Seriously. How the hell can people say this with a strait face?

It's bullshit. The Giants last night are without the majority of thier pass rush, thier starting left tackle (IE one of the most important positions on the field) depth at linebacker and also at back up DE and then a key WR as well.

Look at the Falcons and who they are missing and have missed. Two pro bowl DE's a Pro Bowl DT at times, starting MLB, 2 starting CB's a starting safety, thier best player on the OL at Guard and then another starter at OG, they also lost a key backup RB.

Philadelphia - lost the freak, Mcnabb etc.

How the fuck is that not an obvious answer as to why they aren't producing?

Bench players and undrafted free agents are band aids. They don't have the ability to make up for key losses like that. They are not supposed to be any good, why do we expect them to play to the level of NFL starters when they have never been that good to begin with?

Now in the case of my team, yeah poor coaching, terrible schemes and an inaccurate QB and inconsistant execution have been another reason for thier pathetic output, but to say "Injuries are no excuse" is an assinine statement.

Teams that aren't healthy in multiple key positions don't win many games

to me, it's not so much that injuries are no excuse, it's that excuses are no excuse. There's no doubt that the new york giants would be a better team if no one on their team ever got hurt, but athletic contests aren't decided based on what should happen, they're decided based on the final score, and a team's job is to win with the players they have on the field.

Put another way, "We'd be a lot better if we had our two all-pro defensive linemen back" isn't really a far cry from "we'd be a lot better if peyton manning was our quarterback and LT was our running back," is it?

let's see, your comparing a scenario in which you wish two playes who were on your team at one point were healthy versus one in which the two best players in the league magically appear on your team after never playing for them.

yup, it's almost the exact same thing.

in both situations, you're saying your team would have won the game if it had players that were not available to it on the day of the game. trump it up with cutesy sarcasm any way you want, though.

One scenario inolves a realistic set of circumstances (injured players returning to play). The other is pure fantasy. Trump it up with flawed logic any way you want though.

If a player's unable to play in a particular game due to injury, how is it realistic for him to return to play in that game?

because if the injured player WERE healthy, the player would be playing that day on your team. There are not any circumstances that allow for Peyton and LT to appear on your team for that game.

So the player being healthy is not, as you say, "pure fantasy?"

My college football coach summed it up best after we beat a team and the other teams coach was complaining that they would have won if their all conference running back hadn't gotten hurt in the third quarter:

"If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, it would be Christmas every day."

There are no excuses, including injuries. Every team has injuries. The Bengals have a ton of people out with injuries, but nobody is going to roll for them, nor should they.

is it impossible?

I suppose if you can get Jesus as your trainer to mend broken bones and repair ligaments on the spot, you've got a point. Let me know when He starts looking for work again and we'll take this conversation a bit farther.

players take injections all the time to allow themselves to overcome injury.

The point is that it's POSSIBLE. Your scenario is not possible, and therefore irrelevant.

Trades are not possible?

Well-played on the capitalization . . .

you are correct. Trade deadline has passed. And nobody is trading you Peyton Manning if your quarterback goes down anyway.

If Philly had won with Garcia, then the injury wouldn't matter. Since they lost, it does.

It's an excuse, but it's one that's growing weaker every day in the NFL. The Pats have proven several times that you can be competitive without your planned starters. Just do your homework and draft/sign players that fit your system. A huge reason why I have a lot of respect for the Pats.

That & Tom Brady is a hottie

Ok, but I think he was just using that as an example. The trade deadline part is irrelevant... what if it was June in the baseball season and David Ortiz had a broken knee?

then his example sucked.

In your example, it wouldn't be crazy for Sox fans to say: "if we had Ortiz, our team would be better". However, it would be crazy for them to say, if Ted Williams were on this team, we'd be better. Saying your team would be improved by players who were never on the team - and never had any chance of playing for the team - isn't saying anything at all. It's just nonsense.