NIAGARA FALLS, NY – Happy, Monday! It is now MLB Wild Card Monday?! The 3 NY football teams all took Ls in different manners, and we’ll examine(?) the increase in last day game madness. Based on the above, here are today’s topics: Sports Rain Man: Mets Update, NFL Recap, End of Season Madness.
Mets Update
The Mets never make it easy. Instead of winning 2 of their last 3 against the Brewers to lock down a Wild Card spot, they managed to look very poor in the fist two games.
The first one they couldn’t put away. In the second one the offense was pathetic. However, they won the 3rd game Sunday. BUT, they had to fly from Milwaukee to Atlanta. Due to the hurricane last week, and MLB reluctant to lose money and move the games, they will now be played TODAY – after the end of the season.
The Mets, Braves and Diamondbacks are 3 teams vying for 2 spots. The Mets are tied with the Braves for 5th place and they are one game ahead of the D-Backs. So now the Amazins need to win one of the two game double header. As long as they do that they are in. My agita is flaring up as I have flashbacks of two years ago when all they needed to do was win 1 of 3 in Atlanta. SPOILER ALERT: They got swept.
I am dumb… for believing but hope the Mets do the job.
NY NFL Recap
The Bills went from being the steamroller to being steamrolled. The dominated the Jaguars on Monday night, only to be dominated by the Ravens last night. On the Ravens first offensive play from scrimmage, Derrick Henry took it to the house on a 82-yard-run. From there the Bills were always playing catch-up. But the Ravens defense shut them down and the offense didn’t have to punt until mid way through the 3rd quarter. All the Super Bowl talk can die down as Buffalo regroups.
The Giants lost a close one to Dallas. It was a much tighter game than many expected. Dallas was far from clinical but they did just enough, including the getting the ball to their big threat WR CeeDee Lamb. The Giants did try to get it to their number one WR Malik Nabers with good success but it was not enough as they didn’t get enough first downs and of course touchdowns, in their loss. As they now get to the tougher part of their schedule, he may need to do more to get open.
The Jets looked so, so poor. They gave Denver way too many chances, as they failed to punch it in several times. They also got some horribly timed penalties. These are the ugly game you should grind out and win… if you are expecting to make playoffs. The Jets also didn’t blitz as much to unsettle the rookie QB. All in all, I blame the play-calling and play-callers for the loss. The execution was poor. The coaching was sh*t.
End of Season Madness
Yesterday, MLB had all the games start at 3pm ET to add to the intensity of the games. I am sure Rob Manfred will claim credit for it and act like its an original idea… Just like the NBA In-Season Tournament, both these ideas are stolen from soccer. In soccer, this started in the 1982 World cup, the disgrace of Gijon, as it is known. Algeria needed West Germany to beat Austria by 2 goals, but Algeria played earlier, so the other two teams knew what to do. After West Germany went up a goal in the first 10 minutes, the two sides just kicked the ball around until the final whistle. Since then all World Cup final pool games have kicked of simultaneously. This went into leagues in Europe, to add more excitement to the final day. Now baseball has added it. Expect the NBA and NHL to follow suit. It will not be as exciting as Europe cause they don’t have playoffs and they have relegation.
Thanks for reading and come back tomorrow for Ben Whitney, who will tell you why the D-Backs can’t win the. World Series.
