would be an entirely different story, but the irony of it all is that she's being punished for actually complimenting his superb golfing abilities. What I kind of wish would happen is that Tiger Woods would take a break from protecting his image and do the right thing: call a press conference and/or write a letter to the Golf Channel that pleads with them to not suspend her.

Tilghman didn't cheat or lie or steal, she just made a mistake. That's all it was, and when we get so touchy that even the smallest mistake (in this case a single word) followed by an immediate and public apology is given a two-week punishment, then instead of having announcers and anchors who are passionate about sports and life, we're going to have a bunch of corporate guys who measure every word that comes out of their mouths.  Is that what we really want?

Some people might vilify both Tilghman and Clemens as two terrible people. Even if we ignore all the accusations against Clemens, it's tough to condone his taping of that conversation with McNamee which was expressly supposed to be about McNamee's ill son. Tilghman might be stupid, but Clemens taping that conversation was just plain wrong. That makes Tilgham and Clemens like 2 peas in 2 different pods.

Rescind Tilghman's suspension. I think she's already learned her lesson.

Who here is tired of college football hypocrisy? Players can't receive gifts during the regular season, but they can receive up to a $500 gift for bowl games? We talk about protecting their "study time", but we have the title game on January 7th?

Now we hear that the President of the University of Georgia is pushing for an 8-team playoff format? Even if his system is adopted and the bowls serve as a 1st-round game, we're talking about prolonging the season further.

With all the bowl money out there, schools that are not in the top 8 or 10 annually will not agree to something like an 8-game playoff.

Here are the current problems:

1)  time - the post-season is already too long.

2)  fairness - too much controversy if there is no clear #1 and #2 from the regular season

 

Solution: "bowl + 1" format for the top 4 teams. However, the semifinal bowl games should be played around December 18th (before the start of the bowl season), and the national championship will keep its current time (around January 7th). The top BCS bowls can rotate to host the semifinal and final games.

 

This solution achieves a lot of objectives:

 

1) time - the post-season will not be extended beyond the current system

2) exclusivity - the semi-final round will have exclusivity (and fantastic ratings) because it will be played at a time when no other bowls are scheduled to play.

3) convenience - the other bowls do not have to alter their schedules

4) fairness - we improve the chances that the real #1 team in the country gets to play for the national title

5) incentive - the system provides incentives for teams to play hard until the very end of the season.

6) compromise - assuming that there is no increase in the number of bowls next year, this system would mean that only 2 fewer teams than this past season will get to play in a bowl game.

7) better competition - the current long layoff between the end of the regular season and the national championship has to make players rusty. Ideally, with this system, I would suggest playing the national championship game on January 4, 2009 (a Sunday) for maximum exposure, less time off, and it saves the athletes a few days.

 

Why the 8-team playoff will meet resistance:

 

1)  time - even if the bowl games were used for the first round, it would still extend the season another week, and not only is that unfair to the athletes, but it also is a bit hypocritical to talk about the importance of protecting their study time while further decreasing it.

2)   let's imagine that we monkeyed around with the current bowl system and we used 4 bowls to play the quarterfinal round around December 25, 2008 (a Thursday), then another 2 bowls to host the semifinal round around January 1, 2008 (a Thursday), and then the naitonal championship was held around January 7, there would be problems:

 

a)      Mid-level schools lose out - it would mean that 4 teams in the nation who under the current system would be playing a bowl game will not do so (because the semifinal bowl games will get the winners of the quarterfinal bowl games)

b)      Devaluation of non-playoff bowl games - the non-playoff bowls would scream bloody murder, because having playoff games competing directly with their own bowl games would devalue them.

c)      Deprivation of money to 4 universities - College presidents who look forward to collecting bowl money would not be in favor of a system that each year would deprive 4 colleges of much-needed bowl appearance money.

d)      Decreased Incentive - The last problem is one that we see in the current NFL playoff system: teams that have clinched are more likely to rest their starters at the end of the season. With the current systems, every team has to play hard throughout the last game of the season, because no one can be sure how the ranking system will place them in the end. But with 8 teams making it to the playoffs, the top 2 or 3 teams have more incentive to rest their players for the final game of the season, because as long as they place in the top 8, they will still have a chance to chase the national title.

 

 This solution is a win-win for everyone.

I like the ideal of "innocent until proven guilty". I also like the idea that people honor the contracts they sign, but we all know how binding that seems to be for pro athletes. Maybe the public is being too hasty in judging Roger Clemens, but he's contributed heavily to a lot of his own problems. After reading several blogs here, there are things which require a general response for everyone who is supporting Clemens.

 

Assertion #1:  Roger Clemens has done everything correctly in dealing with this steroid/HGH mess.

Comment: Clemens has NOT made all the right moves, and that's despite the fact that he has a high-profile attorney and a whole group of attorneys below Dusty Hardin guiding him. He's a bit too late with his denials. Do we really believe that he didn't meet with the Mitchell Committee because he didn't know what they were looking at? Do you think they called him and said, "Roger, we need to talk with you but we can't tell you why until we see you face-to-face?" Highly doubtful. There are only two possible reasons he didn't meet with them: his lawyer told him not to for fear of possible self-incrimination, and probably because his lawyer Dusty Hardin probably needed more time to review the situation.

In the '60 Minutes' interview, Clemens used excuses like "Where would I even get the needles and syringes for the stuff?" My guess is that he probably would have gotten them from the same place that he got the needles and syringes for his supposed lidocaine and Vitamin B-12 shots. Just an fyi, you can't just press the bottles containing that stuff onto your ass and pray for absorption. Where are his prescriptions for those needles and prescription drugs? If he has no paper trail for those, then of course he's probably not going to have a paper trail leading to the steroids. Clemens might be a lot of things, but he's not stupid enough to pay for his steroids with a personal check or credit card. And what would be the incentive of his steroid suppliers to step forward and be prosecuted themselves?

 

Assertion #2:  Clemens filiing a lawsuit while McNamee hasn't supports his claims of innocence.

Comment: This does not suggest anything, except that Dusty Hardin is looking for ways to try and convince the public that Clemens is innocent, and that Clemens has the deep pockets to fund those efforts. Also, at least Clemens has potential grounds for defamation of character, but Clemens has been very careful about what he's said about McNamee. So, does McNamee really have enough solid ground to file a lawuit against Clemens? Once again, that's why the rich get high-profile attorneys and get the upper hand.

Second, the only way that a penniless McNamee is going to file a countersuit is if his lawyers (now working pro bono) really feel that there is a solid case. In a case like this which is one man's word against another, the burden of proof in a McNamee countersuit would be on McNamee to prove that Clemens has been lying. If he had that kind of solid proof, don't you think he would have already handed it over to the feds?

 

Assertion #3:  Clemens waited to respond because he was being a good friend and giving McNamee a chance to recant.

Comment: Some may look at Clemens tardiness in defending himself as a man in turmoil that a close friend has betrayed him. Some might say that a strong bond of loyalty has prevented Clemens from going on the counterattack earlier. Let me give you a different perspective on Clemens's tardiness. What if the reason he waited so long to respond was to make certain that no smoking guns would pop up later? If I were guilty, the first thing I would do is to try and plug any potential leaks in my future story. That takes time.

Some might say that Clemens has been a loyal friend and that's the reason he hasn't attacked McNamee until now. Do you really believe that after the Mitchell Report came out Clemens still considered McNamee a friend? If your close friend publicly destroyed your entire reputation as well as damaged your family, would you still consider him/her a friend? Would you secretly tape a conversation with a friend in hopes of trapping him?

 

Assertion #4:  Clemens appeared on '60 Minutes' which proves that he has nothing to hide.

Comment: That '60 Minutes' piece wasn't exactly a hard-hitting interview. It was just providing Clemens with a large forum to say he's innocent. Also, admitting that he was abusing strong prescription painkillers is not exactly a smart way of convincing us that you didn't abuse other drugs.

Did Clemens appear angry during the '60 Minutes' interview? Yes. But I also believe that Clemens is a control-freak, and so he and his legal team spent days doing mock interviews. You don't really think that Dusty Hardin let him go on camera without any preparation, do you?  I think that making such a big deal about the potential heart damage he could get from abusing Vioxx (a prescription painkiller) was planned to garner sympathy and show everyone what a tough cookie Clemens was and how he was a team player. What Clemens' legal team probably gambled on (and won) is that the American public would be so focused on the issue of steroids and HGH that they wouldn't question whether Clemens had been abusing painkillers. A 65-year old person with severe ostearthritis who needs high-dose painkillers just to do basic functions of everyday life is far different than a 40-year old who just wants to pitch one more game.

 

Assertion #5: McNamee must be a sleazeball if he could rat out Clemens and then later ask to borrow his fishing gear.

Comment: If you watched the '60 Minutes' interview, Clemens ruffled a sheaf of papers which supposedly had an email sent by McNamee four days before the Mitchell Report was issued. In that email, he allegedly asked to borrow Clemens's fishing equipment. I say "allegedly", because we never saw the document, and Mike Wallace didn't say anything to confirm that he had actually read it either. Anyways, I would rather look at the actual email itself on Clemens' computer, because then I can be more sure that it wasn't altered.

That whole part of the interview was yet another reason why Clemens is difficult to trust. He said that at that time he (Clemens) had no idea about what McNamee had told the Mitchell Committee about him. And he used that email from McNamee to portray McNamee as a sleazebag with a lot of chutzpah who would stab a close friend in the back and then borrow something from him a short time later. And guess what? If you just believe that part of the interview, then McNamee does look like sleazy.

What Clemens failed to tell everyone is that he had spoken to McNamee four days prior to that email at which time McNamee told Clemens about his testimony to the Mitchell Committee. We know this from Clemens's own lawyer Dusty Hardin who was left in the unenviable position of having to publicly contradict Clemens's earlier statement that he had not had any contact with McNamee prior to the release of the Mitchell Report.

Here's a common sense question. Do you think that during their conversation 8 days before the Mitchell Report was released that Clemens said, "Brian, you're a complete sleazebag and a rat, and never call me again!" and then 4 days later McNamee sends him an email asking to borrow his fishing equipment?

Does that even remotely make sense? More likely, McNamee told Clemens about the testimony and Clemens said not to worry because no one knew if that part of McNamee's testimony was going to get into the final report. My guess is that they ended that conversation on fairly friendly terms, and that is why McNamee sent him the email for the fishing equipment. But that's the part of the story that Clemens most likely left out.

It's probably the same reason why McNamee would even agree to meet with 2 private investigators (Jim Yarbrough and Billy Belk) hired by Clemens' attorneys. That meeting occurred on December 12th, the day before the Mitchell Report was released. There's no doubt about that meeting or who funded those private investigators because Clemens signed a document acknowledging that those guys work for his attorneys. If Clemens really didn't know what McNamee had told the Mitchell Committee, then why would he have his investigators meet with McNamee at that time?

And again all of this makes one wonder, "If Clemens knew that far in advance about McNamee's claims against him to the Mitchell Committee, then why didn't Clemens and his lawyers whip up a denial to release to the media just in case his name was in the Mitchell Report?

Also, parts of that December 12th interview were used to file Clemens' lawsuit against McNamee, but now we find out that the interview in its entirety tells the story not of an untruthful McNamee, but rather of a meeting set up to force McNamee to recant and McNamee insisting that he had told the truth. Basically, Clemens' lawyers filed a lawsuit based on a soundbite. And we all know how misleading soundbites can be.

 

Assertion #6: Clemens worked hard for his success and everyone knows this.

Comment: I'll be the first one to say that Clemens worked hard. I'll also be the first one to say that steroids or HGH optimally help those who exercise hard.

When you look at some ominous signs in this whole Clemens-Steroids mess, one very noticeable thing is the nearly absolute lack of other players who have come to his defense. There have been a couple. But Clemens had a lot of teammates during his tours with several teams.

Where is then Blue Jays manager Tim Johnson? Oh yeah, he's still in exile for lying about his Vietnam War service record. Where is Joe Torre? He declined to back up Clemens. That is a telling statement because everyone who knows Torre says that he's a very honest guy who sticks up for his players. Why has he taken a pass on commenting about Clemens' situation? Ominous...

 

 

Conclusion:

There are some people in Clemens' corner, but not many of them are from Boston.

We've seen him do a lot of great things here, and it's a shame that he didn't win a World Series Championship here.

However, we've also seen a lot of the half-truths that he tends to tell.

Clemens has said multiple times about how he doesn't want to do anything to be disrespectful towards baseball. That doesn't include the way that he ignored new manager Butch Hobson during their first spring training? Does anyone remember the famous scene of Hobson trying to talk with him but Clemens refusing to listen and instead focusing on the music pumping through his walkman?

Boston fans will also remember Clemens emphatically saying in 1996 (his final year with the Red Sox) that he wasn't chasing the money but rather trying to win a World Series Championship before the end of his career. At that time Boston had wrapped up another season of not making it to the playoffs and being 7 games out of 1st place in the Eastern Division. Who won their division? The Yankees, and Baltimore came in second. Toronto was in 4th place (out of 5 teams) and 18 games out of 1st place.

For those of you not in Boston at the time, the city was split. Some viewed him as a traitor for wanting to leave the Red Sox, but there were also others, including several prominent sportswriters, who felt that Clemens had already given a lot to the Red Sox who at that time weren't in a position to contend and so he should be allowed to go to the team that gave him the best chance for a World Series Championship.

So where does Clemens go to chase after his World Series ring? Toronto. In the end he went there because Toronto offered more money than the Yankees. Toronto then finished dead last the next year in 1997 (22 games out of 1st place). The Yankees offered less money, but were perennial contenders and had just won the World Series in 1996. What better team to go if you want to have the best chance of winning a World Series Championship? Do you see why it's difficult for people to trust Clemens?

The last thing to point out is that Clemens is not a guy without money. He isn't now and he wasn't then. Professional baseball players have access to the best medical teams in the world. Even if he's telling the truth and he was getting lidocaine and vitamin B-12 injections in his apartment, does that really seem like something he should be doing without the knowledge and approval of team doctors? It's the same question I often wonder when a pro athlete gets caught and says that it was a supplement. Why wouldn't a player who has a lot to lose in terms of money and fame protect themselves from potential accusations by running everythinig by the team's medical staff? Maybe it's laziness, maybe it's stupidity, or maybe it's just something a whole lot more sinister.

Wow, Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee have become the most entertaining male pairing since Felix and Max in the "Odd Couple". Accusations, secretly taped conversations, a deathly ill child, and lawyers working on both sides to outmaneuver each other. Whew, what drama!!!!!!!

I'm writing this piece a year ahead of time, because I already know how this is going to play out.

My greatest prediction for Major League Baseball (MLB) in 2008 is that none of this steroid/HGH stuff is going to matter. People will still shell out big money to go to Red Sox games and league attendance records will continue to be broken, especially if Colorado Rockies fans ever decide to support their team on a full-season basis.

We live in a hyperstimulated age. Everything has to be flashier and brighter than it was previously. I just saw an ad for EPT (yes, the Early Pregnancy Test) and now the device comes in 4 different colors. That must be for people who want to put a small chain on it and have it dangle from their purses and knapsacks. Coca-Cola and Pepsi have spent big money to jazz up their labels in order to sell more soda because they just want to keep America well-hydrated. Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii are looking for new and exciting ways to suck even more people into the gaming world. Despite the fact that America faces an escalating weight epidemic combined with increased costs for grains like corn and wheat, fast food restaurants are still trying to find a way to super-super-size everything.

If you still don't think you're being hyperstimulated, then try playing a game of "Doom" or "Call of Duty" on your computer for a few hours. It's an experience that will give you a bizarre cyberworld form of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Do you know what MLB's biggest worry is? What if it does clean up the game and suddenly instead of seeing teams score an average of 4 to 6 runs a game (note: the worst team in 2007 the Washington Nationals averaged 4.15 runs per game) the average drops to only 2 or 3 runs a game?

This is the same problem that the NFL wrestled with years ago and their solution was to skew the rules to give the offense a major advantage. Don't believe me? How is it that a ball carrier's initial forward progress can be stopped by the defense at the 50-yard line, and then he can literally be pushed forward 50 yards into the opponent's end zone for a touchdown, but he can't be pushed backwards 50 yards for a safety?

Baseball needs people to actively chase records in order to compete in today's hyperstimulated world. The fans want to see guys like Joba Chamberlain of the Yankees tickle 100mph on the radar gun. Heck, they want to see him hit 110mph. The fans want to see someone break Barry Bonds home run record, which means that we're all in the unenviable position of having to root for A-Rod.

The fans want to see baseballs flying out of the park at a record clip. In today's hyperstimulated world, I guarantee that many of today's fans love to see a 2-1 game, but only when it's sandwiched between an 8-6 game and a 10-4 game.

Folks, the steroid scandal is not something new. Anyone who has followed baseball for a while knows that steroids have been an ongoing problem. But unlike a baseball strike, the fans don't outwardly react by boycotting games. Do you think that people will decline to renew their box seats at Yankee Stadium because Andy Pettitte or Roger Clemens used steroids and/or HGH?

And when you add things like the rising popularity of fantasy baseball to the mix - a nice cheap way to suck even more people into following multiple MLB teams - then it's in MLB's best interest to keep up the big offensive numbers. Heck, defensive numbers aren't even used for the fantasy baseball league scoring systems that I've seen. That shows you where the priorities are.

Some people might point to the NFL as an example of how to be tough on steroids and yet keep the scoring high. After all, a record 11,104 points were scored this season in the NFL. That's an average total score per game of 43.4, the highest in the past 25 years.

The problem is that the NFL has latitude in its rules which allow it to create more scoring. In fact, there are still certain rules which the NFL could tweak to increase scoring even more. But baseball doesn't have this ability. The tie already goes to the runner and the strike zone couldn't be any narrower than it already is. How could you possibly generate more runs in baseball? 

So, here is the major conflict that MLB has to face: how does it clean up the game without becoming BORING. For a league that is clearly focused on the bottom line of revenue generation, becoming boring and obsolete to the public is a far greater threat than steroids ever could or will be. That is MLB's real battle. And fortunately for baseball, you have a lot of top-notch chemists out there who are currently working on or may have already developed the next undetectable anabolic agent. You have the MLBPA which will do everything possible to prevent any testing above the minimal amount it allows now. In the end, both of these groups will keep baseball exciting.

Some or many of you reading this may strongly disagree. You might even think that baseball is on its deathbed. You couldn't be further from the truth. Baseball is alive and will thrive next season.

The truth is that the very population that baseball is trying to attract - the 10- to 24-year old crowd - is not all that interested in whether or not players are using steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs. Older people might care, but in today's America, people of all ages are trying to be cool and younger, and this oftentimes means following where the younger generation goes. Don't believe me? Look at all the people over 50 years of age who now have iPods. As long as offensive numbers are up, people will continue to go to the ballpark and/or keep buying team merchandise. You know it, I know it, and most importantly MLB knows it.

When a star player like Roger Clemens openly admits to receiving multiple injections of painkillers like lidocaine and Toradol and ingesting prescription Vioxx likes they're skittles and no one associated with MLB blinks or thinks that it's concerning, then I know that there is not a lot of impetus to change anything. If you think that steroids should be banned for giving players an edge, then why not also ban prescription painkillers as well? Anabolic steroids may give some players who take them an edge, but big-time painkillers allow the majority of players who take them to get on the field and compete. Which do you think has a more immediate and important role for players in terms of daily performance?

In the end, real and comprehensive changes in the way MLB handles steroids, HGH, and other performance-enhancing drugs will only happen if fans make a statement by turning their backs on the game, but in today's hyperstimulated world that's not going to happen, because if fans do this then they might miss the next massive home run.

For some reason it's tough liking the NY Giants. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I'm from Boston. But that can't be the answer, because it's not like the Giants have been rivals with the Patriots. In any event, if I see a game on TV with the Giants, it doesn't matter who the opponent is, I just root for the other team.

But now the situation has changed a lot in just a couple of weeks, and it's pretty much because of Tom Coughlin. Coughlin is a former Boston College coach, who is legendary for his strict disciplinarian style.

What Coughlin did against the Patriots 2 weeks ago was meaningful in several ways:

1) he risked injury to key players in a game that had no bearing on the playoffs (both teams had already clinched their spots)

2) he obviously walked into that game thinking he could win (even though his team had barely won against some lower caliber teams)

3) he unnecessarily played his starters with potentially catastrophic ramifications in the postseason if any of them were to be injured, and he did this with his job is in jeopardy if he were to lose in the first round of the posteason

 

Maybe Coughlin was crazy. A lot of announcers before the game, and definitely Chris Collinsworth throughout most of the Patriots-Giants game, thought that Coughlin was stupid for playing the game as if it meant something.

When a former player like Collinsworth repeatedly calls the game "meaningless" while broadcasting it, you know there's a problem with the NFL.

The idea that only the playoffs count is wrong. It's also completely at odds with the other mantra we hear and love to recite about "taking it one game at a time".

A lot of sportscasters were saying that we had to wait until seeing the score of the Giants first-round playoff game to decide if Coughlin's decision to play his starters against the Patriots was correct.

To quote a well-known baseball pitcher, "That's hogwash!"

Whether the Giants won or lost the game against Tampa Bay, Coughlin's decision to play his starters should have garnered him a tremendous amount of accolades, especially knowing that injury to key starters in the final game of the 2007 regular season and losing in the first-round of the playoffs probably would have cost him his job.

In short, he tells his players to fully dedicate themselves to each play and that's the way he coaches.

When true fans - and I'm not talking about fans who still think that the tackle box in football is where football players keep their bait - start viewing the regular season as just a prelude to the postseason, we've got troubles. When true fans start looking at the NFL as more of a chess league and less as a sports league, we've got troubles.

A lot of people out there think that if the Patriots go anything less than 19-0 this season, then the season will be a failure. Hogwash. Many Giants fans probably also feel that if their team had been defeated yesterday, the season would have been a failure. Also Hogwash.

For true fans of the NFL who like to see teams fighting tooth and nail every game, don't get sucked into this idiocy about the postseason. NFL players get paid a lot of money to play as many downs as physically possible. Fans pay a lot of money to see their teams give their best effort each week.

If I were a Colts fan and saw them lose the last game of the season because Tony Dungy sat down Peyton Manning for the entire second half, I'd be upset.

And here's the really strange thing in pro sports: if an NBA team loses on purpose by not putting their starters on the floor in a "meaningless" late season game, then people go beserk, but somehow it's okay to do this in the NFL?

I'm not against the idea of a coach resting key players on the team, but at least make sure that you win the darn game.

That's why I've got to root for the Giants for a while. Coughlin made us remember why we devote our time to watching the game: because it's still a game of heart.

He may not have the best coaching record, he may lose his next playoff game, and he may still lose his job, but no one can accuse him of quitting on his team or the ideals of playing one game at a time.  

Also, I have to give a lot of credit to the Giants players. They also had a major role to play in Coughlin's decision to play his starters during the Patriots game. And they played like a team that is a contender the past two weeks.

So, as the Giants prepare for Dallas, I'm left saying a previously unthinkable thought: Let's Go Giants!!!!!!