What an autumn for New York sports. The New York Giants have finally gasped their last “save Fassel” breath, the Knicks and Rangers are giving Madison Square Garden fans everything they expect- high payrolls, ticket prices, and tallies in the loss column, and the most storied franchise in Major League Baseball was shocked by the up start Florida Marlins in game six of the World Series. We won’t even get into that last one-I’m still grieving. What a great sports town, huh?
Let’s be fair. Jim Fassel is a good guy and a pretty good football coach. But he’s no Bill Parcells. What he seemed to be in his first few years with the Giants though, was a great motivator. In his first year on the job in 1997, he led the G-men to the playoffs. Yet, what followed in that postseason was the beginning of a string of inexcusable and excruciating debacles. The sure-handed Chris Calloway muffed an onside kick and the Vikings popped the balloons of Fassel’s coming out party.
Then we have last year’s 24-point second-half collapse against the 49ers in the first round of the playoffs. That’s when management needed to make a stand. You can blame the terrible trio of Trey Junkin, Matt Allen and Matt Bryant. But the point is, someone needs to pay for such a collapse and it’s not the long snapper or holder-it’s the man who has the job of preparing his players so such nightmares don’t occur. Jim Fassel didn’t do it.
Management gave him another chance but this is it, and all of New York knows it. Enough is enough already. Bryant’s unbelievably poor squib kick against Dallas, a perfect bounce-pass punt to Brian Westbrook against the Eagles by the Giants’ prized off-season signee Jeff Feagles, and a blowout loss at the hands of the 1-7 Michael Vick-less Falcons sealed Fassel’s fate. You never know with this team and this coach. Maybe they will rattle off six straight wins to finish 10-6. Most likely not. But the excuses and guarantees need to end. With all the big names on this team, New Yorkers deserve a coaching change.
Let’s move now to the two jokes that occupy Madison Square Garden, the so-called “World’s Most Famous Arena.” Famous for what? For starters, the New York Rangers are the oldest team in the NHL but remarkably possess the league’s second-highest payroll, topping out around $77 million. Does that sound right to you? Fun fact No. 2: the New York Knicks flaunt the NBA’s highest payroll at $90 million, but the team doesn’t sport a single star player. Allan Houston at $15 million a season? Negative. Keith Van Horn at $13 million a season? Hardly. Mike Sweetney in a few years? Hopefully. What these two teams do sport however, are terrible front-office decisions in drafts, trades, and free-agent signings.
The Rangers have an All-Star squad on paper. The problem is that they were all-stars five years ago. The acquisition of Pavel Bure was a disaster. What has Eric Lindros done for us lately? And Bobby Holik pulls in almost $9 million a year to play like an average hockey player. I have one simple word for you, Glen Sather: Rebuild. True, he did inherit a disaster when he took over the reigns in 2000, but nothing has changed. The team hasn’t made the playoffs in seven years and the organization still refuses to rebuild.
All the money being spent is not translating into victories so how about shipping out all the overpaid, past their prime players, and get young. Let the minor league system actually develop and suck up the losses for another few years. I know, I know, New Yorkers don’t accept rebuilding and the organization will lose millions of dollars-blah, blah, blah. Well, it’s been almost a decade since the last postseason appearance, so what is a few more years? At least rebuilding is a reason to keeping blowing up the loss column. Sather probably won’t have his job when the turnaround occurs but the city and its fans deserve better.
The problems for the Knicks are eerily similar. The league’s highest payroll and one of its worst teams. They haven’t been at .500 in 175 games and at 3-7 this year, who knows when they’ll get there next. Can you guess the name of the last quality draft pick before Sweetney? It was another Hoya grad, Patrick Ewing in 1985. That means the Knicks have endured 18 years of bad picks … 18 freekin’ years. Recently, they’ve skipped over Ron Artest for Vince Carter’s biatch Frederic Weis, passed on last year’s NBA Rookie of the Year Amare Stoudemire, and traded a raw talent in Nene Hilario for crippled Antonio McDyess.
It seems that everyone except the Knick organization realizes that McDyess is not this team’s savior. The only hope is to let all of the ridiculous Scott Layden signings run their course-Shandon Anderson, Howard Eisley, Travis Knight, peace out. Then kick Layden out the door and make sure it catches the ass of President James Dolan on his way out. The Knicks have not reached the postseason the past two years in a conference that fails to have one good center or one exceptional team. You would think management would learn its lesson by now, but the signing of Dikembe proved otherwise. Same story-past his prime, overpaid. I have an idea: How about Diddy buys the team, Spike Lee becomes head coach, and Master P runs the point. It couldn’t get much worse.
What a great sports town, huh?
