NEW YORK – Step aside Mets and Yankees, it’s NFL football season and it appears your rivalry, as intense as it may be, may be sitting on the back burner until after the New Year.

The intercity rivalry between the first-place New York Giants (10-1) and, this is NOT a typo, first-place New York Jets (8-3) has found new life since Brett Favre jumped into the fray, joining the Jets after their underachieving season last year.

While the Jets struggled last season, the Giants were putting together a win streak that took them all the way to their Super Bowl upset victory over the undefeated New England Patriots.

Trash-talking in the parks and cafes are picking up steam since the first place Jets defeated the Titans last week who came into that game with a 10-0 record.

The Giants in the meantime are continuing where they left off and have only lost one game all year and are a favorite to make a return trip to the Super Bowl.

I spoke to several fans from both sides of the fence over this Thanksgiving weekend and clearly the passion for this rivalry has elevated. I discovered when you bring up the words ‘Giants’ and ‘Jets’, everyone is willing to drop their sandwich to jump into the discussion.

Giants fans believe if the two teams met, Favre would be running for his life and buckle from the pressure of the Giants defense and the Giants would “cakewalk” through a “blowout”.

Jets fans laughed that off and were still excited about Favre leading the Jets to the blowout of the previously undefeated Titans 34-13. They challenged the Giants fans, “Bring it on” and said their Jets look unstoppable now and that Eli Manning would need to be “scraped off the turf when the game was over if the two teams met”.

It’s great to see the passion Favre and the rejuvenated Jets have injected back into this rivalry.

Today’s week 13 schedule puts the Giants in
Washington and the Jets at home against the Broncos.

Copyright © 2009 – Sports Climax

The following story is an excerpt from an article by Sean Gregory at www.time.com

Early this week, Cleveland Browns tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. revealed that staph (short for Staphylococcus) infection had sent him to the Cleveland Clinic for three days, and he accused the Browns of asking him to cover it up.

Pro football teams are notoriously reluctant to reveal any information on player injuries, but since six different Browns have caught the bug since 2005 – Winslow has had it twice – the team’s medical management looked suspect to some observers. “There’s obviously a problem [with staph] and we have to fix it,” Winslow told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “Just look at the history around here. It’s unfortunate, because it happens time and time again.”

The Browns, who denied that they had kept the news of his infection from his teammates, suspended Winslow one game for his rant, which included his claim that he felt like he had been treated like “a piece of meat.”

But the Winslow medical controversy wasn’t even the worst of it for the league. In the past week, it has become clear that two of its most marketable stars, marquee quarterbacks Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, had gotten infections.

The New England Patriots’ Brady has had at least two additional infection-related procedures since his initial season-ending knee surgery in September. It’s now possible that his knee will have to undergo another operation, which could delay his return until 2010. Staph seems to be the likely culprit, but neither Brady nor the Patriots will confirm that.

During training camp staph infected a bursa sac, which acts as a cushion between bones, in Manning’s left knee. The infection required surgery and forced him to miss most of the preseason. Though the Colts released a statement on Friday insisting Manning didn’t contract a more perilous staph, the anti-biotic resistant strain known as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), the incidents should alarm the NFL.

“The NFL, and all the leagues, should be diligent, and not let their guards down,” says Dr. Robert Gotlin, director of Orthopedic and Sports Rehabilitation at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. “They’ve got to do better. It’s got to be one of the top five priorities.”

Staph, of course, is far from just an NFL problem. Two college teams, the ’05 Florida Gators and the ’03 USC Trojans, had multiple cases.

In 2003, a team of researchers also tracked the St. Louis Rams and found five players who caught eight MRSA infections.

Copyright © 2008 – Sports Climax