Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, then returned in 1985. His SportsWatch column debuted in 2005.
If this were a Western movie, or a clichéd a newspaper column, it would be about an aging sheriff dueling a young gunslinger in the setting mid-autumn sun, both staggered at times but with the stoic old-timer left standing in the end.
Actually, that is pretty much what happened at MetLife Stadium when Eli Manning and Carson Wentz met for the first time, with Manning’s Giants surviving for a tougher-than-it-had-to-be 28-23 victory over Wentz’s Eagles.
But this is not a Western; it’s a football story, and an Eastern one at that.