COHEN'S CORNER SPORTS

SAINTS 33 - GIANTS 18 It was too much Drew Brees, way too much Alvin Kamara, and even way too much Saints D for the New York Giants on Sunday at MetLife Stadium as Big Blue dropped to 1-3 on the season after a disheartening 33-18 loss to the New Orleans Saints. The Saints grinded out the Giants over the course of 60 minutes, and New York had no answer for every punch the Saints threw at them. Even when New Orleans kept inviting the G-Men into the ball game with four consecutive field goals to take a 12-7 lead at the half, the Giants couldn't get over the hump. Big Blue beat themselves Sunday, it is as simple as that. When the Giants had the Saints down and out, New Orleans faked a punt as Taysom Hill hit Justin Hardee for a 10-yard gain to keep the drive alive. New Orleans would get a field goal to cut the Giants lead down to 7-3. When the Giants were moving the ball toward midfield with 4:45 to play before the half, still leading 7-6, Wayne Gallman fumbled the ball bac...

JAGUARS 31 - JETS 12  The Jets looked every bit the part of a rebuilding, undisciplined football team against a Super Bowl contender in the Jacksonville Jaguars, Sunday as the Jags pounded the Jets 31-12 to send Gang Green to 1-3.   The game was a complete miss-match as the Jaguars toyed with the Jets from pillar to post.   In fact, the game felt over as soon as Jacksonville opened the scoring with a Josh Lambo field goal that completed a long opening drive that ate up eight and a half minutes. There were no adjustments by the Jets coaching staff, no fight by the players, and no chance. After a week where Todd Bowles got racked over the coals by fans for not preparing his football team for the Baker Mayfield factor last week in Cleveland, his defense couldn’t slow down Blake Bortles on Sunday. Bortles had one of the best games of his career, completing 29-of-38 for a career high 388 yards passing and two touchdowns. At one point Bortles was 16-of-17 going...

The date was October 2, 2005.  With the exception of the heartbreaking collapses that would come down the road in 2007 and 2008, there weren’t many Sunday afternoons in late September/early October that would make Mets fans want to sit through nine innings of a team just trying to end its season.   There was no postseason on the horizon for the ’05 Mets, something that Mets fans grew accustomed to for five conservative seasons at this point.   But this day was different. October 2, 2005 was Mike Piazza’s final game as a New York Met.   For someone, like myself, who was only 20 years old at the time, Piazza was on my personal Mount Rushmore of baseball icons. He gave myself, and many Mets fans, moments of joy from the various homers he hit off Roger Clemens and the Yankees to the historic homerun against the Atlanta Braves in the first game at Shea Stadium post-9/11. Shea was rocking that day. Fans jammed the old ballpark with signs that read “Thank ...

With a week to go in the Major League Baseball season, the 2018 Mets have almost become an afterthought. Long forgotten in New York back pages, which have been dominated by the up-and-down Yankees and their pursuit of a wild card, NFL training camp, and the start of the regular season. Heck, even Mike Francesa’s $8.99 app got more attention the past month then the Mets. Oddly enough, ever since the Mets suffered a four-game losing streak from July 31 to August 3, they are 29-20 since August 4. More confounding is they have lost only three series in that time span, at the Cubs from August 27-29, at the Red Sox from September 14-16 and at the Phillies from September 17-19. Two of those series losses could be to the two teams that may end up playing in the World Series next month. Yes, the Mets have played good baseball. It’s frustrating. Where was this when it mattered? Where was this version of Michael Conforto in June? Why wasn’t Amed Rosario at the top of the order in ...

GIANTS 27 - TEXANS 22  So where have all the Eli Manning haters gone now? The popular refrain from Giants fans after the first two weeks of the season is that Big Blue made a mistake in not drafting Sam Darnold with their first pick in the 2018 Draft. Well, they're probably signing a different tune now. Manning was brilliant in leading the Giants to their first win of the year, a dominant 27-22 win over the Houston Texans that wasn't as close as the final score indicated. The Giants quarterback was 25-of-29 for 297 yards and two touchdowns. A big reason Manning had so much success in picking apart the Texans, Sunday was the simple fact that Head Coach Pat Shurmur benched right tackle Ereck Flowers for the entire game. Instead rookie Chad Wheeler got the start on the right side against Texans superstar J.J. Watt. While Watt still got to Manning a couple of times, Wheeler held his own for the most part and didn't become a storyline for all the wrong reasons. The res...

BROWNS 21 - JETS 17 When it’s all said and done with, Todd Bowles career as head coach of the New York Jets might just be summed up by one horrible night in Cleveland, Ohio. Throw out the fact the Jets are a young football team. Throw out the fact that this team is rebuilding. The fact is the Jets got embarrassed by one of the worst football teams in the history of the sport on Thursday night. The Cleveland Browns hadn’t won a game in 635 days entering Thursday. They have a head coach who has a total win-loss record of 1-35-1 over the last two-plus years. And yet, the Jets found every which way to get out-coached, and out-played, and out-smarted in an epic meltdown on the banks of Lake Erie.   That all falls on the head coach. Up 14-0, the Jets were taking it to the Browns. While Sam Darnold wasn’t playing well, the Jets dominated the line of scrimmage with a dominant running game, and a stifling defense. Browns quarterback Tyrod Taylor was running for his lif...