NFL ACLB PREVIEWS - #13: NEW YORK GIANTS

PERTINENT DATA: 10-6 last year; 25 to 1 odds to win Super Bowl XLVI.
BEST CASE SCENARIO (Neil): The Giants always seem like they are in the mix in the NFC East and even though everyone is hooting like rabid monkeys about Plaxico Burress signing with the Jets and Steve Smith sneaking out like a thief in the night to sign with those animals in Philly, the thing that everyone misses is that both Hakeem Nicks and Mario Manningham are better receivers than those two dudes. It’s true. Plax is a bigger name but the only balls he’s been catching the last couple of years have been the ones bouncing off his chin on Rikers Island. Meanwhile, yeah, Steve Smith caught 100 passes a couple of years ago but even at his peak he wasn’t as explosive as either Nicks or Super Mario and now he’s coming off of knee surgery, so . . . yeah, the Giants offense should be just fine. The running backs are good and as long as Eli Manning doesn’t fuck up too much (I know, I know . . . this is a big if) the Giants should be able to score some points. Meanwhile, the defense is the defense. I don’t think it’s that great but if dudes can put their egos aside and Osi Umenyiora (Did I spell that shit right? Fuck it, I’m not checking.) gets his ass on the field, they should at least be able to get after the quarterback a bit. Even though they’ve already suffered some injuries in the secondary, that’s an area where they have some depth so, honestly, they should be fine. I don’t think they’re going to win the Super Bowl or anything, but they should be what they always seem to be – contenders in the NFC East who at least have a shot at falling ass backward into a Super Bowl berth. Wow, that’s probably one of the most straightforward one of these I’ve done. Sorry? You’re welcome?
WORST CASE SCENARIO (Raven): It looks as though the worst case scenario is slowly unfolding before our eyes. Eli Manning has always been a retard and Tom Coughlin has always been an overbearing dickhead. But winning the Super Bowl because that one dude learned how to catch footballs with his facemask gave them time to not feel the fickle wrath of the greater New York metropolitan area. The sand has just about run out of that hour glass of thankful respect though. This is a team with a whole bunch of bric-a-brac at most positions, where it's like they have more guys than most teams, but all of them are mid-range, and there's no star power. Seriously, what star power is left on this team? Their aging RBs who were in decline last year? Their WR corps of 9 guys that would be great #3 receivers in half the league? At look at that vaunted defense. Just two years ago it seemed like the Giants had a steady army of defensive linemen that were interchangeable and ran about three deep and would put fear into QBs for their endlessly pinned back ears and bull rush. Now that's depleted, injured, or disgruntled. The whole thing is coming apart, and it makes me happy. Fuck the New York Giants.
PLAYER TO PULL FOR (Neil): The most obvious choice here would be rookie linebacker Mark Herzlich since he is a cancer survivor and all that, and while that’s great and I wish him a long and happy life, I won’t allow this place to turn into a sap farm. Today, I write a feel good bit on Mark Herzlich, tomorrow I’m writing the sequel to Tuesday’s With Morrie called Wednesday’s With Mitch in which I detail a year of Wednesday’s spent wiping Mitch Albom’s ass and spoon feeding him applesauce while he wanders around senile, missing his pants and pawing at his useless old dong because he thinks I’m Chris Webber, and fuck you if you think I’m going to put up with that shit. There are principles at stake here. Yeah, yeah, I know that Mitch Albom isn’t that old and he probably has many healthy years left but his brain turned to mush long, long ago. You simply can’t deny such a fundamental truth. Anyway, I was supposed to be telling you to root for someone, right? Okay, so I guess the next most obvious choice would be Mario Manningham due to my nauseating Michigan homerism but I can already hear you bellowing at me, although that could just be the neighbor’s dog. I swear he’s learning words and I think he was sent from the future to kill me. The dog, not Mario Manningham, although I guess there’s always a chance that Super Mario has been sent from the future to kill me and I simply cannot in good conscience ask you to root for someone like that. So, with those out of the way, who’s left? Fuck if I know. Root for whoever you want to. Don’t root for anyone at all. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a fuck. (It’s 2011, saying I don’t give a damn isn’t harsh enough anymore. I would gnaw on Rhett Butler’s wicked bones. Fuck him.)
PLAYER TO HATE MOST (Raven): If you read this blog regularly, you know I am a Redskins fan. And honestly, though I dislike all divisional foes, the Giants have always been my least hated, for whatever reason. I just didn't really think of them as a rival, kind of like if you get in a fight while drunk with a retarded guy in college. It's just something that happens and you don't make yourself hate the guy because actually you have to feel sorry for them. That's how I feel about Giants fans usually. I mean the team's not even in New York, but shitty New Jersey. If you're going to be New York in name, at least be near all that culture, all those museums, the arts movements past and present, the vibrant breathing cultural entity. Not in the fucking Meadowlands. But I'm sure this does not bother most Giants fans as they are usually uncultured retard drunks who would just make the city a less exciting place to be anyways. But like I said, I never really felt outright hatred for the Giants until the past five years or so, when Eli Manning came to the team. Both Manning boys are complete goober cocksucker assholes. Having grown up in the south, I can tell you firsthand there is nothing worse than the rich prep school hick fucker like the Mannings, both Peyton and Eli (plus their other brother, who probably also has one of those private school country club redneck names as well, like Dylan or Conner or something), and they drive to high school in a Beamer and feel like they own the world, yet when you get out of the confines of the south, they look and seem like a complete fucking hillbilly doofus. Except for-real hillbillies are resourceful people who make something from nothing and can survive in abject poverty for generations. The Mannings are the type of sheltered seemingly hillbilly dumb fucks who have always been fed off a silver spoon, and yet never bothered to culture themselves with all the privileges they've been afforded. It's sad and pathetic, and really about as American as possible. Let's not forget that Eli was actually drafted by the San Diego Chargers, but then stomped his feet and held his breath until he was traded to the Giants for Philip Rivers, before either of them took a snap in practice. Let's not forget this douchebag in an interview compared himself to his brother and Tom Brady and the very upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks this offseason. There really are few more contemptible people in the entire league than Eli Manning, and watching his mediocrity unravel, as it has the past couple of years, and even did the year he won a Super Bowl to be honest, it is going to be a joy. I will love seeing his stupid fucking face looking all angry sad, like he didn't get to go the British Virgin Islands for his summer trip before his Senior year of high school like he wanted, because his folks made him go to Maui on a family trip instead. Fuck Eli Manning and fuck everybody like him in my beloved South. Us real hillbillies are gonna rise up and slit your goddamned throats with homemade knives carved from sycamore branches, and we're gonna take over you plantation style McMansions, and fuck our crazy ol' ladies all over the back yard, and have like 39 little half-feral hillbilly children tearing up every room in that fucking place in five years time. You fuckers.
BEST NAME ON TEAM: As long as he is on an NFL roster, I will always find a spot to honor the greatness of the name Sage Rosenfels.
IN A PERFECT WORLD (Neil): The Giants perfect world always involves them hoisting the Lombardi Trophy but in my perfect world, Eli Manning would end up walking in on Peyton fucking the family dog, leading to Eli breaking down and sobbing in that hangdog drawl of his that makes him sound like he was the product of a fucked up union between Corky from Life Goes On and a female ground sloth. Why would I want that to happen? I don’t know, I’m kind of a fucked up dude, I guess. But really, I just think the Manning family has the potential to make a fine Southern Gothic type of story, some new age Faulkner or some shit like that, complete with a family dynamic fraught with petty jealousy (Eli hates Peyton because in his heart he always knows that Peyton will be number one, both to the rest of the world and more importantly to their dear old dad), rampant insecurity (that one brother with the narrow spine who has to spend the rest of his life convinced that he’s a failure, both to the rest of the world and more importantly to their dear old dad), and survival against overwhelming odds (The dog, who is just looking for a better life and is sick of suffering at the hands of Peyton’s perversions and more importantly is afraid of the stern hand of their dear old dad) and what better way to kick off that tale than Eli walking in on brother Peyton fucking the family pet? Look, I could have gone way darker here and I think you all know that, so just be glad I went the direction I did. I guess the bad news is that this would almost certainly be the lead story on Sports Center for the next century and we’d all quickly get sick of it. What is it with quarterbacks from Mississippi anyway? First you have all that Brett Favre bullshit and then Peyton Manning gets caught by Eli molesting the family golden retriever. What goes on in the Deep South? What goes on indeed? Those degenerates should all be ashamed of themselves. Don’t blame me, I’m just a humble interpreter of these times, strange and terrible as they may be. I didn’t make Peyton Manning fuck a dog. If you’re going to blame anyone, blame Archie. A man named Archie can’t be trusted. We should have seen this coming. That’s all I’m saying.
PROGNOSIS (Raven): The deadwood fortune sticks said the Giants, for all their glaring weaknesses this preseason, would go 9-7, just missing the playoffs. I don't know, I hate to question my own metascience, but I've seen nothing from the Giants to make me believe this to be true, but I cannot deny the methods I used - camping by the river, ingesting psychedelic mushrooms, playing with scrap sticks by a fire along a stretch of railroad track I love where there's a hidden rail yard the little 25-mile local line operates, which connects to the main line from West Virginia to Norfolk where coal goes one way and empty coal cars go back the other. 9-7 seems outlandish, but hey, who am I to deny the oracle?