This Is What Happens When You Have Two Weeks Before the Super Bowl

You get fantasyland, weird-o articles like this one from New York sportswriters like Filip Bondy. I don't know why, but I've always had a problem with people who don't spell their names correctly and Filip is about as egregious as it gets. Names like "Thom" or "Geoff" or "Gregg" or "Trayci" or doofy things like that. I know, I know, most people are named by their parents and so it's not their fault but I'm allowed to dislike people for whatever reason I want.

It's entitled "What if Giants Didn't Pass on Brady?"

Please tell me Filip isn't going to talk about how much life "might be different" had the Giants and not the Pats drafted Handsome Tom Brady.

But after a goofy-ass intro where he talks about "Giants coach Jim Fassel" and Brady talking about the Giants "third straight Super Bowl," he says this:

February Fools' Day!

What you see there is the fantasy lead for a hypothetical column that might well have been written this week if only the Giants hadn't drafted six mediocre players ahead of Brady back in 2000.

Oh, boy. He is. I don't know where to start but I guess I could point out that articles like this are usually reserved for situations like when Sam Bowie is selected over Michael Jordan. Not when, like, 198 playes are chosen before a guy like Brady. I think we can all agree that nearly every single NFL team would like to have chosen Tom Brady over whomever they took that year. I mean, I think we've covered this. The Giants chose Ron Dayne in the first round. Others chose Peter Warrick, Deltha O'Neal, Stockar McDougle, Chris McIntosh, Leif Larson (clearly I'm just cherry-picking the funny names), Robaire Smith, Jeno James, Jabari Issa, Spergon Wynn, Mareno Philyaw... all before Handsome Tom. Hell, the Raiders used the 17th overall pick on an effing kicker! This has been covered, at length. He should have been chosen higher. He was a steal at 199th. But he was a backup in college. Nobody could have predicted this. And when fatass Bob Kraft tries to, he's a filthy liar.

What if the Giants hadn't passed on Brady? I don't know. What if it didn't snow the day I crashed my mom's Volvo in high school? What if the Nazis had passed on world domination? What if up was down and down was up? What if my grandma didn't drink so much? Who knows? Why are we asking these questions?

Anyway, Filip goes on to list many players that the Giants and others chose, much like I just did. Only he isn't as funny as me. At least, I don't think so. And he continues to re-hash really overcooked meat:

"When I came to the Patriots I was the fourth-string quarterback,” Brady said yesterday, for real. "I was eating nachos before the games, watching us in 2000, just hoping that one day I would get the opportunity.”

Then Drew Bledsoe got hurt in 2001, and the rest is Bill Belichick genius.

We know this. Everybody fricking knows this. Casual fans know this. I mean, if you asked Alice from accounting about Tom Brady, she'd know he was really handsome and wins all the time and that he took over for Drew Bledsoe and the rest is history. We all know this!

More from Bondy:

But what if things had gone very differently? What if Accorsi selected Brady with the marginal sixth pick?

The "marginal" sixth pick? What does that mean? And yes, things would have gone differently. Just like if the Trail Blazers had chosen Jordan or the Indianapolis Racers had never traded away Wayne Gretzky. Just imagine -- the Edmonton Oilers probably wouldn't exist and we'd be talking about how the city of Indianapolis is the hotbed of professional hockey, thanks to the kid from Manitoba. And everybody would bitch about the "West coast bias" of sports coverage all thanks to Michael Jordan's string of 14 straight championships in the Pacific Northwest. But that's not what happened.

But Filip is having fun playing make-believe:

Here is one scenario: Brady beats out Jason Garrett for the No. 2 spot on sheer talent. But he sits behind Collins for three long years, because Collins has a Super Bowl on his resume. Collins is streaky, and by the start of the 2003 season there is a real quarterback controversy in camp. When the Giants slip to a 2-4 start, Fassel pulls the plug on Collins and starts Brady for the first time.

Brady shines. He doesn't lead the Giants to the playoffs, but he is a galvanizing force, and this still-talented team finishes at 8-8. That is enough to save Fassel's job.

Dude, Fassel was definitely a good man and a quite-decent coach. But he was canned, like, five years ago. Time to deal with it. I thought this was about Tom Brady being a Giant, yet as ridiculous as that concept is for moderately-intelligent human beings, it's getting even more murky as we talk about who would actually be coach.

And how do you know Fassel would "pull the plug" on Collins? Collins was his boy and got them to a Super Bowl. Why am I even getting worked up over this?

In the 2004 draft, the Giants no longer need a young quarterback and keep all their picks. They choose lower in the draft, but solidify themselves by choosing defensive tackle Vince Wilfork in the middle of the first round.

The Giants continue to build around Brady through the draft - they have an extra pick in 2005, which they didn't send to the Chargers - and the team matures into a Super Bowl dynasty in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Wow, now we're talking about how Vince Wilfork would be a Giant? He's a Patriot! Oh, wait, I see... in Filip's make-believe world, only the Giants and Patriots exist. No other well-run teams are there. No Chargers, who have built a team looking more and more ready to take the next step. No Colts, a team that has won 13 or more games for like five straight years. Nope, if the Giants took Tom Brady, they and the Pats would be jockeying for position and the Giants would be a juggernaut.

Meanwhile, the Patriots' fate is not so kind. When Bledsoe is injured in 2001, Damon Huard steps in for a few games. He's not that impressive, and so Bledsoe gets his job back when he heals. Bledsoe slowly deteriorates with age over the next two years, until Belichick decides he needs a new quarterback.

I know it's fun to make these wild, completely baseless assumptions... BUT, if I could piss on your parade for a minute, Filip, may I just point out that not having Tom Brady wouldn't suddenly make Bill Belichick a drooling moron, you know? I don't think he'd have continuted trotting Bledsoe out there as he turned into a corpse. In your alternate reality, does Mo Lewis not exist, either? Would Belichick have just played without a QB after Lewis crushed Bledsoe?

Belichick has zero championships in New England. Fassel is in his third straight Super Bowl, fourth overall, going for a second successive title. Fassel and Brady form a brilliant partnership.

Except maybe Belichick would have taken David Garrard in 2002 and been just as successful. Or maybe he would have snagged LaDanian Tomlinson. Who the hell knows? And why, Filip, do you have a mancrush on Jim Fassel?

Genius is as genius drafts - even in the sixth round.

You mean Tom Brady was taken in the sixth effing round?? Why hasn't more been made of this??

Jeter Is Good

Since I posted about Jeter being considered infallable the other day, I thought I'd take a real look at his numbers today. I know his average was way up there, but I really didn't understand just how good he has been playing and how consistently good he's been of late.

Sure, he's hitting almost .370 and that's good no matter what, but it's only May, right? And he's got just three homers and 28 RBIs. So it's not like he's doing anything amazing...right?

Except if you begin to look at his game-by-game log for the season so far, you see that he's only had two -- two! -- true, zero-hit games thus far this season. On April 7, he went 0-for-4 with a walk and on May 4, he went 0-for-6. That May 4 game was the only game he's appeared in this season where he has not reached base.

Think about that. That's actually incredible. He's currently riding an 18-game hitting streak and, as I said, has gotten on base in every single game this year except for one (including one game where he was plunked in the first inning and had to leave the game -- a 0-for-0 with 1 HBP).

But let's take it back even further. If you go back to his game-by-game for 2006, you'll see that the last time Jeter had two straight games with no hits was August 16 and 17 of last year. Since last August 19, Derek has only had three games (the aforementioned two this year, plus Sept 17 of 2006) where he put up an 0-fer. That's it.

So over his last 82 games (just more than half a season's worth of games), Derek Jeter has had hits in 77 of them, with two games being 0-for-0 games (one the aforementioned HBP game and one last year, also against Tampa, where he went 0-for-0 with three walks and three runs scored).

Three 0-fers in 82 games. And only two games in the past 82 where he did not reach base. Two.

Last night, he cleared 2,215 hits to move ahead of Joe DiMaggio on the Yankees all-time hits list and won't be 33 until June 26. Jeter has averaged about 195 hits per season so far in his career. Even if that drops to 175 per year, Jeter will clear 3,000 hits in about four and a half seasons, or at the end of 2011, the season in which he'll turn 37. It's quite conceiveable that he will approach 3,500 hits. Do you know how many guys have even 3,400 hits, all-time? Eight.

I know a lot of people have taken a liking to mocking Jeter as being a media-created legend, but he's doing a pretty good job of it himself. Sure, he's not hitting 700+ home runs like Bonds or things like that, but I'm also not writing this talking about his "little things" or "intangibles," the stuff that knowledgeable people make fun of since it kind of is hyperbole. No, I'm talking about his actual numbers and they're beginning to look pretty incredible.

Thus ends my public love note about Derek's skillz.