New York Jets By The Numbers: #18

The plain truth is that 18 is a number that very few NFL legends have worn in their careers. There were Gene Washington and Roman Gabriel in the early 70's. All it takes is a Peyton Manning to change everything, though to be honest #19 never caught on beyond Johnny Unitas, so 18 may never make it either. To me, #18 one of the great unsung numbers of sport. Can you name a #18 in any sport who's worth a plug nickel? Darryl Strawberry! And don't scoff! But that's it. It's the Hebrew number for life. Not that that mattered to Sanjay Beach who, after playing for the Jets, caught the first pass Brett Favre threw to someone to other than himself. He wore #18 for the Jets in 1989. Would that Brett Favre had been with us, too.

Before Oregon State's Kellen Clemens graced the green and white with his, uh, reasonably dedicated effort, the Beavers' Kyle Grossart took the uniform - this after, I think, he had won a Super Bowl ring for the Oakland Raiders in 1980 - doing absolutely nothing. He wore #18, and probably had #17 as a first choice because he carries the curse of the QB with that number and ended his career with the Jets in 1981.

Behold Johnny Green's write up in the Jets' 1963 yearbook: "To say that Johnny Green came out of nowhere to rank as the AFL's No. 5- passer in '62 would be putting it mildly." Well, we all have our distinctions, don't we? As a Jet in 1963, he went 3 for 6. And that, my friends, spells the end of the career of the AFL's fifth leading passer in 1962. Maybe the Jets are just rough on quarterbacks. Word to the wise, Matt Ryan.

Before there was Joe Namath, there was Pete Liske, a pick out of Penn State, where he starred at QB. Then he goes off the NFL map. So what did Pete Liske do between 1964 and 1969? Fight in Vietnam? No. How about leading the Toronto Argonauts? How about throwing 40 touchdowns for the Calgary Stampeders in 1967? What the hell did you do? Not even being born yet? And was coming back to America really worth it? He played for Denver and Philadelphia, so the answer would be no. If the records are to be believed, he wore #18 for the Jets in his single season with them. Pete Liske, ladies and gentlemen. The first once and future savior at quarterback. Browning Nagle's distant ancestor.

Al Woodall was the backup from 1970 to 1973, and he joins the catalog of hearty fellows who played behind Namath in those years. This was not the role cast for a quarterback from Duke University to play. I do not mean to malign their football program but more the decision making of one Weeb Ewbank who never seemed to have a good arm ready to replace the most explosive one in the NFL. The real tragedy of Woodall is actually the tragedy of Namath himself, a player whose image in the popular imagination could never quite enable him to equal what he did in 1969. So how could Al Woodall have been anything more than Al Woodall when the supporting cast for Namath was even too small to protect the bloated bubble of Namath's persona? So Al Woodall handed off the ball to Emerson Boozer and John Riggins, the way Bob Davis and Bill Demory would and did. No one else could approximate Namath's offensive arsenal. Not even Namath himself could after a while.

Which brings us finally to Harry Williams, Jr., who is now a Houston Texan after being a practice squad Packer, Bear and Giant. It is an unforgiving game, this American football. He was originally drafted by the Jets. Who right now, playing video games at home before eating creatinine and bench pressing in the afternoon, is the next unsuspecting draft choice who will someday become a practice squad receiver or the next Toronto Argonaut? Who?

N.Y. Jets #17 - The Curse

In the graveyard of career-ending seasons at quarterback with the New York Jets, Bob Avellini's came to close after he was traded mid-season from the Chicago Bears - where he had been spending a career handing off to Walter Payton - to his hometown of Queens, NY, where the Jets were playing their last season at Shea. He did not play a single game. It was his last season as a pro. He wore the #17.

In more recent years, Quincy Carter is in the category of backup quarterbacks who came and made the kind of impression in preseason that made people think that if Chad got injured then maybe, just maybe, we weren't entirely screwed. (We are always screwed.) Well, yes, but then Carter - say it together - finished his career with the Jets in that strange twilight season of 2004, when nothing and everything seemed possible. Quincy Carter threw in relief of Chad when #10 injured his rotator cuff (cue ominous music) and the Jets crawled to nearly negligible wins against the Cardinals and the Browns. Then Chad came back, they crawled to the playoffs and the rest is an exciting history as far as a Jets fan knows it.

Do you remember Tim Dwight running his ass off for the Falcons in Super Bowl XXXXXXIIIIII, the kickoff return against the Broncos? It was practically the only bright spot for Atlanta in a game already blemished by Eugene Robinson's solicitation of a Miami hooker on the night before the game. My goodness, that was a long time ago, wasn't it? Eliot Spitzer spent $40,000 on his escort. Robinson offered only $40! Tim Dwight wore #17 for a little while for us, but that was only the harbinger for things to come. Yes, his career ended with the Jets.

Clyde "Lee" Grosscup is unquestionably the man we have been looking for in our efforts to revive the Booth Lustig Award for Funny Name. The man's name is Grosscup. I'm sure it's pronounced "Groskip," but in the world of the New York Titans, anything remotely peculiar just seems apropos. Sort of like the way "Marv Throneberry" is for the 1962 Mets. But where Throneberry's future was found in Lite Beer ads proclaiming, "I don't know what I'm doing in this ad," Lee Grosscup actually went on to have a brief career as both a TV reporter and a columnist for Sport magazine. His 1967 article on cheating in sports puts some perspective on Belichick's nonsense last year, for better or for worse. He for threw passes for the 1962 Titans, and though he's not wearing it in this football card, he sported #17 for the ol' mustard and blue. Oh, and he ended his football career with the franchise that year.

Was Galen Hall the first New York Jets quarterback? Either him or Al Dorow. He's the first Jetskin if nothing else, having come over from DC the year before. He threw three touchdowns and nine interceptions for our side. Oh, and he ended his football career with the Jets that year. He was a star at Penn State, and he's now an assistant coach there, and he coached Florida for five seasons. Are you ready to move on now? Well, he also coached the Rhein Fire of the now defunct NFL Europe to two World Bowl championships. Isn't it ironic that something called the World Bowl doesn't exist anymore?

Albert Johnson? you ask. Isn't he the same Albert Johnson III who was the CFL Rookie of the Year, playing for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers? And did he not end his career with the Jets the year he joined them? Why yes, he did.

John Kidd punted for us in 1998. Here he is in 1994 pulling a Larry Seiple for the Miami Dolphins against Buffalo. And did he not end his career in the very season he joined the New York Jets? Why yes. Yes he did. Are we finally seeing a pattern here?

Number 17 David Norrie was a "replacement" quarterback who was himself replaced by Walter Briggs during 1987. Apparently he is an ESPN college football analyst today. And...he ended his career with the New York Jets organization in the very same replacement season in which he started, if not with with the actual New York Jets team.

Which means he at least has something in common with an actual, full-time professional football player Tommy Parks, who punted for the New York Jets in 2001. Like Norrie, he began and ended his football career with the Jets. (Now, it's just getting weird.) Unlike Norrie, Parks became a pitcher for the minor league Newark Bears in 2003.

Finally, the curse finds some exceptions, the first in Matt Robinson. For two years in the late 1970's, Matt Robinson seemed to offer the difference between an underachieving Jets club and one bound for the playoffs. I will never forget as long as I live (and isn't that pathetic?) the phrase "Robinson is No. 1 QB" blazing across the headlines of the Newsdays I delivered during the late summer months of 1979. Number 17 Matt Robinson had replaced the heir apparent Richard Todd as starting QB. It would not last for long. According to Gerald Eskanzi, Robinson would end up hiding an injury from Walt Michaels, and the coach - a man not known for a mindful response to anything - responded by benching Matt, re-promoting Todd and shipping Robinson to Denver where he languished until the end of his career. Thus while Matt Robinson did not end his career in New York, it effectively ended with the Jets.

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Fortunately, there are exceptions to the curse, compelling us to wonder whether there was even a curse to begin with.

The former Virginia Tech Hokie David Clowney is still playing football, but he might have broken the curse for himself if only because he stopped wearing #17 on the Jets. After wearing #17 for several seasons, Clowney replaced Laverneus Coles in #87. He has been on practice squads, cut, brought back, cut again, brought back agin when Danny Woodhead was waived, and recently cut for good, and now in #87 for the Carolina Panthers as of the start of the 2011 training camp. His biggest day for the Jets featured 4 catches for 79 yards, including a 35-yard touchdown catch to add to the romp against the Raiders in 2009. But behold: David Clowney, preseason against the helpless Rams in '09 - you can be the judge as to whether or not a man has the right to do the Wu-Tang when he's absurdly wide open for a preseason pass from Erik Ainge. It's still his top highlight on YouTube.

And then there's Mike Taliaferro #17:

We begin with a book called The Long Pass by Lou Sahadi that as a lifetime Jets fan I've owned since I was eight. I believe that its reading level is about at the high school (or at the high school level of a student in the 1970's), and I read it about three times by the time I was ten. It taught me about Jet history. In it, I discovered that Mike Taliaferro began the 1965 season - Namath's first - at quarterback. There is a terrific composite of images inside unique to anything else I've ever seen where both Namath (in a Jets jacket, no shoulder pads) and John Huarte (in a suit) are chatting on the sideline phones while Mike Taliaferro is on the field. You see that Mike Taliaferro will not be quarterbacking for long. He wore 17.

Mike Taliaferro

He is a primary exception to the #17 curse because his career began with the Jets and ended with the Bills in 1972, but not before an interesting stint with the Boston Patriots. Here's a trivia question: how many TD passes did Joe Namath throw in 1969, his last playoff season? Nineteen. Who tied him for that? Boston's Mike Taliaferro. Coincidence? I think so.

NY Jets #16

I realized that this is going to get a lot harder as the numbers go up. The lower the number in football, the less likely that a player has worn it. I think. Or maybe it's just that football has more numbers for a greater number of players. I don't know. That's Math. So, to 16:

Though he set the record for touchdowns at Montclair State, Walter Briggs made only one appearance in relief of David Norrie at quarterback for the Jets, going 0-2 in an unspecified 1987 game. If neither of those names sound familiar to a Jets fan it's because Mr. Norrie and #16 Walter Briggs were replacement players during that season's strike. Scabs, basically. Of course, the replacement Jets played about as well as the regular season Jets, which was pretty poorly.

Mark Malone had a good career as a sometimes backup, sometimes starter, mostly for Pittsburgh. The 1985 Pittsburgh playoff victory at Denver is one of his big moments. Four years later, clearly on his way out, #16 Mark Malone played one game for the Jets on Oct. 22, 1989 at Buffalo where he went 2-2 for 13 yards. There he ended his career (how many quarterbacks finished their careers with us?) He was an ESPN reporter for several years, and is now broadcasting in Chicago. No doubt he often hears of how his moustache makes him look like the Brawny paper towel guy. I always like to think that sports figures of a certain generation are allowed to wear a moustache without fear of reprisal - athletes and relatively young coaches of the late 1980's: Dave Wannstedt, Bill Cowher, Mark Malone. A free pass is granted.

Brad Smith is the current holder of the #16 on the Jets, and he is depicted here playing quarterback in an exhibition game, but his life has been a lot more exciting because of some kind of "wild cat" whose attack is predictable, yet always surprising, and Smith is always there when this cat attacks. Initially, I thought, well, another Ray Lucas. But Brad Smith is no backup (neither is Kellen Clemens) and when we needed him at year's end, he created a single-game menagerie of joy and fun against the Cincinnati Bengals. Both runs came before the end of the first half. But I urge you to also consider Smith's courageous response to Patrick Willis' hit in a loss to the 49ers last year. Brad pops up like a whacked mole, only to be persuaded by what looks like the entire team to take a breather. There's a little Brad Smith in all of us, waiting to emerge and break through the front line of an overrated defense - waiting to surprise people who underestimate you at their peril.

But tonight we're here to talk about the most important #16 in New York Jets history, Vinny Testaverde. When I was a kid, rooting for Penn State against Vinny's University of Miami in the 1987 Orange Bowl, I confess that I thought Vinny haughty with his Heisman and all. Turns out that this did not at all describe the unlikely man who would someday quarterback his equally unlikely Jets team into a conference championship game in January 1999. In the end, Vinny was all heart, and though he may have been plagued by interceptions and Sam Wyche early in his career, Vinny was an intelligent, beloved quarterback in that wonderful 1998 season. His QB sneak touchdown against Seattle that year was not actually a touchdown, and it may have permanently re-inaugurated the replay era, but it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. He was that rare Jets thing - the right guy in the right place at the right time.

Then it all came crashing down when he snapped his Achilles' tendon against New England in the '99 opener. My heart broke for him as much as it did for the Jets because although he had a journeyman's career starting out in the Brucie Buccaneer outfit, Vinny is a Jet in spirit (even if he was a distant backup for New England this past year). All through his seemingly endless career, he has never won a Super Bowl ring. Vinny is so important to us that, amid all the joy that was the last Super Bowl, even I felt the smallest twinge of sadness over that sad truth. It passed.

I'm just grateful that his greatest hour was still yet to come after the '99 season, in the Monday Night Miracle at home against the Dolphins in 2000. At halftime, the score read 31-3 Miami, and I WENT TO BED. My wife didn't even tell me the results until I heard them on the radio the next morning as I was getting ready to go to work. We weren't married yet but were living together rather uneasily. I wasn't really sure where it was all going. When I heard the score - 40-37 Jets, she launched into a pillow attack on my head. She had stayed up and watched it just so she could tell me about it. She had been so excited about my hearing the score she could barely restrain herself.

"Why the hell didn't you wake me?" I asked, aghast.

She looked at me, incredulous. "Why should I have? You gave up on them. What kind of fan are you? I didn't give up!"

No, she didn't, and neither did you, Vinny. I knew that I needed to marry this woman, and I owe it all to you. Thank you.

New York Jets By The Numbers: #15

Don Flynn was a defensive back for the New York Titans in 1961. He wore #15. He was responsible for asking Harry Wismer when the paychecks would be coming in.
Dick Jamieson was a backup QB who wore #15 for the Titans from 1960-61. He attended Bradley University and went on to have a coaching career in both the pros (as assistant to the Cardinals) and Head Coach at Indiana State. But most importantly, he is also inducted into the Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame.

Here are two photos of Kyle Mackey, one during his time with the Jets, one after. Kyle is Dee Mackey's boy, and both Dee and Kyle played for the East Texas State, so it was no wonder the both played for the Jets, too. Maybe I'm spending too much time looking into the lives of these guys on Wikipedia, but I couldn't resist the entry on former #15 Kyle Mackey, who backed up Ken O'Brien in 1989. It says he is now coaching high school football and "loving every minute of it!" Do you think George W. Bush updates his entry on Wikipedia? "Even though there were no nulcular weapons of mass destruction located in Iraq, it's nice to know that the fresh air of freedom is enjoyed by every Iraqi who values the United States's presence there!" Kyle Mackey also played Arena Football with the Albany Firebirds and the Fort Worth Cavalry. His photo for the latter club is the very definition of the late century mullet. Don't worry, Kyle. I had one, too.



For a brief moment in Super Bowl III, Joe Namath was shaken up and had to come off the field. In a pass effort, his throwing hand had whacked into a Colts' helmet. As he shook his hand back into use, #15 Babe Parilli came in to relieve him, yielding only an incomplete pass. Vito "Babe" Parilli had already had a good career with the Boston Patriots and was now the Sancho Panza to Namath's Quixote. In Namath's autobiography I Can't Wait 'Til Tomorrow Cause I Get Better Looking Every Day, Namath tells of sending otherwise clueless autograph seekers during the 1968 season over to Babe. "That man," Joe would say. "That man there is Joe Namath." Without blinking an eye, they would go to Babe.

Drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles out of Florida State as a wide receiver in the sixth round of the 1996 draft, Phillip Riley #15 is said to have been a part of the Chicago Bears squad that year, but is then said to have played in one game for the New York Jets in the ugliest of Jets seasons, 1996. That's it. One sentence, one pro career. There is record of little else.

But Chuck Ramsey had a long career as the New York Jets punter from 1977-1984, the meat of the Michaels-Walton era. These were the Jets' first sustained years of playing above adequacy. That being said, I remember seeing Chuck Ramsey a LOT. Of all people, it is your punter that you like to see the least. The very sight of your punter always leads to the sense of disappointment, sort of like the sensation you get when you realize that, dammit, you just knew that your husband would forget to pick up the dry cleaning again. You just knew she'd forget that today was your Mom's birthday. Punters get a lot of shit, and it's the offense's fault, not theirs. No wonder that - according to Eskanzi in Gang Green - after a 30-7 trouncing of the Jets during the 1982 season against (who else?) the Seahawks, Walt Michaels launched (sober?) into a diatribe against Chuck Ramsey - an experience that, by his own admission, drove Ramsey to a state of emotional disrepair.

And finally, there is Wallace Wright, special teams player, occasional wide receiver and current holder of jersey #15, which, as you can see, is a number with a limited historical impact on the New York Jets organization over time. According to the Times, he was a walk-on at the University of North Carolina and, naturally, a walk-on at Jets' try-outs. And now here he is. Wright caught six passes this season, two of each came in the crushingly dull season ending home win against the Chiefs. One was on a nifty flea flicker pass from Leon Washington. Every little bit helps, I suppose. Every little bit.