It's NFL Time
Well, in two weekends anyway. Which means it's time for a sports post.

Last year, around November, I made a post that argued that Kurt Warner wasn't the problem with the New York Giants' inability to perform basic football functions like winning games. I didn't post it in this blog, but on one of my various dorky internet boards, I argued that the problem was, in fact, the offensive line.

Various pundits were calling for Kurt Warner's ouster last year, especially after the Giants dropped to 5-4, saying (like Tom Coughlin, the Giants coach) that "the offense wasn't clicking." So they inserted untested rookie Eli Manning, who promptly lost 6 of his 7 starts.

Eli Manning was injured this last weekend in a game against the Carolina Panthers, by Carolina defensive end Julius Peppers (article here).

This quote from the article pretty much tells the whole story:
"Coughlin allowed that protection for Manning, even by a markedly upgraded Giants offensive line, has been a concern."

This tells us two things:
First, the offensive line was pretty bad last year. Good offensive lines don't usually get "markedly upgraded," because they don't need to be.
Secondly, that if the line is so much better and is still having problems, the offense will struggle again this year, because Manning is going to spend a lot of time staring out of his earholes rather than his facemask. Because his helmet will be turned around by the impacts, you see, and...oh, forget it.

Sometimes, it's nice to be able to say "I told you so." But the Giants' OL has given up 10 sacks in two preseason games.