Kimberly Jones has a new home. You can keep up with her throughout the 2010 season right here and follow her on YESNetwork.com’s interactive community, My YES. Log on to read entries from Kim and Jack Curry, and write your own blog, upload photos, make new friends and so much more.
Thank you for watching “This Week in Football” and “Hot Stove.” Both shows have wrapped for the season and all of us appreciate your loyal viewing.
I picked the Saints today because they’re a tremendous story with a bunch of really good football players. But a great game, no matter the winner, is atop my wish list.
I’ll be taking a break from the blog, and mostly everything else, until sometime next month. By then, hopefully No. 4 will have announced his return for 2010. That’s it for now.
Enjoy the Super Bowl!
Hey Yankees fans: Catch Hot Stove at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow. We’ll have an interview with Alex that I just finished. It was at the Boys and Girls Club in Miami where he spent considerable time as a youth for the grand opening of the Alex Rodriguez Educational Center. Nice story. Alex was very relaxed during our conversation. And he says he’s feeling great as he gears up for the new season.
Also on the Stove, I’m sure Randy Winn also will be discussed by Bob and his guests in the studio. Sad to see Johnny go, but that’s the reality of this business sometimes. Set your DVRs! Have to catch my flight now.
Hey Yankees fans. We are hoping — and planning — for a pretty cool interview for Thursday’s “Hot Stove.” I’ll let you know Wednesday if it’s a done deal.
As for today’s games, here are my “This Week in Football” picks. I actually pity the Colts. They have no chance. If you believe NY media and talk radio, the Jets will savage Peyton and Co. What?!?
It’s been an unbelievable week in these parts. No one is picking the Colts. It’s like THEY’RE the road team, the fifth seed and the team with the rookie QB. And the local media — and NY writers love to fancy themselves a tough, cynical gang — are nearly unanimous in picking the J-E-T-S.
On WFAN, Rodney Harrison picked the Colts. In Neil Best’s column, Ron Jaworski did, too — in a squeaker. And I think we all know where Mike’d Up stands on the issue. That’s it. Everyone else, including Gary Myers, picked the Jets. I’ll join the minority. I’m picking the Colts today. Simply because I think they’re better. Especially at home. With Peyton. And Wayne. And Clark. And Freeney and Mathis. And an underrated LB named Gary Brackett.
As for the second game, I like both teams but will go with the Vikings. But I will admit, a Jets-Vikings Super Bowl would be epic, with Brett Favre right in the middle of it all. There’d be something to be said for that. Actually, a lot — an awful lot — to be said.
Kickoff is less than three hours away. Which means it’s time to blog!
At some point, on some radio station, I heard these Jets-Chargers gems from a very serious radio person: It will come to Rex Ryan vs. Philip Rivers. And while the Chargers have won 11 in a row, San Diego isn’t all that impressive because some of the games have been CLOSE! (That is the stuff of genius. So the head coaches and quarterbacks really do matter — imagine that! — and it somehow means LESS to show the toughness to win CLOSE games in the NFL. Sigh.)
Hey there, time for picks. After a 3-1 week in the wild card round, I’ll admit to showing uncharacteristic cockiness when we made our picks Tuesday prior to taping “This Week in Football.” I might pay for that today and tomorrow … but at least I’m not in last place! (Here’s to celebrating victories, however small.)
Cardinals over Saints because I love Kurt Warner in the playoffs. When I made the pick, I thought Boldin would play. But Warner and Fitzgerald are so tough, and it’s not like the Arizona offense doesn’t have other weapons. This should be a wild one and the Superdome will be nuts. (By the way, the Saints are so fun and such a great story that I won’t be sad if they win. I’m just not sure they will. So I’m emotionally hedging, but the pick is Arizona.)
Colts over Ravens because of Peyton and Dallas Clark and Reggie Wayne. After that competitive disgrace in Week 16, it would be pigskin poetry for the Colts to lose in front of an angry home crowd, but I doubt they will.
I feel like I’ve been to Minneapolis for a million sporting events. One trip stands out. A few of us reporter-types were at dinner in downtown Minny in the fall of 2004. Nice restaurant. Expensed meal. Good time. Out of the blue, Steve Serby of the NY Post — he is terrific and his Sunday Q&As are must-reads — interrupts the table next to us to tell one of the women that she looks “just like Teresa Heinz Kerry.” Well, that didn’t go over particularly well, with the woman or her husband. We continued eating while stifling laughter. Let me tell you, that wasn’t easy.
So I’ll go with the Vikings over the Cowboys because of home-dome advantage and because of my guy, Favre. It’s as simple as that. (By the way, you have to love the evidence, usually presented in graphic form, that the Cowboys have Favre’s number in postseason. That was in the mid-90s! A decade ago! Tony Romo was going through puberty! As my favorite no-show, Ochocinco, would say, Child please. If Dallas wins, it won’t be because of a game in 1990-something.)
And finally, I think the Chargers beat the Jets. Too many weapons for the Jets and their Revis Island defense to deal with. So Revis negates Jackson. Who accounts for Gates and Sproles and Floyd and Tomlinson?
And Sanchez will truly show remarkable progress if he duplicates his composed, mistake-free performance that was on display in Cincy. Rivers is good, really good, particularly in December and January. This might be the year he plays in February.
That’s it for now. If you want to chat after the weekend, give me a call on WFAN at 10 a.m. Monday. I’ll be on with my buddy, Carlin. Yeah! We don’t promise genius, but we do promise fun.
I can’t exactly explain how these weeks get away from me. And now, on a Saturday just before Jets kickoff, I’m trying to find a plumber. That’s going well.
“This Week in Football” has few flaws, in my mind. (Producer Jared Boshnack sees to that.) But this is one: In an unprecedented move, we are continuing to make our picks during the postseason. Which means I still could finish last in the standings. Ugh. Gary is a mere game behind me, to which I say, “Go Cardinals!”
My picks: Jets over Bengals, and I believe this was a unanimous selection among our crew. I think the Jets can beat the Bengals again, even in a game that matters, by sticking with the run and limiting the damage Sanchez can do.
Went with the Cowboys over the Eagles because Romo and Co. have home-field advantage and because the Eagles, with the No. 2 seed on the line, uncorked a complete clunker last week in Big D.
Sunday’s picks: Patriots and Cardinals. Can’t see Belichick and Brady losing at home to the Ravens, even without Welker. And I’m alone among our group in picking the Cards. Love Warner and Fitzgerald. But if the Packers win, I’m in last place. Yikes.
Happy New Year!
I’m late with blogging my “This Week in Football” picks this week. Unlike the Giants, at least they’re showing up at some point.
The choices: Vikings over Giants, Eagles over Cowboys, Jets over Bengals. We actually make the picks on Tuesday, so I’m not cheating. (At 31-0, the Vikings halftime lead would appear safe.)
What does Harry Carson think now? The Giants look like the least disciplined — and perhaps simply the worst — team in the league. They are playing like a team that wants to get its coach fired. Or, in this case, its defensive coordinator.
More Tuesday on “TWIF.” Hope to see you then.
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Ugh. Lawrence Taylor, Carl Banks,
Jason Sehorn, Harry Carson and Roman Oben are in the building. At halftime,
several of us considered if you put those former players in Giants uniform,
could they do any worse? As Banks said, this is a case of “DWI — don’t
want it.” Sad. And inexplicable.
Too often, these Giants just don’t
respond to adversity. They either don’t know how or don’t have the want-to.
Yes, the Redskins were complicit,
but the Giants looked so good Monday night because they jumped all over the
Redskins and never were challenged. Today, they have a promising first drive
derailed by a holding penalty then a lost fumble, and they can’t get off the
mat. Joe Buck just called it the worst tackling game he and Aikman have seen
all year. You can’t blame that on Bill Sheridan.
The Giants defenders must be
embarrassed. They’ve turned Brad Hoover — Brad Hoover! — into Larry Csonka.
It all comes full circle as Giants Stadium is giving a pathetic farewell by the
home team. And John Fox still can coach, which comes as no surprise to anyone
within the Giants organization, where he’s always been well respected.
That’s it from here. See you on
“This Week in Football.”
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End of the first quarter: Manningham
can’t fumble there. Or anywhere. But especially on an initial drive in a game
the Giants have to have. Just ate chocolate pudding in the press room at Giants
Stadium for the final time. No ambiguity here. There will not be chocolate
pudding next week. The Jets have a different philosophy than the Giants when it
comes to feeding the media. It starts with no chocolate pudding.
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Hello from Giants Stadium. For the
final time for a Giants game. Huge crowd. Lots and lots of tailgaters.
I will never pretend to understand
weather, but I know this: It’s infinitely nicer today, on Dec. 27, than it was
for most of the Yankees home playoff games. The sun is shining and the Giants
are driving. Eli just completed a pass with Peppers in his grill. With Peppers,
you get the feeling he can be as good as he wants to be, don’t you?
Looking forward to Jets-Colts and
the Revis vs. Wayne subplot.
Will check in a bit later.
The Kimberly Jones Blog 