Quick Hit: Saints-Giants Scheduled for Monday Night Twin

The NFL, in its infinite wisdom, decided to have the New Orleans Saints play their "home opener" against the New York Giants at Giants Stadium on Monday, September 19.

First of all, why Giants Stadium? If the Saints are trying to (and likely to) play the rest of their games at the Alamodome in San Antonio or Louisiana State University, and it's still 2 weeks away, which should be plenty of time to prepare either stadium, why would they play just that one game in their opponent's stadium?

Oh, I know why, because it benefits New York!

It's the biggest market, and the NFL is headquartered there, and anything Paul Tagliabue can do for New York will be done.

So, the Giants end up with nine home games and seven road games, while the rest of their division has eight and eight -- like everyone else, except New Orleans, which basically will have zero and sixteen. One extra home game, especially very early in the season, can change divisional races, playoff races, the entire complexion of a season. This could give the Giants an unfair advantage in what should be a close NFC East race and maybe in the wild card too.

As if to add insult to injury, one of the Giants' division rivals has the orginally scheduled Monday Night game that week: the Dallas Cowboys, and the Cowboys are expected to induct Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin into their Ring of Honor. Now, I'm no fan of the Cowboys, never was, and anything that sticks in their craw is generally OK with me. But I'm no fan of New York sports either, so the NFL shining the spotlight on New York an additional 15 minutes is really aggravating.

I mean, it's not just Dallas against say Seattle. It's Cowboys-Redskins, one of the great NFL rivalries. You would think that a Monday Night conflict like that would have the NFL looking for any possible alternative. You would think someone would say, "There's a soccer game at Giants Stadium on Saturday and another NFL game Sunday and of course there's already 'Boys-'Skins on Monday Night Football. Looks like Giants Stadium isn't the best solution. What else have we got?"

ABC/ESPN of course is going to love it, because they'll carry both games (Saints-Giants start at 7:30 on ABC and switch to ESPN at 9, when Cowboys-Redskins), and get all the ratings, which screws FOX who otherwise would be carrying the Saints home opener somewhere, and it probably would have drawn monumental ratings being the first Saints game in the region since the hurricane.

Now we're one step closer to a Manning vs. Manning Super Bowl. How does that make you feel?