No-Brainers

It only takes two weeks for Giants coach Tom Coughlin to discover how ineffective QB Kurt Warner can become and grease the skids for Eli Manning's NFL Debut against the Atlanta Falcons this week.

The Giants and the Jets struggle in Metropolis to see which team can have the most disappointing downslide in the second half of the season. The Jets, with Mr Carter at QB, are a train waiting to be derailed and can only hope Chad Pennington is a faster healer than they dare imagine.

The Giants have Eli and he's got the whole world in his hands. Let's see if he can hold on.

*****

Barry Bonds has earned his seventh MVP award.

Detractors who whinge about steroid abuse should note, as ESPN's Jason Stark does in Bonds In His Own League that:

"Bonds reached base 376 times. Only the Babe ever beat that. Barry had an .812 slugging percentage. Just Ruth -- and Bonds himself -- have topped that. He was the oldest man ever to hit 45 home runs. He was the third to drive in 100 runs in a season in which he didn't even get 400 at-bats. ... And then there were all those walks"

Illegal performance-enhancing drugs might give Bonds an edge but it doesn't send him into the stratosphere of his sport. If it did, we'd all take it and we'd all be famous millionaires whose exploits are ignored in favour of constant harassment by the holy soapbox media.

*****

Bowl Bullocks

In case you've become confused by a certain university's 24-6 rout of a highly regarded Georgia squad last week, it is confirmed here there is no bowl controversy.

No one outside of the south is interested in watching Auburn play for the national championship, even though with three weeks remaining, it's allegedly a three-way battle for the privilege, with USC, Oklahoma and Auburn each 10-0.

The only National Championship that will be worth watching will be Oklahoma and USC. Both teams have a pair of Heisman candidates. Both teams have played a tougher schedule than Auburn. Both teams have been #1 and #2 all season. Now, the argument could be made for Auburn, or any 10-0 SEC team considering the number LSU did on Oklahoma last season. But that was then, this is now, as they say.

Auburn's comical non-conference schedule of Louisiana Tech, Louisiana-Monroe and Division I-AA The Citadel, despite victories over Tennessee and Georgia.

"They played three teams that wouldn't win their state high school tournament," said BCS expert Jerry Palm, who operates the CollegeBCS.com Web site. "If Auburn doesn't get to the Orange Bowl, [team officials] might look back and say, `We wish we would have played somebody better.'"