2011 NFL Schedule; Don't Expect 9/11 Patriotism to End Lockout

The NFL announced it's 2011 schedule last night and the first Sunday games of the season will be on September 11--ten years to the day after the 9/11 tragedies.  The NFL is already planning to honor and commemorate the dead and their survivors even if the league isn't even close to snapping a ball due to the lockout.

Optimistic fans may see a silver lining because the planned 9/11 memorial ceremonies may hasten an agreement between the NFL owners and the NFLPA due to deep rooted patriotism.  Realists know the two parties will still only be trying to line their pockets with gold.

A lot of talking heads on sports TV shows this morning brought up the fact that the NFL is adamant about paying tribute to America for that horrible day and that the stadiums will be filled up all the NFL glitz it can muster to honor those who paid the price.

On Mike & Mike, both Mikes said the NFL "highlighted" the date on it's schedule press release and claimed the owners and players would, at the least, be shamed into settling the lockout because of all the bad publicity it would generate if they didn't put their differences aside.  The public outcry alone should bring both sides to their knees.

Don't count on it.  Here in New York--one of the three terrorist attack sites--it took almost eight years to break ground to start rebuilding at Ground Zero, because of political differences, and there is a ongoing stalemate regarding compensation to injured first-responders and their families.  The Ground Zero Memorial was bound in red tape for years and that's here in New York.

It's hard to believe millionaires squabbling about their benefits, salaries and all the other issues involved in the billion-dollar negotiations would let 9/11 influence their decisions.

The NFL ceremonies will include everything we in New York have become all to familiar with over the past nine years.  There will be somber speeches and moments of silence.  Photos of lost loved ones and praises for the heroics that followed the attacks.

The biggest ceremonies will probably be reserved for the New York Jets opening game against "America's Team" the Dallas Cowboys at New Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey on national TV that night. 

The NFL will probably be going all out that night.  Expect all the usual pomp and hanger-on politicians for this prime-time tribute.  The sight of former-mayor Rudy Giuliani, families of the slain and first responders will bring the fans and viewing millions to tears. 

The New York Giants game vs. the Washington Redskins at  4:15 ET in Landover, Md.--not far from one of the other terrorist hits at the Pentagon--should provide an emotional group hug, as well.

There was speculation the league would make the Giants-Jets game the season opener to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.  Now, the battle for the city will take place on Christmas day.  It is only fitting that Washington gets their moment though.  It's 9/11 tragedy seems to already be a faint memory here in New York.

It's delusional to think that either the owners or players would cave in for just a minute of silence before the opening kick-off.  The world is already filled with war and natural disasters.

How many fans paid tribute to 9/11 last September?  In New York, you are lucky to get a few thousand spectators at the Memorial Day Parade--and most of them are tourists crowding the Fifth Avenue stores.  Sadly, the marching soldiers usually outnumber the supporters.

Don't be seduced by any hype from the NFL, owners or union reps.  If the lockout ends and the opening ceremonies move you.  Fine.  Just don't let the NFL or NFLPA pat itself on it's back for overcoming the labor dispute in the guise of a 9/11 commemoration.

You don't need a football game to honor the lost lives and heroes or remember the horrible events of 9/11 next September.

Bill "The Big Tuna" Parcells Now Dolphin-Free

Bill Parcells, a consultant to the Miami Dolphins, is taking his Team Rehab show on the road once again.  The well-traveled NFL head coach, general manager, consultant and talent evaluator's next gig will be under the studio lights at ESPN.

Parcells, who was with the Dolphins organization since 2007, will be joining ESPN for a third time as host of a program about the NFL draft.

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The taped hour-and-a-half special titled "Bill Parcells Draft Confidential" will give viewers inside look at the NFL draft process.  Parcells' thirty years of NFL experience will give fans an insider's perspective as how the draft works.

The 69 year-old team fixer-upper will break down how football teams evaluate players and "how difficult it is to draft successfully."

Parcells may want to explain to Dolphin fans how he let quarterback Matt Ryan slip through his hands a few years ago.  Instead, he drafted a great offensive tackle in Jake Long, but the bane of the Miami teams during his tenure was the lack of a good or injury-free signal-caller.

The Big Tuna, named for his once-rotund body and penchant for the sandwich, had a reputation as a great coach and team flipper.  He twice turned the three-win 1983 New York Giants into Super Bowl Champions during seven years,  and took the New England Patriots to another in 1996.

Parcells' magic touch started to fade after coaching the New York Jets and the Dallas Cowboys.  He left both teams in flux before moving to Miami as the V.P. of Football Operations.

The Dolphins were 11-5 his first year and won the AFC East title, but the team never met expectations the next two years. He passed the V.P. job to Jeff Ireland before last season and stayed on as consultant.

Where Parcells lands after this is any one's guess.  He has "retired" before due to health reasons or refusing to cow-tow to a flamboyant owner, but his football I.Q. is still in high demand.   Even the label 'egomaniac' won't scare away prospective suitors.

ESPN could keep Parcells on it's analyst roster.  He has broadcast experience and done it many times before.  Parcells worked with NBC for two years and  co-hosted a weekly show with Mike Francesa in New York, where he is still idolized by Giants fans.

It's a good bet Parcells will be netted by a struggling team needing a quick-fix and turnaround. The lure of the game is too strong for the coach.

It'll be interesting to hear Parcells' calculations on the Carolina Panthers first draft pick--quarterback or lineman?  The former linebackers-coach has a soft-spot for lineman.  Look how hard he rode Phil Simms and threw roses at L.T.'s feet during the Giants championship years.

I just wonder if Parcells regrets not taking Ryan and if he had taken the quarterback instead of Long, would he still be Miami?

The show airs Tuesday, April 26 at 9:30 ET.

Coughlin Rises From Dead...Again

By Tony Mangia

LOOKS LIKE COWHER CAN WAIT 

Maybe the New York Giants are just getting into the Halloween spirit.  There seem to be so many frightful cliches to describe their play after they turned the Dallas Cowboys into a thing that goes bump on Monday night, 41-35.  They put the final nail in the Cowboy's playoff dreams coffin.  The ghoulish Giants front four buried Tony Romo on the five-yard line, then planted a tombstone inscribed with "R.I.P. Super Bowl Dreams".

The whole Giants team turned the Cowboys into zombies for most of the game. Tom Coughlin has become Count Dracula and risen from the dead...once again.

The whole team basically toilet-papered and soaped up Jerry Jones $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium last night, but is Coughlin really becoming the undead?

One month ago angry throngs of Giants fans armed with pitchforks, torches and PSL's took to the swamps of the Meadowlands bent on ridding the team of the mad head coach. He is too strict and the game has passed him by they cried.  It has become a a fall ritual in New York since 2004.  Every year the same frightful screams for the coach's head and new blood. 

This year's Van Helsing was going to be Bill Cowher--the former Steelers head coach.  Rumors swirled that the "retired" TV analyst who has ties to the Mara family and would be interested in the Giants position, if it opened.  The Giants were 1-2 and the locker room had players tossing garlic and holy water onto the oft-criticized Coughlin. The team been mauled by the Tennessee Titans and looked like a ghost of the team that won the Super Bowl just a few years earlier. The team looked like a group of lost boys and tempers were flaring.


Coughlin, as he has always done in the past, never backed down.  The G-men finally rose up and played disciplined football--Coughlin-style football-- and punished the Chicago Bears (Midway Monsters? More like Monsters Inc.) while knocking out two Bears QBs in the process.  They chainsawed the Texans in Houston, Freddy Krugered the Lions at home and last night sent a message to the NFL that the Giants team is alive!

Big Blue fans might recall that the Giants started 2007 at 0-2 and ended up winning a Super Bowl.  This team has a similar feel. Coughlin took control then and is at it again.

Over the years, Coughlin has been called out by many players beginning with Jeremy "Cujo" Shockey and Tiki "Carrie" Barber to this year's town crier, Antrelle Rolle.  Since becoming Giants head coach, Coughlin has had only one losing season--his first--and a Super Bowl victory.  Barber retired and had to watch that upset victory from his prom seat on the Today Show, while newcomer Rolle has settled into the Coughlin system and they are winning.

The rosy-cheeked coach is an instructor and disciplinarian.  He has a good track record of sending many of his assistants on to bigger assignments and he molded Eli Manning into one of the NFL's most efficient quarterbacks.  He even taught Barber how not to fumble.

Everything is clicking for the Giants.  Brandon Jacobs looks like Frankenstein instead of Frankenberry and  Manning has reverted into Dr. Jekyll and not Mr. Hyde.  Even punter Matt Dodge doesn't look like Igor kicking some corpse's brain on fourth down.  Hell, the mad scientist Coughlin was correct on four replay challenges against the Cowboys last night!

Everyone in Jersey knows about the bodies buried all around the Meadowlands.  Every year disgruntled Giants fans look for another body to add to the graveyard after the first losing streak.  Tom Coughlin is always the first one they seek and every season he rises up. I can't imagine next year the townspeople won't be marching through the streets in their Giants blue looking for Coughlin's body parts again.

The head coach's contract is through 2011. He is getting up in age. His rules are outdated. The game is passing him by.  Tom Coughlin's annual resurrection with the Giants could be a Stephen King novel.  Let's call it The Blue Man in the Swamp.

Cowboys May See The Writing On The Wall

By Tony Mangia

Forget Eli's Autograph, Giants Ready To Write Off 'Boys

With all the controversy with coaching and losing surrounding the underachieving Cowboys, you would think Dallas fans and media would have more  important concerns than wondering if Eli Manning will sign his name on the  visitor's locker room again.  The Texas team--which had Super Bowl appearance written all over it--is 1-4 in a watered down version of the NFC and still  considers the autograph a sore spot in their Lone-Star hearts.

After last year's loss to the Giants in the brand-new $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium opening game, Eli Manning signed his name in the locker room area and topped it off with "First win in new stadium."  This so riled the Cowboy's players, they vowed to use it as motivation in their re-match in old Giants Stadium.  The Cowboys lost that game too.

Manning didn't take credit for the signature until almost three months later.  He said, "People made it sound like I went in their locker room and right for everyone to see, trying to do something disrespectful. It wasn't like that by any means."

In actuality, a Cowboys stadium worker invited Manning to draw his John Hancock after the week 2 game.  "I've done it in a lot of different places in the NFL," he confessed, "I thought they were starting a new tradition." The NFL Commissioner might want to come down hard on Eli and his graffiti tagging.

The squeaky-clean Giants quarterback came forth last December after admitting, "It's not right in the locker room, it's in the attendant's own little locker room," atoned Manning," Unless you're invited into the room, you're not going to see it."  Now no one will.  Manning's work was painted over by a stadium crew last year.

If his behavior in the Cowboys' locker room last September was not Manning-like, his play this season sure is.  The Giants fly into Dallas with a 4-2 NFC East leading tie with Philadelphia and Manning is playing consistently. Meanwhile,  Dallas is playing for their playoff lives and a good game by Manning and he could be writing the Cowboys' epitaph.

Jerry Jones, the  flamboyant owner of the Cowboys met with his stumbling team to give a positive message to his players.  When asked if he still confident his team could rebound from the mediocre start he said, "I'm not." This is a surprising answer from the pre-season Jones,  confident enough to believe his Cowboys would be the first true home team in Super Bowl history.

Dallas quarterback, Tony Romo, was asked if his talented but seemingly uninspired team and was playing their last stand on Monday night against the first-place G-Men?  "It's obviously important," he said, "And we do need to win."  You never know if 8-8 can gets in the playoffs or 12-4...we need to play our best game this weekend."

Romo will have this chance to get back into the thick of the playoff race and maybe--in three weeks-- have the opportunity to sign his name and "First Cowboy win in new stadium" in the Giants' brand-spanking-new, billion-dollar New Meadowlands Stadium as revenge.