T-Rock's Take on the Giants

If you have some time (and some volume) to go through some quickie interveiws, check out this site from the NFL. You can also vote for the best story of the year -- only two Giants are nominated -- and help decide which one is shown during the Super Bowl.

There's also some fan videos if you move around the site a little bit or go here.

I really enjoyed listening to the players talk about things that don't necessarily have anything to do with football. Or at least nothing to do with the upcoming game.

I know people love it when coaches flip out, so I thought this was funny on the Onion.

I think Schwartz will get a particular kick out of the Tom Coughlin reference.

Courtesy of Anthony Rieber ...

Plaxico Burress, the Giants' leading receiver, sat out practice for the second straight day on Friday with a sore hamstring.

Burress' status for Sunday's game at Arizona is in question. He has shown the ability to play without practicing in the past, but this injury only cropped up on Wednesday night.

Burress leads the Giants with 35 catches for 454 yards and four TDs.

Running back Brandon Jacobs and CB Aaron Ross participated in the early part of practice.

I mentioned a few posts below that Reuben took one in the Droughns at Wednesday's practice when Madison Hedgecock let the ball attached to an elsatic band slip.

Here's a video of the incident on one of the CW11's blogs. You don't see the actual impact, but you'll get the idea.

Try not to flinch.

From the Tom Coughlin press conference:

Why did he not practice?

"Hamstring."

Is he going to be okay?

"We'll see."

That's right. The folks as bodoglife.com have already set the spread on Super Bowl XLIII without even knowing which teams will be playing in it.

Here's a quote from Richard Gardner, the Bodog Sportsbook Manager:

“With still six weeks to go in the NFL regular season the NFC would have to be an early 3 point favorite for Super Bowl XLIII. The New York Giants are the NFC’s favorite to defend their title against the AFC’s tough and still undefeated Tennessee Titans. A tight New York Giants defense along with the Tennessee Titans boasting a strong defensive unit themselves would account for a game total of 43 and a competitive finale to the 2008-09 season.”

Didn't last week's Steelers-Chargers game teach you people anything?

By the way, the over-under on Kurt Warner's passing yards against the Giants this week: 289.5.

And Eli Manning is a 20-to-1 shot to win NFL MVP. Brett Favre is at 5-to-2.

Donovan McNabb has directed his first film. It premiered in New York last night.

Don't believe me? Take a look.

Neil Best has something on this too.

I just happened to be talking to another reporter at yesterday's practice and we were hypothesizing about how far this team will go this season. One of the things we noted that could derail things was injuries. So we started talking about the players the Giants could least afford to lose. The other reporter said "If Plaxico Burress were to get hurt tomorrow, the season would be over."

Well, guess who was on the sideline at today's practice having his legs worked on by trainers?

Yup. Plaxico Burress missed the early parts of practice today while be attended to in the area for injured players. There's obviously a chance he was just a little tight and needed some extra work before hopping up and sprinting onto the field once we left the bubble. We'll find out more later.

It was a strange day by the exercise bikes with players coming and going. Aaron Ross started the session over there but was soon on the field. Jerome McDougle was there early too, but it looked like he wasn't going to go today. And Sammy Knight was there at the end.

The one guy who wasn't over there was Brandon Jacobs. he was taking some reps in the team drills. We'll wait for the report to see if he practiced fully or on a limited basis. I doubt that Coughlin will give us any insight into whether or not he'll be ready on Sunday, but you never know.

Here's one of my favorite lines from the locker room today. It was from Corey Webster when asked about trying to be physical with the Cardinals receivers who are among the biggest and strongest players at their positions.

“Everybody’s got weight rooms,” he said. “We lift a little too.”

Really? We all but told him it was coming during a week of articles hyping Brandon Jacobs and the running game. But here's an exchange from Showtime's "Inside the NFL" that airs tonight in which Warren Sapp recounts the conversation he had with Ray Lewis after the Giants' 207-yard rushing performance in the 30-10 win (Phil Simms gives the punchline):

SAPP: "I had to call a friend of mine, Mr. Ray Lewis, and he said, 'I hate to tell you this, but we were playing pass. We were playing pass first,' and I dropped the phone."

SIMMS: "When you are playing the Giants, on defense, you better put those big boy pants on because they are going to bring it. Hearing that story, here’s the first thing that came to my mind. If you’re playing the New England Patriots last year with their high flying offense, it’s like saying, 'Let’s be ready, Tom Brady might run the option.'"

It's nice that they were playing pass first. But after the first series, maybe they should have caught on, no?

Click below for some more from Sapp and Simms on the overtime hulabaloo in Philly ...

Continue reading "Ray wasn't expecting the run?" »

Kurt Warner had a great career with the Rams. Then he came to the Giants for a few weeks (a whole season, actually, before rookie Eli Manning took over). Now he's resurrecting his career with the Cardinals and is once again in conversations about being an MVP and prompting some serious discussions about Hall of Fame worthiness.

So what happened when he was off the radar?

"I think I'm the same guy I have always been," he said. "I just think people forgot that for a minute."

Good line.

"I think when you get cut by a team that you have won two MVPs with and gone to two Super Bowls with, there is automatically something there that people question. 'Well, obviously, what is wrong with him? Why would that happen? It doesn’t happen.' And then going to New York and getting the feeling like I played pretty good football for those nine games but then getting replaced by a young guy. People again are saying, 'Well, okay, what is wrong with this guy? He put up the numbers that he did when he won the MVP and now you get benched for a young guy. Okay, obviously this guy isn’t the same guy that we expected before.'

"I don’t think anything has happened other than an opportunity has arisen here with the pieces in place for me to play football the way I play football. And to have the ball in my hands and to throw the football around and to be able to make decisions and to be able to win games throwing the football. And with that has come the success that I have had the last couple of years."

I saw where Danny Clark admitted that he didn't know the overtime rules and said he had trouble finding teammates who knew that an NFL game could end in a tie. And Ben Roethlisberger said something along the lines of estimating that 50 percent of the players didn't know that. Donovan McNabb certainly was unaware of how the extra period works.

Tom Coughlin was asked if everyone on his team knows that there is no second overtime during the regular season.

"I think that has been gone over a few times," he said with a grin.