The Good, Bad and Ugly of New York's Football Weekend

A shaky Jets win looks much better after Monday night's Giants debacle

Black Friday has come and gone, but our local football teams have come together to make you the deal of a lifetime.

You can get two mediocre football teams with uncertain playoff chances for the price of one! Both the Jets and Giants are 6-5 at this point in the season, which means they wouldn't be in the playoffs if they began today and neither one fills you with confidence that better days are just around the corner.

The Jets won this week, but didn't look particularly good while doing it. The Giants got humiliated on prime time for the second straight week and they seem powerless to avoid the kind of collapse that has become Tom Coughlin's calling card.

If you had to pick one of them to make a run, it would have to be the Jets. By virtue of their schedule and their recent history, they would seem to have a better shot of finding enough victories to survive than the other Meadowlands tenants but it is hardly anything to make you shout from the rooftops.

Should the need to shout overtake you, here's a few choice things to shout about.

GOOD: Plaxico Burress took a while to get going this season, but he's proving to be worth the wait. His remarkable one-handed snag of a high pass while staying in bounds on third down in the fourth quarter set up the winning score was a thing of great beauty and the precise reason why he is on the Jets this season.

BAD: It isn't often that you see Darrelle Revis get beat up by an opposing wide receiver, so there was something perversely interesting about Stevie Johnson dominating him on Sunday afternoon. Revis' play was indicative of a defense that was overly giving to Buffalo and has been too soft all season.

UGLY: Soft as the Jets' defense was, it looked like the Berlin Wall compared to whatever that was that Perry Fewell had the Giants playing on Monday night. Week after week, the Giants defense gets shredded by the opposition and anyone who still considers the unit to be a fearsome one really needs to turn the page from past seasons because they don't rush the passer or cause much difficulty at all for the opposition.

UGLY: Brandon Jacobs actually had a few positive runs on Monday night, including a touchdown that led him to this category. Jacobs' score made the score 21-10 in the third quarter and he celebrated it with the gusto of a man who couldn't care less that his team was being routed as long as he got a chance to dance like the fool that he is.

GOOD: Contrast that with Victor Cruz, one of the few Giants who can feel proud of himself at this hour. Cruz caught two scores in the tail end of the blowout and was aware enough to know that it wasn't the time to break out his salsa dance celebration. As this Giants season goes down in flames, Cruz provides a small reason to feel good about the team.

BAD: Antonio Cromartie probably shouldn't be returning punts in the first place, so it is hard to kill him too much for Sunday's fumble. The general weakness of the Jets special teams this season is a hidden reason why they are 6-5, though, because they used their advantage in that area to great effect in the last two seasons.

UGLY: You could single out several different Giants defenders for ugly performances, but you might as well go to the top of the list. Justin Tuck and Corey Webster are supposed to be leaders of the unit, which makes the fact that both of them quit in the middle of plays on Monday extremely depressing for those looking for someone to lead the Giants out of the wilderness.

GOOD: Shonn Greene's season will end up a disappointment, but the magnitude of it remains up for discussion. A few more games like Sunday's would help lessen it. His running was strong, but the big highlight was his pass blocking on the winning touchdown when Greene wiped out two Bills to give Mark Sanchez time to hit Santonio Holmes.

BAD: Steve Weatherford tried a fake punt on his own with the Jets last season. He did it again on Monday night. If at first you don't succeed, don't try again should have been his motto.

UGLY: Tom Coughlin's post-game pressers are becoming weekly trips into the bizarre. A week after he ripped his team's effort in a seven-point loss, he praised it even though it was clear to everyone but Coughlin that the vast majority of the Giants quit sometime in the third quarter. We realize he's sending messages and so forth, but that disconnect is one of many reasons why it feels like Coughlin's time is coming to an end.

GOOD, BAD and UGLY: The two quarterbacks had wildly different games. Sanchez was terrible for most of the game, good at the end and got a win. Eli Manning completed 21 straight passes at one point (well after the game was over, but impressive nonetheless) and threw for 406 yards, but was on the receiving end of a blowout and completed less than half his passes outside of that hot streak. Which night would you rather have?

Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.

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