Wow, let’s face it. Five games into the 2016-17 NFL season and we basically have 2 unwatchable teams in New York. SU is struggling. Lifelong NFL fan and I can pretty much watch any sports event on TV. But I am not being entertained by the NFL this season and especially the NY teams. The Jets should be better than they are – especially given their defense but they come up short week after week. The Giants just don’t have the personnel and that’s on the GM. The defense can’t get off the field on 3rd down and OBJ is just a distraction on offense.
Even the other games that I have watched this season are yawners. I know the NFL’s ratings are down so far this year – not sure if that’s a blip or not. But I find myself looking forward to the start of the NBA season and college basketball more and more.
Speaking of the NBA, Jeremy Lin’s Brooklyn debut on Thursday night featured 21 points in 15 minutes. This will be SU’s new adopted team for the season. The roster is Development League quality – and that is almost an insult to any D-League team. But Lin will run the show and it’s refreshing to watch a pass first point guard who wants to get everyone involved. SU checked on line and there are still seats available on the Nets bandwagon – you can even upgrade to extra legroom for no extra charge as there is no one on the bus. I am sure he will be dissed by all of the other NBA players (See Jarrett Jack’s tweet when Lin’s 3-year, $36 million deal was announced and Jack was cut: “Hahahahahahaha.”) But Lin has paid his dues playing with James Harden and Kobe which run counter to his team-first roots. Good for him and good for SU.
The baseball playoffs have been equally dull. I suspect the Red Sox will make a run here and force a game 5 vs. Cleveland and that once the Cubs move on, interest will pick up.
Finally, watching Michigan’s 78-0 throttling of Rutgers over the weekend makes you wonder if Rutgers should be in the Big 10. It’s not fair to the players and they are years away from being competitive. Michigan only threw 2 passes in the 2nd half and just kept running the ball. It appeared that Rutgers’ defense quit and that’s hard to watch.
Sports Update Intergalactic 
Surprise team of the year so far? Cowboys without Romo?
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Phil, I would have to agree with you. Even more amazing that the Giants beat them on opening night in Dallas. Their young QB is playing great and they will no doubt have a quarterback controversy when Tony Romo is ready to return. Romo will be severely limited with his mobility which is obviously a strength of Prescott. I would say go with the hot hand but in sports, the saying is always that you don’t lose your job due to injury so we’ll see how this plays out. I think Romo is so fragile at this point that even if he returns and starts, you wonder how long he’ll last.
The NFL’s efforts to spread it’s “content” across as many time slots as possible has has diluted its core product. Every Sunday I think back to the days when you would watch two games. One would be your in-market game (at 1 or 4) and the other would be a really good game in the other time slot. This meant you had a guaranteed 6 hours of entertaining football (or for us Jets fans, 3 hours of misery and 3 hours of entertainment). Sunday afternoons were sacred for 4 months. This is no longer the case. Between Sunday night, Monday night and Thursday night, some of the week’s most interesting games are off the table right from the start. We’ll have some London games on Sunday morning. The result is that the pool of games for the traditional Sunday afternoon at the bar or in the lay-z-boy has become very limited. The NFL has owned Sunday afternoons for most of it’s history and is now stocking it with fewer, mostly boring games. This will only get worse late in the season with flex games and teams falling out of contention. The only way to get through a Sunday afternoon with your eyes open is with the Red Zone programming which is a useful tool for FanDuelers but no substitute for a really good game.
Watching the Jets, I’m stuck between being happy they didn’t cave to Fitzpatrick’s contract demands and wondering if the uncertainty during the negotiations may have taken a toll on the unity and preparedness.
Being a Fantasy Football team owner, I can see how the Red Zone channel would be a lot of fun. But to be honest, I don’t want to feel obligated to be at home on Sundays to watch the games. I agree about the number of games on each week. And the Thursday games and even the Monday night games have been pretty bad although partly caused by putting the Giants in those slots too much this year. I also think the QB position is going through a transition now and we need a new generation of studs to come along and soon.
I’m just glad that being in ATL, the Falcons actually look like they want to win a few games. I wasn’t so sure after they lost to TB, but they have been great since then.
Maybe the Jets and Giants should just combine teams for the rest of the season so they can put a decent product out there. The Jets are probably going to lose at least 1 and maybe 2 more games before the Browns will gift them a win. For the Giants, OBJ is not having fun so maybe I’ll take him to work with me next week so he can really see what not having fun looks like.
Ha ha ha. I guess it’s hard to work 6 months a year like that. The Falcons are interesting. The key for them is to get Matt Ryan to play well on the road. Throughout his career, he seems to play so much better at home. But they have a high octane offense and that should keep them in most games.