Giants vs Jets

Okay, big, big game tomorrow night. Almost Superbowl big. Essentially, it’s a playoff game in regular season where the winner will move forward while the loser will face elimination.

The mediocre New York Giants face off against the mediocre New York Jets, battling for a crack at the sixth Wild Card position in their respective conferences.

At 7-7, the Giants are perhaps the most crazily schizophrenic team in football. They’ll beat the Patriots in the final seconds and hang in neck-and-neck with the Packers, but will lose easily to the Seahawks and the Redskins. I’ve always said they play at the level of their opponent. This season, they play just slightly below.

At 8-6, the Jets are slightly less erratic, but only slightly less so. Every game is a toss-up; there are no sure wins with these Jets. On paper, I guess, the talent’s all there. In execution, though, it ain’t. This is the team headed by the same coaching staff that went to the AFC championships two years running? I’ve always said (of late, at least) that the Jets are still a B-level team. A-level teams determine their own fates. The Jets still haven’t reached this level. In 2011, they dropped back a bit, half-a-grade or so.

Now, I’m no NFL whiz. I know both teams have their key injuries. I know both teams faced tougher-than-normal schedules. It’s just one of my dreams that I get to experience a completely dominant New York NFL team at least once in my mature lifetime. Yes, in 86 the Giants were pretty much killer, but back then I had other things on my mind. Just like I want to see another Reagan before I die, I want to see another New York football team utterly destroy its opponents week in and week out.

So my prediction for tomorrow?

In the words of Clubber Lang: Pain.

Not physical pain, mind you. Mental pain, in the form of humiliation. But not just one team. I predict both teams will be humiliated.

Tomorrow, Saturday, will be a first in the history of the National Football League. For the first time in a game in the 80-plus years the league has been in existence, neither team will win. Now, I’m not talking a tie here. I’m talking both teams losing. I’m not sure how the heck that’s possible, but in the 2011 Giants-Jets game, it will happen.

Both teams will lose somehow.

Mark my words.