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Mr. Buckeye
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How 'bout them Cowboys (and Packers)!
Two of the NFC's top teams barreling toward showdown on Nov. 29
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21744831/
It’s amazing how well a dull football season can turn out. For all the verbiage expended over the dearth of great football in the NFL, we’ve already had one regular season game of the century, and now we get to look forward to another.
Thank the Cowboys for this one. By dominating the Giants in the second half of what had been a close game on Sunday, they’ve set up a game at the end of November that is going to every bit as much fun looking forward to as was Patriots-Colts last week.
There are two teams left in the NFC which stand at least a head, if not shoulders, too, above the rest. They are the Cowboys and the Packers, the top two offenses in the conference. They’re both 8-1, two games clear of the next best teams, the Giants and Lions, and worlds better than everyone else.
And they meet on Thursday, Nov. 29, in a game that only those with the NFL Network are going to get to see.
There’ll be plenty of time in the next two weeks to complain about the NFL scheduling this game for its own pay network, insuring that most fans won’t be able to see it. Right now, let’s just savor the prospect of a game that is going to be seen as a preview of the NFC championship game and an indicator of which of these two great and storied franchises is going to have the best shot of getting to Arizona and a date in the Super Bowl.
Right now, the edge has to go to Dallas, who played the Giants even for 30 minutes and then simply pounded New York so deep into its home turf that by the end of the game, Eli Manning was saying hello to Jimmy Hoffa in the huddle.:laugh2:
Other than the Pack, the Giants were the only NFC team left that could claim to be at the same level as the Cowboys. They had lost to Dallas, 45-35, in the first week of the season, but beginning in Week 3, the Giants had been on top of their game, rolling over the competition.
But that’s what this year’s NFL does for good teams. The great ocean of mediocrity makes it easy for the few really good teams to look great. It’s not until the top teams play each other that we can start to sort things out.
The Giants aren’t one of the bad teams, but they had their chance to make a race of the NFC East and establish some turf cred. For half of the game, they looked up to the task. And then they folded like an old wallet against a team that may be as good as the NFC has.
Strange things happen in sports, but it would be a shock now if the NFC representative in Glendale come the first Sunday in February isn’t either the Cowboys or the Packers. Right now, you have to think the Cowboys have the edge. They’ve got a great one-two running combination in Marion Barber and Julius Jones and they have that hot, young quarterback with the hot, young social life, Tony Romo and the best wide receiver this side of Randy Moss.
Did anyone notice that Terrell Owens caught two touchdown passes and didn’t do anything afterward other than accept the congratulations of his teammates and trot to the sidelines? Is this a sign that the apocalypse is upon us, or just a guy who sees his chance and the ring that’s eluded him deciding to play it straight for the first time in his life? Or both?
It’s just too bad that the Cowboys have already played the Patriots and had their stars knocked off. Because of that early-season loss, it’s hard to whip up a real belief that the NFC can cope with the Patriots.
But that’s still months away. Right now, we have the Packers dead ahead with an excellent chance of both teams carrying one loss into the NFC’s equivalent of Pats-Colts.
It’s been a while since the Cowboys and the Packers were both on top of their games. The last time they were both riding this high was probably 1967 on the legendary frozen tundra. But the two teams have plenty of history and drawing power. And the match of the sexy kid and the grizzled gunslinger, Brett Favre, is in many ways more compelling than Peyton Manning and Tom Brady having another go at each other.
If nothing else, we see Brady and Manning every year — sometimes twice a year, but we haven’t seen Romo and Favre go after each other for supremacy of their conference. Also, Brady and Manning are in their primes; we’ll see them again. We have no idea how much time Favre has left; all we know is that he’s having one of the best years of his or anyone else’s life, and he may never come this way again.
It would be nice if between now and Nov. 29, the NFL decides that NFLN isn’t nearly a venue bit enough for this year’s second game of the century and moves it to a network broadcast. It probably won’t happen, but it wouldn’t hurt to bombard the league office with e-mails. No league can afford to hide its premier games where few can see them.
Two of the NFC's top teams barreling toward showdown on Nov. 29
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21744831/
It’s amazing how well a dull football season can turn out. For all the verbiage expended over the dearth of great football in the NFL, we’ve already had one regular season game of the century, and now we get to look forward to another.
Thank the Cowboys for this one. By dominating the Giants in the second half of what had been a close game on Sunday, they’ve set up a game at the end of November that is going to every bit as much fun looking forward to as was Patriots-Colts last week.
There are two teams left in the NFC which stand at least a head, if not shoulders, too, above the rest. They are the Cowboys and the Packers, the top two offenses in the conference. They’re both 8-1, two games clear of the next best teams, the Giants and Lions, and worlds better than everyone else.
And they meet on Thursday, Nov. 29, in a game that only those with the NFL Network are going to get to see.
There’ll be plenty of time in the next two weeks to complain about the NFL scheduling this game for its own pay network, insuring that most fans won’t be able to see it. Right now, let’s just savor the prospect of a game that is going to be seen as a preview of the NFC championship game and an indicator of which of these two great and storied franchises is going to have the best shot of getting to Arizona and a date in the Super Bowl.
Right now, the edge has to go to Dallas, who played the Giants even for 30 minutes and then simply pounded New York so deep into its home turf that by the end of the game, Eli Manning was saying hello to Jimmy Hoffa in the huddle.:laugh2:
Other than the Pack, the Giants were the only NFC team left that could claim to be at the same level as the Cowboys. They had lost to Dallas, 45-35, in the first week of the season, but beginning in Week 3, the Giants had been on top of their game, rolling over the competition.
But that’s what this year’s NFL does for good teams. The great ocean of mediocrity makes it easy for the few really good teams to look great. It’s not until the top teams play each other that we can start to sort things out.
The Giants aren’t one of the bad teams, but they had their chance to make a race of the NFC East and establish some turf cred. For half of the game, they looked up to the task. And then they folded like an old wallet against a team that may be as good as the NFC has.
Strange things happen in sports, but it would be a shock now if the NFC representative in Glendale come the first Sunday in February isn’t either the Cowboys or the Packers. Right now, you have to think the Cowboys have the edge. They’ve got a great one-two running combination in Marion Barber and Julius Jones and they have that hot, young quarterback with the hot, young social life, Tony Romo and the best wide receiver this side of Randy Moss.
Did anyone notice that Terrell Owens caught two touchdown passes and didn’t do anything afterward other than accept the congratulations of his teammates and trot to the sidelines? Is this a sign that the apocalypse is upon us, or just a guy who sees his chance and the ring that’s eluded him deciding to play it straight for the first time in his life? Or both?
It’s just too bad that the Cowboys have already played the Patriots and had their stars knocked off. Because of that early-season loss, it’s hard to whip up a real belief that the NFC can cope with the Patriots.
But that’s still months away. Right now, we have the Packers dead ahead with an excellent chance of both teams carrying one loss into the NFC’s equivalent of Pats-Colts.
It’s been a while since the Cowboys and the Packers were both on top of their games. The last time they were both riding this high was probably 1967 on the legendary frozen tundra. But the two teams have plenty of history and drawing power. And the match of the sexy kid and the grizzled gunslinger, Brett Favre, is in many ways more compelling than Peyton Manning and Tom Brady having another go at each other.
If nothing else, we see Brady and Manning every year — sometimes twice a year, but we haven’t seen Romo and Favre go after each other for supremacy of their conference. Also, Brady and Manning are in their primes; we’ll see them again. We have no idea how much time Favre has left; all we know is that he’s having one of the best years of his or anyone else’s life, and he may never come this way again.
It would be nice if between now and Nov. 29, the NFL decides that NFLN isn’t nearly a venue bit enough for this year’s second game of the century and moves it to a network broadcast. It probably won’t happen, but it wouldn’t hurt to bombard the league office with e-mails. No league can afford to hide its premier games where few can see them.
