I post this only as an example of how silly all of this is.

In the NY Post, which boasts this back cover today:

Steve Serby says that the Giants will make Brady pay for planning Patriots victory party.

What did Brady actually say?

“We’re going down there, and we’re going down there for one reason. We’re going to give it our best and hopefully we’ll have a lot more people at our party next weekend.”

Wow. “Hopefully.” That’s quite the taunt.

In the same paper yesterday there is a story entitled Patriots’ McCourty beat Giants’ Cruz for Rutgers scholarship.

In the story, Giants receiver Victor Cruz is quoted thusly:

At a pep rally at School 21 in his hometown of Paterson, NJ yesterday, Cruz gave the frenzied crowd of 5,000 a Joe Namath-style guarantee that he’ll prevail against his old nemesis.

“We are definitely coming back with a ‘W,’ ” he said to wild cheers.

Actually, the entire premise of the story, which is that Cruz lost out on a scholarship to Rutgers because it was given to current Patriots cornerback Devin McCourty instead, is bunk. McCourty’s brother Jason tweeted the following last night:

[blackbirdpie id=”163842030320091136″]

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

15 thoughts on “Victor Cruz Guarantees Giants Win”

  3. Man, this is going to be a loooonggg week.

    Imagine if Welker (or someone else) says something like: "We feel like we can create some match-up problems, and if so, hopefully we can exploit them."

    NY Post headline next day: "Pats: We will expose G-Men"

    And on and on…

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  4. Tom Brady: "I have nothing but good things to say about the Giants. They are a quality franchise that has played well in some gigantic games this year. Oops, sorry guys — have to get off this call. Something's smelly — I think the boy has poop in the old diaper. Talk to you later."

    NY Post: BRADY: "GIANTS…ARE…SMELLY….POOP….IN…DIAPER"

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  5. This just in:

    As I write this, Felger and parrot are telling us how the Giants operate in the draft. So here's what I make of his inuendo, analysis, and motive. He did this with the Jets the last 3 years, only to see his argument puddle out, even though he won't admit it. We were told that trading up was the way to go, and that trading down was not successful.
    Truth: both have proved hit and miss methods, like everything else in the world. You win some, you lose some. My problem is with Felgers motive like this type of analysis discredits the Pats.

    Today: The Giants don't trade up or trade down. They stand "Pat." Pun intended. Parrot then told us the Giants hit on the last 23/31 draft picks, I want to check out what qualifies as a "hit" based on those numbers.

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    1. Just as a broken clock is right twice a day, in this case, Felger & parrot are making a valid point. The Giants have drafted exceptionally well over the last decade, as you can see here:
      http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nyg/d…

      Given that they only drafted high in the draft one year (2004), and were mostly in the 20-30 range, they've had an exceptional haul of talent in their drafts, especially in the middle and lower rounds.

      But that's got nothing to do with draft "style" — it's good scouting and evaluation. The Giants didn't have a first round pick in 2005 (I believe they sent it to SD in the Rivers/Manning deal), which is a variant of "trading out of the first round", yet still came away with four significant players in rounds 2-5 (Corey Webster, Justin Tuck, Brandon Jacobs, and some guy by the name of Eric Moore.) That's their entire draft, and every one of those players played significant and quality time for the team.

      The Patriots' problem with the draft is that the 2006 and 2007 drafts were almost complete misses. In two years, with 19 picks, the Pats came away with only one (1) impact player who is still with the team: the kicker. (They also got two decent "depth" type guys in Ryan O'Callaghan and Corey Hilliard, but both of them are now with other clubs.) That's a level of failure that's simply unacceptable. But the team does seem to have recognized that, as the last four drafts have been (so far) a lot more productive.

      So I'm buying F&M's facts, but not their premise.

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      1. I do not dispute those facts as I didn't know what specifically they were using. Nor do I dismiss that the Patriots are a hit some/ miss some drating team. My point is, which team is hit-hit-hit? The way F&P paint their portrait, every team drafts significantly better than the Pats. He also tries to further this premise that "we, Pats fans" think we draft better than all the other 31 teams. I do not ever recall hearing a fan state that we are the best. I think many fans think BB is quite good, if not very good at talent evaluation, but most of these people will also admit that he had a rough patch.

        I guess my point is what is Felgers motive. This man is obsessed with irritating Pats fans. Please leave this city.

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        1. I touched on this in a different thread. F & M for whatever reason want to find a way to criticize Bill Belichick and the Patriots. So the argument they have dreamed up is his ability to draft/gm is not great. Other teams do it better. The simplest retort to that is which other team is in the SB for the 5th time in years and went to 6 AFC championship games? Which team has won more regular season games than the Pats over the last 11 years because of their drafting? Quick answer: none.

          The F & M argument is that the Giants are in the same position as the Pats since 2007 drafting 10 less players but keeping the same amount on their roster. Aside from the small sample size showing poor scientific method at best, the argument is cherry picked. Let's look at the Giants experience since winning the SB in 2007:

          2008 – 12-4 then get embarrassed by the Eagles in the Divisional round
          2009 – miss the playoffs 8-8
          2010 – miss the playoffs 10-6
          2011 – 9-7 squeak into the playoffs and win three games on the road to get to the SB.

          Over this same time the Pats go to the Playoffs 1 more time (missing it in 2008 when Brady is hurt and they go 11-5) and win 10 more regular season games. I am not sure there is any correlation to the Giants draft strategy being better than the Pats. Their record is not better. They did not qualify for more post seasons. The only thing they seem to have done is a slightly better job scouting.

          It is a hollow argument that F & M are making but they should not let facts get in the way of their slanted opinions.

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          1. I've been trying to make this point with the BB bashers over and over. The Patriots are the only team–the only one–in the NFL who consistently win 10 games or more every season. These other teams that "draft and handle their personnel decisions better than New England" have all fallen off, at least temporarily, over the past five years or so before rising back up, as the Giants did this season. Now look….it's very, very possible that there are a handful of other teams who do the personnel thing better than BB and the Patriots. In fact, i've never personally heard any fan say that the Pats are "the best" at it. But have the fans, and the meda, forgotten that there are 32 teams in the NFL, and that being among the 5 or 6 best in the league at personnel decisions (would anyone honestly try to dispute that claim?) still ranks BB and the Pats in the top 20 or 30 percent? Even if GB, the NYG, Pittsburgh and 1 or 2 other teams are better at the draft and personnel moves, that still leaves the Pats at #6 overall, and that's pretty good, I think.

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      2. I don't know about 2007 man. I still consider Welker and Moss to be part of that draft class, since their 2nd, 4th and 7th rounders were traded away to acquire them. Sure, Meriweather didn't work out, but it's hard to say that the Pats didn't get some pretty good value with their 2nd and 4th rounders that year. Yeah, 2006 was a real stinker (though Maroney's career with the Pats was better than most people think it was), but in my opinion it was BB's only real stinker of a draft. Some haven't been that great, but '06, to me, really was the only truly bad one.

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  6. A couple of items:

    1) Continuing with the tiresome Felger and Parrot argument on how bad the Patriots draft. A guy made a great call on why he thought Belichick has so many picks. The caller is an entrepreneur who owns a couple of businesses. He said when he has twenty openings he will always hire forty. He said it allows for competition and the best workers will stay, while the others will be let go. He said Belichick may stockpile draft choices to allow for competition. A player needs to stick out in order to stick with the team. To Felger's credit, he thought the take was good and made sense. Maz on the hand went full "Sully from Southie" mode, mocking the guy who called. As Bruce said, sports radio is the only industry where insulting your fan base is an accepted form of business.

    2) Mut and Merloni have been justifiably criticized lately for the way they have been conducting their show, especially when dealing with football. Mutnansky just doesn't seem to know where to take the conversation. Lou Merloni has either been hanging around Michael Felger too much or WEEI management has again proven how inept they are by having Merloni take the Negative Nancy view on all things Patriots without giving any breakdown as to why he feels that way.

    But occasionally you have credit when credit is due. I forgot to mention this last week but NFL Network analyst and former Patriot Heath Evans was a guest on Mut and Lou. He gave this interesting tidbit on the breakdown of the relationship between Bill Belichick and Eric Mangini. It also may give a better understanding as to why Belichick rehired Josh McDaniels when Bill O'Brien was named head coach at Penn State. Most of the media said that Belichick was furious with Mangini because he went to the Jets. Evans said that is not remotely the truth. Belichick was actually very happy for Mangini. The erosion of the relationship occurred because Mangini promised that the 2005 Patriots was still his top priority and he would do his absolute best to have the Patriots ready for Denver in the 2005 playoffs. Instead of doing what he promised, Mangini spent the week trying to recruit front office Patriot personnel, potential free agents, and other coaches to go with him to New York. He spent very little time preparing for Denver.

    Here is an article on the interview by Jerry Spar at WEEI.com http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/this-just-in/21…

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    1. Piggybacking your M&M observation, I listened briefly today during G&Z break and noticed Matt Chatham was on. IMO he was pretty good. I think it does speak to the original point that M&M together cannot hang with G&Z (mainly Zo's) football experience.

      I also noticed alot of references to "other" football analysts speaking about X's and o's just to sound smart. I wonder if that was a subtle shot at G&Z, in this case Gresh. I think most media like Zolak and respect him. That cant be said for Gresh. This also ties in to Ryan Hadfields podcast with Merloni where he mentioned some stuff involving Gresh and Merloni's distaste for him did come across the airwaves. "Not that theres anything wrong with that."

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    2. 1.) Heard the call and thought about the same thing with friends in a similar situation where it worked. I was tempted to call once but figured I'd get Felger doing his best John Dennis impression and screaming at the caller because it's a different sport. If you did not hear it, his thesis was th
      is: When you have 25 spots, hire 40 and let competition find who is the best there. Even though you pay more of a premium for the earlier rounds, it
      means you do throw a bunch of things at the wall and see what sticks. Their reaction seemed to at least acknowledge that this was prudent and not a b
      ad analogy.

      Did anyone hear the Kraft interview? Jonathan was on with Felger and Mazz before walking over to NBCSports Talk and spending about 15 minutes with Florio and Russ. Some takes:

      – "CAP IS CRAP!" – From what I heard, Felger went in on this quickly because it fuses together a topic of Peyton Manning in Indy, Peyton Manning as a potential FA and on an AFC East team and overall draft strategy. When he brought up his trademarked "CAP IS CRAP!!" statement, Jonathan Kraft gave t"ah, yes, I've heard", as if he has listened to SportsHub more than once and heard this. Bonus points for Felger there since you clearly want ownership of a team that you cover listening or at least someone who is working in the office to be aware of this. However, one thing I don't think Felger was prepared for was the response. Felger kept trying to bait him into agreeing here, even though it is not true. I got the impression that Jonathan knew there was not enough time, nor was this the place, to discuss the cap and that the interview being "broadcast" also prohibit him from saying certain things that the NFL would frown upon. His answers were very measured and "Patriotized" like most coming out of Foxboro, which I can appreciate because he is #1 in line to take over the team when Robert steps down. However, it also brings me back to the point I've made before here and in an "acknowledged" email to F+M that they get Andrew Brandt on, or someone who is a known capologist. It's sad he won't correct the argument/tone here beca
      use there are people out there who are happy to make on-air appearances that understand the intricities of the NFL's Salary Cap.

      – I've heard Jonathan before on the radio/TV, but I paid more attention this time because of something Felger calls is the "lucky sperm club". Watchi
      ng the train wreck that is the Colts and seeing the Irsay/Manning situation, along with reading about the Raiders' situation makes me a little more c
      oncerned about the person in line. In the Yahoo! article talking about how inept Mark Davis is, the author discussed how 15 of the 32 NFL teams are n
      ow owned by a next of kin. Most of them did nothing more than "be that lucky sperm" and the article indicated that only 2 (Indy was one) had done bet
      ter since the passing of the original owner. Over the years, more has been mentioned of Jonathan Kraft becoming more involved and seems to have becom
      e respected around the league as a future owner. Who knows if this is all fluff and it's really Hoodie's show, but it makes me feel more confident as
      a Patriots fan that there is good ownership and the team won't end up looking like the Browns/Bengals (before this season).

      On the Mangini article: Great find and read. Why didn't this come out before? In all the books/etc out there on this, six years removed from this, wh
      y has the story never been told? It makes sense now why Josh McDaniels had to come back when he did because of O'Brien moving on.

      I'll add a link in here that I found reading the FifthDown blog the NYTimes Sports Section runs (Great read if you're a NFL geek, even if you're not a Times reader or fan):
      http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/sports/football…

      Great read on how Indy got the Superbowl in the first place.

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      1. I've never understood why CSN and Felger continue to have Borges on their airwaves. Forwarding negative propaganda?

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      2. I saw that. Utterly disgraceful; and even worse, Felger made no attempt to correct him (not that it should surprise anyone). Borges needs to go away, period

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