Quick Start Propels Giants To Another Easy Road Win

Quick Start Propels Giants To Another Easy Road Win
By Jon Wagner
Sr, Writer at large Football Reporters Online

It’s been a successful formula so far for the 2009 New York Giants: Four times New York has scored on its first possession, and four times the Giants have won.

Another (Big Blue)print that’s worked: Points off turnovers, a category in which the Giants rank at the top of the National Football League, with 45 points scored off of opponents’ miscues.

The saying goes (albeit in poor English), “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” After three weeks of success in previous victories, why change what’s worked?

It didn’t take the Giants (4-0) long to start riding a familiar road to another easy victory when the they recovered a fumble by the hapless Kansas City Chiefs (0-4) on the game’s opening kickoff. New York took an early 7-0 lead just five plays later, on a three-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Eli Manning to wide receiver Steve Smith just 2:16 into the game, en route to a 27-16 win in Kansas City on Sunday, completing a sweep of the Giants’ three-game road trip.

Although, the fumble was the Chiefs’ only turnover of the game, the tone was already set, and the Giants led from wire to wire, despite Manning committing a turnover himself, on the each of New York’s next two possessions in the first quarter.

Kansas City sacked Manning and recovered his fumble on the New York 36 yard-line, which led to the Chiefs’ first score of the game, a Ryan Succop 34-yard field goal, with 5:02 left in the opening quarter, cutting the Giants’ lead to 7-3. On the Giants’ next possession, Manning was
intercepted at the Chefs’ 15 yard-line, throwing a little behind wide receiver Mario Manningham, wasting a nice, juggling 43-yard reception along the right sideline by Manningham three plays earlier, during the same drive.

Manning though, responded the next time the Giants touched the ball. A questionable personal foul penalty on Kansas City’s Jarrad Page for a hit on Smith which appeared to be clean, set New York up with a first down at the Chiefs’ 25 yard-line. Manning capitalized on the next play, capping a four-play, 71 yard drive in just 1:39, with a 25-yard touchdown pass to Smith, 1:27 into the second quarter.

Smith has stepped up nicely as the go-to receiver the Giants sought coming into the season. The 2007 second-round pick out of USC leads New York with 34 receptions this season. His two touchdowns and 11 receptions on Sunday were both career-highs, and the most ever by a Giant wide receiver in a non-overtime game (Amani Toomer had 12 in an overtime win at Philadelphia in 2006). Smith’s 134 yards on Sunday also matched a career-high that he set just two weeks prior, with ten catches at Dallas.

On the final drive of the first half, Manning continued to maintain his reputation as one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks during the two-minute drill. After a Kansas City punt to the New York 13-yard line with 1:49 left in the half, the Giants’ signal caller directed a nine-play, 80-yard drive, resulting in a Lawrence Tynes 25-yard field goal, putting the Giants up 17-3 as the first half concluded. Two plays before Tynes’ kick, tight end Kevin Boss caught a 3rd-and-3 pass from Manning for 24 yards to the Chiefs’ 7-yard line. Boss was injured (he’d later return okay) on the play, but he had the courage and the presence of mind to get up, and limp into formation, so the Giants, without any timeouts left, could avoid the automatic ten-second runoff, line up quickly, and spike the ball in time for Tynes’ field goal attempt.

Meanwhile, the Giants’ defense which was dominant through the first three quarters, allowing just four first downs, 91 total yards, and only 23 passing yards before the fourth quarter, forcing Kansas City to punt on six straight possessions spanning the first three quarters, after the Chiefs’ first-quarter field goal.

The second half started with some trickery on both sides. Kansas City opened the half with an onside kick, but an alert Bryan Kehl, who also pounced on the Chiefs’ game-opening fumble, recovered the ball again for the Giants, at the Chiefs’ 42 yard-line. That led to another Tynes field goal, this time from 40 yards away, putting the Giants up 20-3, with 10:22 remaining in the third quarter. Tynes received that opportunity after the Giants kept the eight-play drive alive by running a direct snap on the fourth play of the drive to running back Ahmad Bradshaw, who ran for nine yards and a first down on a 4th-and-3 play that Manning did a good job of selling by faking a high snap over his head.

In the fourth quarter, rookie wide receiver Hakeem Nicks, who sat out the past two games with a foot injury, showed why the Giants drafted him with the first pick in the 2009 draft, with a couple of nice stutter-step moves to free himself for a 54–yard touchdown –- the first of his career –- on a sprint up the left sideline, giving the Giants a commanding 27-3 lead with 13:28 left in the game.

That was Manning’s last play of the game after suffering a bruised heel while planting his right foot, attempting a pass on the previous play. Manning, who completed 20 of 34 passes for 292 yards, three touchdowns, and one interception, doesn’t believe the injury should keep him from starting next week’s game at home, against Oakland (1-3). “I don’t think it’s awful, I think I’ve been injured worse before,” he said. “We’ll see how it feels throughout the week. I could stand up, I could still walk around and put pressure on it. I always assume I’m going to play, that I’m going to be out there. I’ve always been a pretty quick healer. I’ll be doing everything I can possibly do this week to get healthy and prepared to play Oakland.”

After not allowing a touchdown through seven quarters over the past two weeks, the Giants let the Chiefs make what should have been a blowout, become respectable, as Kansas City found the end zone for two harmless scores in the final quarter. Jamaal Charles, the culprit who fumbled the opening kickoff, somewhat redeemed himself after Nicks’ touchdown with a 53-yard kickoff return to the Giants’ 48-yard line. The Chiefs then converted two fourth downs during an 11-play touchdown drive, but they failed on an ensuing two-point conversion attempt, to pull only to within 27-9, with 9:26 left in the game.

New York then went three-and-out on its next two possessions with backup quarterback David Carr replacing Manning. Sandwiched in between those two possessions, was the Chiefs’ final scoring drive of 12 plays, 59 yards, to make the final margin 27-16, on a touchdown with 4:54 remaining.

The Giants held big advantages in both total yards (429-193) and passing yards (273-88), as Brandon Jacobs (92 yards on 21 carries) helped New York outgain Kansas City on the ground, 156-105.

New York, which has started 4-0 for the second straight year, has won its first three road games of a season for the first time since 1990. The Giants also became only the eighth of 107 teams since 1990 to play in three straight road games while navigating through such a trip without a defeat. The Chiefs meanwhile, are just 6-30 since their last winning season, a 9-7 campaign in 2006.

JETS FALL TO SAINTS 24-10

JETS FALL TO SAINTS 24-10
by TJ Rosenthal contributing writer Football Reporters Online

The Jets left the Superdome with their first loss Sunday 24-10 to the high powered Saints. Two key rookie mistakes by Mark Sanchez (14-27, 138 yds 3 int) essentially did them in. The Jets suffered their first loss under rookie cooach Rex Ryan and fell to 3-1. They proved to themselves two things however. That they could be down a ton early in a hostile environment, settle down and be in the game late. Secondly, that their defense is undoubtedly for real. Slowing down the Saints is tought to do. The defense kept the Jets in the game. 

The Jets were down 3-0 after one, and driving. They got out of the first quarter, despite struggling on the ground again while holding Drew Brees  with a solid pass rush and tight secondary coverage.

Then Sanchez made his biggest mistake of the year. Staring down TE Dustin Keller in the end zone one the 1st play of the second quarter, Sanchez failed to look off FS Darren Sharper. Sharper read the eyes of Sanchez, stepped in front and went 99 yards for the TD, 10-0 Saints. A huge emotional game changer. On the brink of going in for the lead now down two scores, the mountain to climb suddenly felt long and steep.

The Saints went for the knockout on the ensuing drive but a Jet goal line stand that saw two incompletions by Brees left the Jets still down 10, but backed up  on their own 2. Then the mountain grew even steeper and longer.. The Jets came out throwing but Sanchez failed to find any open receivers and took too long in escaping. DE Will Smith (no, not the actor) caught him and stripped the ball. It was recovered by Remi Ayoldele for the TD, 17-0 Saints.

The Jets tacked on 3 and got out of dodge with a 17-3 deficit. Needing to take better care of the ball, but not out of the game.

While Sanchez and the ground game struggled, thanks to a Saints defense that smothered the Jets all day (sacks, int) the defense continued to thwart the most high powered passing team in the NFL. Then the Jets finally broke through. After having a fire lit under him by rookie Shonn Greene (yds, left with an injury or he would've gotten more), Thomas Jones rambled through the middle of the Saints line to cut the lead to 17-10. Thats how the third ended. The Jets, with guts and 
a fighting attitude, had a chance.

The offense had two possessions with the ball but failed to pick up the first. One was a thrid and one slant thrown too hard by Sanchez to WR Jerricho Cotchery. A play that Alan Faneca was quoted Sunday as saying he wished were kept on the ground. That because that is the O line's time to take on the responsibility. 

Finally, in the middle of the fourth, the Saints broke it open. Pierre Thomas (86 yards ), who got going in the second half, while the defense fatigued and continued to keep their focus on Brees, rushed in for a () touchdown and a 24-10 lead. A fourth and less than a yard offside's by NG Kris Jenkins, on the Jet 43 kept the drive alive. The gamble to time the play perfectly backfired for Jenkins but he and the Jets have nothing to be ashamed of. A second Sanchez int to Sharper on a roll out under pressure around midfield on the next drive sealed the win for New Orleans.

The most telling moment of the game was not the result from a play on the field. It was when Jenkins put his arm around the rookie Sanchez to console him and remind him that the team has faith in him. That's because for the first time in years, the Jets ARE a team. Gang Green has a pulse, a soul. Their ability to trail big early on the road against a great offense, settle down and have the ball in the 4th with a chance to tie are the kinds of situations a team growing into winners will value as October becomes November and playoff December. Tough loss but spirits are high. "THe mistakes killed us. you turn the ball over like that in this league and you can't win." Sanchez said, taking responsibility for his role in the loss like a field leader the Jets need.

The 1-3 Miami Dolphins are next. Monday night Football. Another divisional battle. Another classic Jets Miami game on the way.  Ronnie Brown, Ricky Williams and the Wildcat await along with QB Chad Henne, who now runs the offense thanks to the season ending injury to Chad Pennington. He was was solid in his first NFL start, a 38-10 blowout win against the often times pathetic Buffalo Bills Sunday. Henne will be getting a dose of Rex Ryan's crew though next week at Landshark stadium. That will be  a different experience for Henne than the lost Bills. Quarterback play on both sides will be the key next Monday night as the 3-1 Jets look to keep pace with the streaking 3-1 New England Patriots in the AFC East .

A look back at the FRO three keys to beat the Saints:

Brees vs Jet blitz. I asked for sacks, not pressure: The Jets didn't get any. Hence, no major drive killers that included turnovers, over a loss of inherited field position.

Jet ground game vs Saints front seven: A fast start running the ball  was essential against the high scoring Saints. The Jet's didn't get one. This prevented the Jets from controlling tempo and clock in the first half. They trailed 17-3 at halftime.

Dustin Keller vs Saints linebackers: I envisioned a big dose of Keller, all over the place a la Jason Witten. In the flat, over the middle, behind New Orleans  MLB Jonathan Vilma. It didn't happen. Saints pressure and the Jets inability to run effectively were part of the cause but Keller was targeted but too many times in the flat. None of the attempts were deep post patterns that could've provided the big play threat the Jets lack right now in their passing game. The Jets tried to offset the pressure with slants but none went to Keller. A key third and one try went to WR Chansi Stuckey and was not converted. Keller finished with just  33 yards.




David Letterman "gf" Stephanie Birkitt cheated on Robert Joe Halderman with Letterman reads Diary

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According to the New York Post today, David Letterman's girlfriend and staffer Stephanie Birkitt intentionally cheated on her live-in boyfriend CBS Producer Robert "Joe" Halderman with Letterman after she moved in with him.

This is further proof of just how rampant cheating is in our hedonistic society, and that it's equally wrong for people who have done this to try and fry Letterman rather than say that we as a society should come to terms with who we really are. Letterman was cheating on his wife with a woman who was cheating on her boyfriend.

The NY Post's LARRY CELONA, JESSICA SIMEONE and DAN MANGAN - to use the caps they love to employ - report this:

Pretty former "Late Show" staffer Stephanie Birkitt revealed in her diary that she continued having sex with boss David Letterman even after moving in with her CBS-producer boyfriend, who later allegedly tried to extort him over the affair, sources told The Post yesterday...Letterman and Birkitt enjoyed romantic hikes last fall at his sprawling ranch in eastern Montana -- where he was married in March -- while her boyfriend, "48 Hours Mystery" producer Robert "Joe" Halderman, stayed home in Connecticut, the sources said.

At the time, Birkitt, 34, insisted to Halderman that she and the 62-year-old Letterman had just "a platonic relationship," a source said.

"I'm his best friend," Birkitt told the worried 51-year-old Halderman, the source said

After Birkitt graduated from law school, Letterman worked to keep her on the payroll, according to the NY Post. In turn, she planned to have a baby by Halderman estimating that with the new income they could afford to have kids.

This is the real story, far afield from the "bad versus good" brush some have tried to paint this with. This is a tale of an affair that happens in some way every day. This is real life beyond the Big Fat Lie we tell ourselves as Americans, especially those who delight in casting stones at others when their own houses are not in order.

What happened, again according to the work of the NY Post, is that Halderman only learned of the affair after they broke up and realized he was lied to, then cracked, establishing the $2 million extortion plan.

But I also read this as Halderman not making enough money himself and somewhere that financial problem had to impact his relationship with Birkitt, otherwise, why would she plan to have kids with him only after estimating that she - not he - could afford it. She left him.

Meanwhile, Halderman was reportedly "devastated" when his ex-wife moved to Colorado with his 11-year old son. The report does not explain why but I've got a feeling more information's going to roll out soon.

Meanwhile, I love what CBS's "Late Late Show" host, Craig Ferguson said. Ferguson, who works for the same Worldwide Pants production company as Letterman, quipped:

"If we are now holding late-night talk show hosts to the same moral accountability as we hold politicians or clergyman, I'm out. I'm gone."

And the last time I checked, Mark Sanford was still governor of South Carolina.

David Letterman sex scandal: more Americans cheating than ever before

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What's interesting,and a rather sad, about the David Letterman - well, I guess we might at well use that term - sex scandal, is that some people who chose to comment point the finger at him as if he did something that many don't do: cheat on his wife.

As I stated in my video, Letterman's the real victim here in the way he was "outed":



The sad fact is a lot of people are doing it. There's no accident that Yelp San Francisco has a webpage called "Swinger's Clubs San Francisco" with 67 establishment listings.

As I stated in my last video-blog post on this, I've seen a lot of fooling around by both men and women who were married so I made the calculation that of those commenters who've been married or are married, a good set of them have fooled around on their spouses, making their critical words the stuff of hypocrisy.

Now here's the information to back my claim.

According to a number of sources, starting with this 2008 New York Times article, more people are cheating on each other - men and women. The statistics here are startling. Basically about one in five married men and one in six married women cheat:

University of Washington researchers have found that the lifetime rate of infidelity for men over 60 increased to 28 percent in 2006, up from 20 percent in 1991. For women over 60, the increase is more striking: to 15 percent, up from 5 percent in 1991.

The researchers also see big changes in relatively new marriages. About 20 percent of men and 15 percent of women under 35 say they have ever been unfaithful, up from about 15 and 12 percent respectively.

The reasons given vary from new drugs like Viagra for men, to the increasing availability of pornography online.

It's not that people think adultery is ok, it's that they do it more often than in the past but don't disclose it. This gets to the situation with the "conservative" response to the David Letterman scandal: making critical comments is a socially acceptable way of hiding the truth, making the critical commenter look better than everyone else, when they too may have cheated or may be in the act of cheating.

David Letterman and Stephanie Birkitt v. Roman Polanski

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David Letterman and Stephanie Birkitt v. Roman Polanski? Yes.

I created this vlog because I'd not talked about either David Letterman, Stephanie Birkitt, or Roman Polanski, and while some took those people and topics and split into conservative and liberal camps, to me, that's not the place for this. Republicans corner the market in political sex scandals, so there's nothing to talk about.

Let me preface what you're about to absorb with this statement: I've known a lot of people who were married and are married and have had affairs and relations with others in some cases also married and others not. I'm not married and I've not had an affair with a married woman. But flirting? A kissing session? Yeah. It's happened in the past (well, grad school) – not at work though.

And that's nothing. In New York, at one point in the 80s the the 90s, "wife-swapping" and "husband-swapping" was a popular thing to do at parties and its still done today. Even Oprah's talking about it.

But I've seen this so often, especially in San Francisco and New York, and at Super Bowls, that it's like drinking water. And if you've ever worked on a political campaign, then you know the term "campaign sex" which is at times so common during the heat of a political season its almost sport. It's not a good thing to do, but I've stopped passing judgment. All of this has soured me on the idea of marriage at times, but I remain hopeful.

It's so common that for people to come out and jump all over David Letterman for his attempt at impersonating "Wilt" Chamberlain (who once bragged that he shagged over 10,000 women), is crazy. I'd bet $1,000 that some of the commenters of this vlog anywhere have done "a Letterman" after a moment of drinking and partying. In fact, the one who jumps and says "No I didn't," is probably the one who did.

David Letterman's really the victim here. He and his former aide Stephanie Birkitt are the victims of an apparently jealous, sexually frustrated, and broke man named Robert "Joe" Halderman, a producer of CBS' 48-hours. Halderman, who was dating Birkitt until earlier this year, had the nerve to go through Birkitt's diary after they broke-up , discover the notes about the affair, then go to Letterman and try to get him to pay $2 million in "hush money."

But to use his ex-girlfriend Stephanie Birkitt, by invading her privacy in that way, was and is just creepy. It's beyond that, it's just plain sick. New York's a big city; can't he find some Upper East Side coed model-type to date? Oh, and for those getting after Letterman about his "at work" affair, excuse me, both Halderman and Birkitt worked for CBS and were living together!

The real jerk isn't David Letterman, its Halderman and those who would say Letterman's image is tarnished from this, some of them guilty of the same behavior as he. David Letterman's no Roman Polanski.

UPDATE: David Letterman apologizes to his wife on the air - TMZ.com.

Polanski's an accomplished director, no question about it, but feeding drugs to a 13-year old girl and then raping her is beyond the pale, regardless of when it happened. Heck, he's was a Hollywood film director and he couldn't get laid by someone of legal age? Come on!

But it happened decades ago, and the main issue is the woman who was the victim then, is now the victim again because she wants the whole deal to go away and, yet, the media and the legal system seems bent on putting the spotlight on her even to the point of posting her photos. Why?

Is it because the people who want the case done are younger than 40? There's a generation gap fueling this discussion where people over 40 - including the victim - want this whole deal to go away, and those who are younger don't.

So, let me get this straight. Polanski's said he did it and he's guilty. A weird twist of legal issues make this not a slam dunk case and Polanski didn't get fully punished for his crime - he fled. But the bottom line is now the victim just wants to be left alone and for this all to go away. Why can't we just go by her wishes?

If someone is serious and cares about her, then do as she asks. Otherwise, if you want to push this for your own reasons, then you're just as bad in a way as Polanski because your victimizing her all over again. And no, I'm not going to use her name - no links. Leave her alone. Please.

So David Letterman and Stephanie Birkitt were "outed" by a jealous ex-boyfriend and the victim of the Roman Polanski case is "outed" after some time of silence by a media and legal system hungry for closure. In both cases, the people doing the outing are being selfish creeps, and should just plain leave them alone.

Of course, we know that's not going to happen.

Chevron Ecuador case has new judge; Nicolas Zambrano

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Ecuador's lawsuit (which it can now be called officially since Ecuador would get any award money Chevron would have to pay) has a new judge after Judge Juan Nunez officially stepped down in the wake of the alleged video bribery scandal. He is Judge Nicolas Zambrano.

The plaintiff's attorney, Pablo Fajardo, said this according to Ecuadorreport Blog:

Pablo Fajardo, who leads the team of Lago Agrio plaintiffs that sued Chevron for damages, said that the fact that the recusal was accepted could be seen as a victory for Chevron, although he added that this will only be temporary.

Yeah, especially since Judge Nunez was part of a political effort led by President Correa to get money from Chevron, apparently for the cronies in Correa's political party, at least from my view. Now the automatic "yes" to the idea that Chevron would be found guilty of something that was really done by Ecuador's state run oil company and a large number of oil firms since Chevron left Ecuador in 1992, is gone.

Maybe.

Meanwhile, and in further proof of the sham idea that the lawsuit's brought by Ω's "indigenous" people rather than American trail lawyers, we have the news that real indigenous people are protesting against Correa's proposed water policy which they believe would result in water being controlled by energy companies.

Now go figure: Ecuador's top prosecutor admits on the record that the country will get any money from a possible Chevron lawsuit loss, not the "indigenous people". Then we have new violence between those groups and the government. Correa failed to give them any say in the use of the land by the oil companies active there.

Guess why? Well, one of those companies is state-run oil producer Petroecuador, which would find itself under the control - to a degree - of the residents impacted by there operations.

How long before they realize that the lawsuit's not going to help them either, especially when they get wind of the news that 90 percent of the money's going to the same Ecuador government they're protesting against.

Wild.

Google Trends change hurts small bloggers, but there's a way to fight

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I saw Brian Haughey's great article on Google Trends over at Associated Content where he writes that Google's reducing the number of keywords listed on Google Trends from 100 to just 40, a reduction of 60 keywords, will hurt small bloggers.

(He uses the term "small-time" which I think is insulting to the legions of one-writer bloggers, but I'll let that go.)

Haughey:

The drop of 60 trends hurts the small-time blogger sites, as the top 40 results favors established e-magazines and newspapers. An article written on a popular site like Yahoo! will have a better chance of breaking into the Google Top 40 than a marginal blog post breaking into the top 100 and moving upward from there via user curiosity.

As a constant daily user of Google Trends, I think Haughey is correct but there's a way for "small bloggers" to counter that change: team up. Really bloggers do this anyway, but the tendency is for small blogs to echo what the large news sites put out there.

Small bloggers should team up more often and share blog post topics less likely to be found on sites like Yahoo. If 100 blogs did this, the result could be to break into the Google Trends top 40 depending on the keyword, but teaming up in effect makes a large blog ring.

Another way around this change is for the same bloggers to share writers, then apply for Google News status (since Google News insists on blogs having multiple writers) and have their blog's posts listed at the top of or the front page of a keyword search for a topic. But even here, Google favors the larger news sites.

And from that perspective, if I were running a news site like, say, SFGate.com, I'd have recirprocal link and content deals with as many local blogs as possible, thus taking better advantage of traffic from them should the same bloggers team up on one topic that the mainstream media isn't covering.

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Coming soon I'm going to try a kind of experimental show combining UStream.tv and BlogTalkRaio. I did it before just to get the hang of the process. But the idea is to have a kind of streaming and call-in show at once. One can't call in to Ustream.tv and BlogTalkRadio doesn't have live stream capability. Tech aside, I'm going to cover the topics of the day with a guest at times, or a video personality, or both. You'll be able to see the stream from all of my blogs. Stay tuned.