COHEN'S CORNER SPORTS

The Giants now know when their first game of 2014 will be, albeit a preseason game.  The Giants will participate in the annual Hall of Fame Game , a traditional highlight to NFL Hall of Fame week. The Giants will play the Buffalo Bills in the contest, marking the fifth time Big Blue will play in the game.  The last time the Giants played in the Hall of Fame Game was 2002 against the Houston Texans. This will be the first time that the Giants will play the Bills in the HOF contest.  In a way the match-up is very fitting, since former Bills wide receiver, Andre Reed, and Giants defensive end Michael Strahan are both getting enshrined into the Hall of Fame that weekend.  Some might not like the fact that this now means that both the Giants and Bills will play five preseason games this year, but, to be honest both coaching staffs probably will welcome the extra work after the mess that was 2013 for both franchises.  The game will be played Augus...

Perhaps out of shear hubris, or maybe he knows something about this years Mets that we don't know yet, General Manager Sandy Alderson made it be known that he believes and expects his ball club to win 90 games this season. Yes, in year four of the Alderson era, the Mets GM is doing his best Rex Ryan imitation -- hoping that all of the potential finally rises to the top this season and makes the 2014 Mets the surprise team of the year. But lets be honest, even if this team finds a way to get to .500 and win more than 80 games that would certainly count as a surprise enough. You have to respect Alderson's optimism; this is the team that he has built over the past four years and he wants to see a winner now, something that all Mets fans can certainly agree on. However, I don't think Alderson ever expected his comments from a staff meeting to leak out. Its almost like a NFL coach telling his team during a training camp meeting that he expects to win it all, and word gets ...

The Ike Davis saga has been a bizarre one over the last couple of years.  Two years ago, Davis and the Mets drummed up a odd disease called valley fever as an excuse for his poor performance at the plate during the first half of the 2012 season. After another horrific season in 2013 that saw Davis hit only .205 with nine homers and 33 RBI. The Mets did everything they could to trade him in the off-season, but nobody budged. The Mets made it very public that they were shopping the embattled first baseman leading to Davis' father, Ron to trash the Mets publicly, saying they "screwed up." Another black eye, and sign that the relationship between the Mets and Ike Davis was on stilts. Now, more excuses and distractions are flowing out of Davis' corner. The New York Post caught Davis in a lie to the team that employees him when he concealed an oblique injury from the team for most of the past year. According to the report, Davis injured the oblique in mid-May, but...

So much for all that talk earlier in the off-season about the Yankees trading Brett Gardner. New York finalized a long term 4-year, $52 million deal with the speedy outfielder to be the team's left fielder for the forceable future. The move is a complete 180 from where the Yankees were on Gardner's status within the organization. After the club signed former Red Sox Jacoby Ellsbury to a mega contract, Gardner was pushed out of center field, and became a bargaining chip if the Yankees decided to trade him. The Yankees already had aging outfielders Alfonso Soriano, likely a DH in 2014, and Ichiro Suzuki along with Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran. Short term, the Yankees could have survived if they traded away Gardner, but perhaps with a eye toward 2015 and 16, GM Brian Cashman felt obligated to keep Gardner, who is only 30 years old. With that move, however, the Yankee still have not spent a dime on fixing the problems at third base and second base. The Yankees have spent $247 ...

Those clamoring for 2014 to be the final year of Tom Coughlin in New York, may have to wait a little while longer.  The two-time Super Bowl winning coach got something of an endorsement by Giants ownership, who inked him to a one-year extension that keeps him in New York through the 2015 season. This gives Coughlin now two years to get the Giants back on track, but make no mistake 2014 is a win now situation.  Coughlin, 67, is not getting any younger, so any contract extension is a year to year affair based on both the teams performance, and how much Coughlin feels he can keep on coaching. He earned the right to make the decision about his future by winning two Super Bowls. The Giants are trusting that Coughlin can turn the team around this year. Eli Manning is coming off an uncharacteristically bad year, as is the entire Giants, which is being revamped by new offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo.  With a new offense, maybe it will not only breath life into the...

The past week has not been a good one for the National Football League. Anticipated for a while now, the findings in the investigation of the Jonathan Martin Case by Ted Wells of Paul,Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP are now out, and it paints a very dark picture about the locker room environment of the Miami Dolphins, and the culture NFL players participate in in general. When Jonathan Martin came out and told the world about how he was verbally abused by teammate Richie Incognitto it changed the dynamic of how we perceive the NFL. While Martin had every right to press charges, and proceed with a lawyered up investigation, we have to take note to the fact that we the fans, and we the media are partly to blame as well. Why? Because we crave the National Football League 24/7. We want as much coverage of the NFL as we possibly can get our hands on. From the NFL combine; off-season workouts; live television shows dedicated to the regular season schedule release; live tel...

" A great man leaves clean work behind him, and requires no sweeper up of the chips ." - Elizabeth Barrett Browning . We all knew that this day was going to come sooner or later. The writing was on the wall as recently as last season, when he struggled to stay on the field longer than 17 games; struggled to hold a bat in his hand, field his position, and run the way he used to. It was only a matter of time before the great career of Derek Jeter would come to an end. Now it is over -- just about. On Wednesday, Jeter surprised the baseball world, days before the rest of his Yankees teammates join him in Tampa Bay for Spring Training that he will hang up his #2 jersey at the end of this season for good. " I have achieved almost every personal and professional goal I have set. I have gotten the most out of my life playing baseball. I have no regrets. ... New York made me stronger, kept me more focused and made me a better, more well rounded person. For that I wil...

SEAHAWKS 43 BRONCOS 8  Call it total annihilation. Call it domination. Call it whatever you want, because the Seattle Seahawks did whatever they wanted to against the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII, turning what many thought would be a coronation for the career of Peyton Manning into the Nightmare Before Christmas for any Denver loyalists. The Broncos never had a chance against the speed of the Seahawks front seven. A Broncos offense that had given up only 18 sacks all year, and set incredible passing records throughout the course of the 2013 season was no match for the Seahawks. Everything that people feared could happen to Denver did times 10. - The Broncos needed to protect the quarterback -- they failed.  - The Broncos needed to protect the football -- the failed miserably.  - The Broncos needed to challenge the Seahawks secondary -- they couldn't even do that.  - The Broncos had to keep Russell Wilson in the pocket -- they struggled.  - T...

The wait is finally over! Super Bowl XLVIII is now upon us, time to put aside all of the press conferences, all of the distractions, and all of the discussion and finally play this game between the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks. Much has been made this week about the match-up between the number 1 defense against the number 1 offense; Peyton Manning's legacy, as well as Richard Sherman's big mouth. Now it all comes to a head for 60 minutes with the Lombardi trophy lying in wait. Let's do a quick breakdown first... BRONCOS OFFENSE vs. SEAHAWKS DEFENSE  The match-up everyone is talking about. The Broncos have featured the NFL's top ranked offense all season with Peyton Manning setting records for touchdowns (55) and yards (5,477). At 37, and coming off of four neck surgeries, this has been Manning's best statistical season -- which says a lot, because he has had a tremendous career. How Manning does against this Seahawks defense is going to tell the ta...