The Afternoon Before: Playing the blame game

 Again, later in the week working better, because of baseball and LeBron starring in the best Nike ad in years. It may become a trend. My usual reminder: I’m a football layman.

Apparently, the Dolphins didn't recover this fumble

When I showed up at work on Monday, one of my co-workers said, “Obviously, you’re going to write about instant replay this week.” Well, yes, but not in the way he was thinking

As a Dolphins fan, I do think they got shafted, much the way the Lions were in Week 1 when some obscure rule wiped out what was obviously a Calvin Johnson touchdown. They forced a fumble by Ben Roethlisberger before he crossed the plane of the end zone, and then Ikaika Alama-Francis recovered the ball and came away with it after the pile was sorted out.

And the referees said they couldn’t figure out who recovered it. I mean, that’s crazy. Anyone with eyes saw Alama-Francis with the ball.

But you can’t just roll over at that point. There’s still a game to win.

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The Afternoon After: Sainz of underlying sexism

I started writing some weekly thoughts on football last year, so I’m going to give that a shot again, probably sometime on Monday or Tuesday whenever I get up, which is usually around 1 p.m. The Jay-Z/Eminem concert at Yankee Stadium on Monday pushed this back a bit. I’ll also preface this, as usual, by saying I don’t really know an enormous amount about football relative to other sports, but I enjoy looking at it from a social and cultural standpoint.

From Monday Night's game

I’m sure everyone’s sick of this situation with TV Azteca reporter Ines Sainz getting heckled by the Jets – that’s the nature of things now, Twitter makes you sick of things the moment you hear about them. And this sort of thing comes up every couple years and eventually just goes away without any real change affected, so I’d imagine this will probably be about the same, though maybe Roger Goodell does something here. I can’t think of what it would be.

But to those saying Sainz “brought it on herself” by wearing revealing outfits, that reeks of jealousy and latent sexism. Whatever the Jets said to her, I’ve much likely heard far worse spewing from people who blame her for being harassed.

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The afternoon after: Saints may be ready to make The Leap

As per usual, my look at the weekend’s football games from a decidedly untrained eye, as evidenced by last week’s eulogy for the career of Tom Brady.

Now THIS must have been a scintillating conversation

It’s no secret that the Saints are currently the best team in football, as evidenced by their demolition of the previously unbeaten Giants. But just how good are they? What is the limit to their potential success?

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The afternoon after: Heel the world – Giants deep everywhere but QB

Here are my usual post-Sunday thoughts. More a “late-night after” than afternoon today. I’ll reiterate that football isn’t my thing, but I’ll give it a shot as usual.

Eli gets it off (for a touchdown); Carr in his usual position

  • The Giants have a deep and talented team, particularly on defense. Steve Smith is open every time you look up. They gave the Chiefs fits on Sunday. I do believe they’re the best team in football, but their huge weakness was exposed when Eli Manning somehow hurt his foot. The “bruised heel” diagnosis was shady at best, as I simply view such an injury as impossible under those circumstances. I get injured all the time, so I’m sort of a self-proclaimed expert; the first thing I thought was that he messed up his Achilles’. Now I’m hearing that it may be plantar fasciitis, which would be far from a best-case scenario, but at least it wouldn’t be his Achilles’. Regardless, I believe Eli – who’s far tougher than he looks – won’t miss a whole lot of time with this. I’ve had plantar fasciitis, and though it’s no picnic, it’s at least manageable. With the horrible Raiders coming to town, they may choose to sit him until the following week in a huge showdown in New Orleans. But David Carr isn’t suitable to play quarterback in this, or any, league. And as deep as the Giants are at most positions – including running back, where Ahmad Bradshaw has been at least the equal of Brandon Jacobs thus far – David Carr simply is not an NFL quarterback, having been permanently ruined by years of playing behind a sieve-like offensive line in Houston. I believe the Giants are very good, and potentially dominant, but until Eli plays a whole game and shows no ill effects, you have to temper your enthusiasm.

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