New York Jets By The Numbers: # 27 - Part 3

I attended a Catholic college in Rhode Island that was a day and a half by car from my family. That wasn't what I planned; it just happened that way. My Dad moved us from New York to the Deep South in 1987. When he did that, I became a stranger in two lands - New England and the South, two different worlds, yet two parts of the country that are remarkably parochial in their own ways. New England introduced to me the sensation that I have felt all my life since, that of being a stranger. New Yorkers who move elsewhere have this. Their diaspora around the country fits with the sense of a lost homeland. Like God's own chosen people, no matter where they are, New Yorkers know they have a home that is already ideal for them, waiting for their return. The New York metropolitan area is a place full of pressure, angst, neuroses, excellent food of every variety, sports out the yang, constant local news, excellent (or competently objective) journalism, and cultural experiences of every kind. It also has an oppressively high cost of living and a former Governor who thought he could get away with having sex with hooker who appeared in hip-hop videos. This... this is New York.

I've lived in Philadelphia for 15 years and am proud to call it my home, but like the weepers by Babylon's waters, I remember Zion. Having a disconnection from where I grew up proved worthwhile in the end, I suppose. It produced the person I am today - wary, careful, and skeptical. I like that. At college, I found other souls from disparate parts of the world - United Kingdom, Switzerland, Illinois, Maryland - who felt similarly detached from home, who also could not return on weekends to do laundry or get a hot meal. We spent the lonelier weekends playing cards, getting drunk, eating food from the "Yuck Truck," striking out with girls, and using fake ID's to get into local neighborhood bars and receive withering stares from indignant townies.

Our college had no football team. Its basketball team occasionally went far into the March tournament but usually saw its bubble burst beforehand, or they got beaten in overtime in the first round. The New York Jets of my college years were an underachieving bunch, going 24-38-1, with no playoff appearances. I spent one football season in England. In my sophomore year, I did what some people do when they are lonely; I turned to following Notre Dame football.

There was some basis for my jump on the bandwagon. My uncle went to Notre Dame, and I think my grandfather loved Notre Dame football more than his own life. To a grade-school educated factory worker in Brooklyn who remembered "Irish Need Not Apply" signs, my grandfather looked at Notre Dame as the great example that the Irish could make it in America, and though his goal of visiting his ancestral homeland could never be realized, Notre Dame remained a kind of floating homeland for him. It was for me, too, but for different reasons, obviously. I mean, I was certainly enjoying the better socio-economic benefits of being a fourth generation Irish-American. It was a good time to root for Notre Dame, though. Coached by former Jets coach-washout Lou Holtz, Notre Dame went to the Cotton Bowl in 1988 and won the National Championship on 1989. Three of my exile friends had siblings or parents who went to Notre Dame, and we followed Saturday's games more than any game on Sunday.

I know Notre Dame is hated, and rightly so. Like the Patriots, their arrogant fan base is to blame, but so too are Rudy and ND's wannabe alumni. As erroneous as it seems now, I made myself believe that Notre Dame tied together all the disparate parts of my life - my rapidly lapsing faith, my old home, my little club of fellow exiles, and my grandfather's old devotions. It made sense at the time.

But back in the day the Hurricanes of Miami were reviled even more than Notre Dame. The two undefeated teams met in the autumn of 1988, in the finest college football game I have ever seen. "Catholics vs. Convicts." At the end of a long comeback, Notre Dame managed to deflect Steve Walsh's efforts toward a two-point conversion at the last second and the Irish held on to win, 31-30. It made me happier than any Jets victory I had ever known. Notre Dame had given me all that I had needed in the moment, and after that, I cared less and less about them. It couldn't last. Today, I find myself almost rooting against Notre Dame and their longtime monopoly on Saturday afternoon's television time. It was a short-term relationship that made me happy enough to go on with my life. As I would soon discover when I got my bearings straight, the Jets were my life.

But until today I did not put it together that the Pat Terrell the Jets obtained in 1994 was the same Pat Terrell responsible for making the big play - Notre Dame's deflection of the two-point conversion. Particularly in college football, big moments dwarf the players who make them. Maybe that's why I like the professional game. It's not work for nothing. Pat Terrell leaped up for the ball, and I leaped with him, collapsing with my friends into a blubbering mass of joy. Pat Terrell wore #27 for the Jets in what was his most unremarkable season of work and then moved on to his next team in 1995.

And finally, to conclude our discussion, Phil Wise actually had the longest Jets career in #27. The first news I get from the Jets All-Time Database was that Wise experienced a consistently compromising injury, in both life and work. The 1975 Yearbook is quoted as saying, "One of the best all-around athletes on the team, but has been bothered with a series of groin pulls which have cost him 11 full games." Did they need to be so specific? Against the Colts at Shea in 1973, Phil Wise recovered a Raymond Chester fumble caused by Mormon Burgess Owens and ran it back 80 yards for a touchdown. I know Dad was there. The Jets won, 20-17 - one of four wins they would manage all year. I'm trying to imagine him seeing Phil Wise pick up that loaf of bread and take it home. It's a mixed blessing to remember such things, but then as the movie says, sorrow is just old joy.



Phil Wise may even have been slicker looking than the man who replaced him in #27, Ron Mabra. But then did he sell leather in the off-season? I don't think so.

New York Jets By The Numbers: # 27 - Part 2

Jesse Johnson spent four seasons in the NFL, all in the secondary in #27 for the New York Jets. These weren't bad years to play for the Jets so they weren't bad for a hard working player like Johnson, who as far as I can see was never considered a constant starter. But the Jets then were a team plagued by injuries, and when Johnny Lynn or Bobby Jackson was injured, as one of them invariably were during those years, Jesse Johnson would step in. The only note I was able to make of a specific contribution was a well-timed batting down of a pass intended for someone on the Cleveland Browns in 1981, a season where the Jets needed to win every game they could in order to just barely make the playoffs for the first time in 12 years. The Jets beat the Browns 17-16. Every play counted. Every player was needed. Even then, the Jets lost in the Wild Card round. But Jesse Johnson lasted for two more years, filling in and taking over when necessary. Half of life is showing up.

I've been waiting to write about #27 Ron Mabra, who played one season - 1977 - for the Jets. This is mostly because of his picture, which I've now come across dozens of times when I'm researching Jets players on the Jets' All-Time Database. He looks like a fusion jazz artist, a sheik, or a member of Earth, Wind and Fire. He graduated from Howard University which, though esteemed, is not a football powerhouse. And his last name is interesting to me. Rearrange the letters and you get Abram, the Jewish patriarch's original name. Change the pronunciation of his last name a little and you get a Bostonian's pronouncement of the celebrated cigarette with the cowboy on its ad. Who is Ron Mabra, man of mystery?

Ah, but then the crushing reality of statistical truth - Mabra played two seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, during which time his greatest mark was made returning a kickoff for 26 yards. According to all the available records, the only distinction he made as a Jet was to wear the uniform three times. But he might have gone on to have a successful law degree somewhere or perhaps a real estate business. Or pushing up the daisies, like Artimus Parker. So, the book closes on Ron Mabra. But wait! Not before we remember that the personal anecdote for him on the Jets All-Time Database: "Part-time hobby became a full-time off-season business when he opened leather shop in Atlanta." Ron Mabra, you have not let me down.

What's bizarre is that the reshuffled name Abram is also the first name of the Jets' current owner of #27, Abram Elam. And this would basically be where the jocularity (such as it is) of this association ends. The full story of Elam's journey to the Jets is a circuitous one, and is shared also by the son of Donald Dykes. While attending Notre Dame, both Dykes, Jr. and Elam were accused in an on-campus rape of a student in 2002, with only Elam indicted. He refused to implicate Dykes and the two other plaintiffs whom Lindsay Charles accused, which I suppose was admirable only to, well, the other men accused. All four were kicked out of Notre Dame, though it would appear that Abram, the only man found guilty (of a much lesser charge than rape) had the least involvement in the crime. Ironic, yes, but pitiful all the same. Sometimes irony just doesn't cut it. Three rapists - if Charles is to be believed - are scott free. After serving his minimal time, Elam signed with the Jets and is both an exemplar player and citizen. His accuser still intends to pursue a civil suit against Abram Elam, perhaps with the ferocity of someone who hopes that someday all the persons involved will be punished.

From the harrowing to the more ridiculous: Would you follow Kevin Porter to the gates of Hell? Sure you would. Guy who looks like that? Hell, yes. How about just to Kansas City, the place where his NFL career began with the Chiefs? It is there that he currently coaches the Brigade, who are an Arena Football team. He ended his career in #27 for the Jets after just one season. I can say no more than that, other than to add what I heard a play-by-play guy say on NBC's coverage of the indoor game: "This is Arena Football, Tom. There's nowhere to hide." Whenever I'm changing channels of a Sunday in the Springtime, waiting for the Phillies to come on, I'll come upon Arena Football, and either my wife or I will try to be the first one to say, "There's nowhere to hide." The irony is, there is somewhere out there, for then I change the channel.

Tony Scott in the year 2000: one interception for an unknown (possibly zero) numbers of yards. Tackles? Unknown. One kickoff return for what I would presume to be a fair catch. Re-signed on April 9, 2002. Waived a little over two months later, on June 26. Again, football is like life. It is cruel.

New York Jets By The Numbers: # 27 - Part 1

In the continuing story of how the New York Jets (like some other teams, too) were a repository for players at the end of their career throughout the 1990's, we come to Steve Atwater, who retired in #27 one year after joining us in 1999. (photo Ebay) In his biography online (how many times can I avoid using the "W" word?) Atwater's departure from his longtime Denver Broncos position was, according to Mike Shanahan, the hardest decision the coach ever had to make. "Is it easy picturing Steve in green and white..?" Shanahan asked. "No. Was it the right thing for him and our team? Absolutely." After a year under Parcells, riddled with injury, Atwater ceremoniously returned to the Broncos. ""This is the way I wanted to go out," Atwater said. "I bleed orange and will always bleed orange and blue." Ronnie Lott, Leonard Marshall, Art Monk, Tony Eason. They know it and we know it. They need a paycheck, but their hearts remain where they originally made themselves famous, not with us, and they usually make little impact in green and white. I'm quite certain Brett Favre is going to Tampa Bay this weekend, and the truth about these imposters of sorts will give me consolation when I see Jon Gruden's stupid grin.

Can two men be at the same place at the same time? They can if they play for the New York Titans. Take Jim Apple and Don Allard. If the Jets' All-Time Database is to be believed, they both played in #27 for the Titans in 1961. Apple at quarterback, Allard at halfback. Can a player lose his spot and be replaced that easily? They can if they play for the Titans. New uniforms were expensive, I guess, and if the Titans couldn't even afford to pay their players just imagine the costs of outfitting them. Who got cut first? And why did a quarterback wear #27? It's not unheard of when you consider John Hadl, but such a thing is a throwback to the leather-helmeted days of, say, Sammy Baugh, who QB'd in #33 for the Redskins in the 30's and 40's and who was head coach of the Titans in 1961. Anyway, certainly an anomaly, no?

No! Not when we consider the case of Terry Butler and Terrell Buckley (left), both of whom wore #27 in 2005 for the Jets. (photo JAMD) Butler and Buckley are also even closer in the alphabet than Apple and Allard, or Affirmed and Alydar. But here their similarities must be declared at an end. Is Terrell Buckley worthy of induction into Canton? Well, I don't know, but he certainly produced numbers in the secondary that put him in the category for a distant consideration. And Terry Butler? He came from Villanova. Actually, it's a typo on the Jets' Database. Buckley, star for the Seminoles of Florida State, was by 2005 already traded from the Jets to the Giants after his one year of play for us. Butler, star for the Wildcats of that Augustinian university in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, has no statistical content of any kind that I can locate in 2005 or anywhere else. Indeed, the only real value of mentioning any of these guys is putting Buckley into the category mentioned above, of players who treat the Jets like a lame duck resting home. Buckley retired after 2005. So did Butler.

Here's one that got away. He's the opposite of the fellows mentioned above. Russell Carter was one of my favorite defensive players in the late 1980's and he then left for the Raiders of Los Angeles, the Great Satan. (Do you ever think Satan gets insulted when someone else gets the tag of "Great" Satan? I know an accomplished sculptor who's insulted when Britney Spears is referred to as an "artist.") He started out a Jet, on his way to a great career, I thought, and then disappeared from everything I held valuable and dear. Of Lott, Monk, Atwater and Buckley, one always wonders when they are leaving for good, sort of like the way a fatherless child looks at the 27th boyfriend his mother's introduced him to. But of Carter, the boy asks when are you coming home again? The photo above is from Ebay, but how many of Russell Carter's football cards does one really need? Ten? Is this my repayment for waiting for Russell Carter to come home? Jeez.

Let's see. Do I have anything to say about #27 Lou D'Agostino? Yes. Nine games. Nineteen ninety-six. Bingo. The worst season in Jets history - a season that places among the worst in NFL history, too. He made it through its halfway point. I can't believe I did, too.

New York Jets By The Numbers: # 26 - The Final Chapter

There are twenty-six letters in the alphabet. There are 32 possible teeth in a human mouth. There are 11 men fielded at any point in time by a professional football team, be it English or American. And there are six players left to mention in the extraordinarily long but remarkably harmless list of players who've worn the number 26 for the New York Jets.

When Chad Morton ran back a kickoff for touchdown against the Buffalo Bills at Rich Stadium in week six of the 2002 season, I had a feeling that I sometimes get in the first third of a Jets season, where I suddenly think it's possible that my normally troubled football team will actually make the playoffs. I don't even entertain the possibility of what that will mean for me. I can't think that cosmically about it, though such visions can feel cosmically real. When I was a young man of 22, I was struck by a powerful, undeniable sensation of instant pure love at first sight when I saw a woman standing across the shoreline of beach on Lake Michigan. That's the woman I'm going to woo and eventually marry in a heartfelt religious ceremony, I thought to myself. ...the woman with whom I'll have children, with whom I'll share a country house, with whom I'll grow wise and old

No. Today, willingly without children, a city dweller, agnostic, I see a reflection of myself with razor clarity. I was wrong. It was not to be. It was never to be.

Most seasons it is not to be. For some teams like Dallas, New England, and Green Bay (at one time, Miami) making the playoffs alone is or was as inevitable as the needed belch after a long pull on your bottle of beer. It cleared away space in the digestive passage for more. For the Jets, a season's tenuous path tempts you to be drawn toward visions of vibrant hope. Usually, these spring with an early success: I remember watching Richard Todd's brilliance in the season opener against San Diego, 1983 thinking "this is going to be the season for which I have been waiting all my life." But it was not to be. Or watching the Jets beat the eventual AFC Champion Denver Broncos 22-10 in 1986. Obviously not to be. Dreaming of better days to come when the Jets blank the defending AFC Champion Buffalo Bills 23-3 in the 1994 opener. Not to be. You get this rush, this feeling that you are in contact with a destiny that has been written for you, and its writing even proscribes the final culmination of all your cloudy desires. The Jets will go to the playoffs. I have seen the face of God. No, sir. You are wrong.

But when future Jetskin Chad Morton returned that kickoff for a touchdown in an eventual 31-13 win at Buffalo, not only did he suddenly become a tantalizing free agent to-be, but I saw a vision for the near future that would actually turn out true. The Jets went to the playoffs at the end of the 2002 regular season. In fact, improbably, they won the division. Then they trounced Peyton Manning in the playoffs 41-0 in what may have been one of the happiest night of my life, and became, in the eyes of many prognosticators, totally unbeatable. Then in Alameda the Oakland Raiders treated them like a pistol-whipping steroids abuser does a pesky little neighbor who complains about the music being too loud, and the unbeatables went home. I didn't even wait for the second half of the Raiders game to begin binge drinking the horrible night away. Nevertheless, such successive weeks of hope and excitement are rare and beautiful things, and they can enable you to stay rooting for your team for at least another ten years.

I have a question, though.. When the New England Patriots begin their inevitable era of decline (bring it soon, sweet God in Heaven) their fans are going to have to live like I do now. They'll have to be loyal to just the team they have, warts and all. Do they actually have the stuff to do it? I don't think so. They didn't when I went to college in New England and the Pats went 1-15 in 1990 under Rod Rust. You couldn't find a fan anywhere.

Enough! I have to talk about Damon Pieri. I t would seem that he played in #26 for the Jets for one season - 1993, an uneventful one for both him and the team. Then he vanishes from football for a year and arrives in Carolina, playing two seasons for the Panthers and retiring in 1996 with one interception to his name. He is currently the defensive backs coach for Sunny Slope football camp. Go Green Vikings.

Drafted in the 18th round out of George Washington University by the New York Giants in 1963, Bill Pashe vanishes from training camp and Allie Sherman's notoriously disdainful attitude toward rookies and swims across the Harlem River to the Polo Grounds to play for the newly incarnated Gotham Football Club. Or did he? His only season listed is actually 1964, with the Jets, in #26, as a return specialist. Henceforth he specializes in not appearing in organized football ever again. With a degree from GW, though, I'm assuming he grew up to be a nice young man.

During our numbering of the Jets, we usually run across an eventual veteran of the 1968 Championship team. We reflect, we praise, we think wistfully, we regret, we move on. This process presents a challenge, though, when we consider Jim Richards. Sure, I see him on the sidelines of Super Bowl III, but where else? His best season would actually be 1969, which would also be his last. That year, he garnered three interceptions, which was one more than '68 standouts Jim Hudson and Randy Beverly would gather apiece. Longtime CBS sideline reporter John Dockery gathered five that year, while an improved Billy Baird got the same. Dockery would return in 1970, Baird would not (except as a coach) and Jim Richards would never be heard from again anywhere in pro football. I would show Dad all of these players' pictures in the now remarkably short Jets roster that you'd find in the back of your game-bought PRO! magazine. There would be Dockery, Beverly, Hudson, Baird. But no Jim Richards. I would mutely point them all out to Dad, fluttering like a tiny bird in the nest, hoping for a dollop of wisdom from a beautiful time when we were once champions. He would only squint at a picture with the naked-headed player staring beyond the camera. "I'll be damned," Dad would sparsely reply. "Bill Baird." There, I would think. A testimonial recognition of the past! It's all true! But what happened to Jim Richards? How could a guy who did pretty well on the defending champions not get a chance anywhere else? Does that enigmatic faraway look above reveal his vague anticipation of something wrong in the future, or is that the look of a callow young man who isn't capable of comprehending what he sees? Ah, well.

Omar Stoutmire. Say his name as many times as you like. Every time you say it it's like you're saying it for the first time. O-mar Stout-mire. Grand. Just grand. It seems I have seen Omar Stoutmire in many uniforms - as a Cowboy, as a Saint, as a Redskin, most especially in the Giants organization, where he played especially well in '02 and '03. But he played for the Jets in #26 in 1999 and left as quickly as the good fortunes of my team did that season. He has technically played twice in Washington, but he is not technically a Jetskin.

And finally, we come to you, David West. You thought we had forgotten you, or else you've gotten used to being left off at the end of the alphabet. But you're the first New York Jet to wear #26, and it's easy to assume that your efforts will go unappreciated, unattended. You are wrong, my friend. You played two games for the team with the funny airplane on their helmet. Damned if I can find you anywhere. But I know you're in that team picture (above) at the Polo Grounds. You can't hide forever, #26.



There you are.

No Old NY Jets Loyalty Goes Unpunished

My brother just informed me that his friend's Dad - a Jets fan going back to the days of Shea Stadium - has just received the bill for his PSL:

$40,000.

Can that be? Is that even possible? I guess I was naive enough to believe that it would only go as high as $20,000, but even then I'm not sure I would spend that much money on anything, other than a home, which would cost me much, much more anyway. I would buy a used car with good gas mileage. I would pay forty grand for my non-existent child's college education, as long as a cheaper alternative were absolutely impossible. I would pay the medical bills had no other choice but to pay. I would pay for my parents' geriatric care, hoping through it all that my parents had remained as financially careful toward the end as they have always been all their lives. But I don't really have anything near that kind money to give to my football team, or to anyone or anything else. And, frankly, I wouldn't. Unless he has a home to sell, how could this guy possibly pay for it without mounting a Sisyphean hill of debt?

I have to say. This business of the PSL's has gone from being yet another callous commercial reality to being outrightly exploitative and depraved.

Try It On For Size

When I was about nine, Sports Illustrated ran pictures of Pete Rose, soon-to-be free agent, trying on different hats from around major league baseball, mulling over where he might see himself in the upcoming 1979 season. Not one was in a New York Mets hat, a sight that would have both delighted and horrified me simultaneously. Everyone knew back then that Pete Rose was the greatest ballplayer of his time, but like many people, I found that there was some nameless thing about him that made my stomach turn. As Dad used to say when he'd see Charlie Hustle taking a lead at first, "That guy has a face you wanna punch." Just ask Bud Harrelson.

But I would have taken him on the Mets - happily. What a laugh, though. Rose on the '79 Mets. That team was their worst squad since 1962.

Brett Favre is different. While Pete Rose's career was punctuated with moments of contemptible guile, Favre, on the other hand, is a seemingly respectable icon. Born in the cradle of the NASCAR constituency, forged in the cold winters of a state generally known for its pluralism and gentle progressivism, he is that rare thing, a man beloved by both the Union and the Confederacy. Yet he clearly fears what comes after football. Given all the things I've discovered in my efforts to discuss all the players who've played in the Jets uniform, I don't necessarily blame him. We see that retirement is a fearful thing for any man whose only job training has been to chase around an object filled with air. Sure, for some retirement from the NFL means family, golf, promotions, celebrity appearances, careers in real estate, casino cameos, coaching, play-by-play work, or a seat at the desk with the fellows "back in the studio." That's the best case scenario. The worst case - all too common with more anonymous players - is addiction, bankruptcy, sex crimes, illness, heart disease, incarceration, social disorientation and early death.

Retired as many times as Tanya Tucker and Glen Campbell were engaged, Brett Favre calls into the deep chasm of his life ahead, and he doesn't appear to like what he hears. I didn't realize I sounded like that. Better return to the familiar. But where? You can't go home again, as Thomas Wolfe once suggested. Can you? What if he didn't? The now quite possibly freed Favre suddenly appears in the imagination in as many uniforms as Pete Rose once did baseball hats.
So this picture (from Fox Sports) represents my now updated ludicrous fantasy, one more realistic than the one where Pete Rose plays for the New York Mets. Alex Marvez of Fox Sports agrees that the Jets are a good fit for Brett Favre, so long as they deal Pennington away. This seems all the ridiculous with the Favre's face scotch-taped to Pennington's jersey. It really should be the other way round, but I get it. That's what I would have done with Favre's head if I were a kid.

I want it on record that this is Fox that I'm encouraging you to go along with here. The network that brought you the terrorist fist-pump that the New Yorker so poorly satirized. However, Marvez seems to suggest that Minnesota (colder than Wisconsin), D.C. (murder capital made even more dangerous by lifted gun bans) and Tampa Bay (Jeff Garcia) are better fits. Where would you rather retire?

New York Jets By The Numbers: # 26 - Part 3

When I first began this Jets-by the-numbers, I worked with two major assumptions. I correctly assumed that this endeavor would, at the very least, take me away from other more important and less interesting things to do. But I also felt that naming and identifying every player who has ever worn the Jets' uniform would teach me something about my beloved team that I did not already know. It has done this, but that's not what impresses me, entry by entry. Instead, I'm amazed at how brief and anonymous the football career is. Far be it that we should mourn the brevity of a career that today garners obscene contracts, but sometimes not even money can buy the satisfaction that comes with a long duration to the career of life's work. Pro football does not afford this to most players.

If every available record is to be believed, Pat Gucciardo entered one game in #26 for the New York Jets in 1966 at defensive back and then promptly vanished from the professional game altogether. Under "Anecdotes" on the All-Time New York Jets Roster, there is one brief entry: "Nicknamed Gooch." Technically that's not an anecdote, and it's not a terribly original nickname, but I am eternally grateful to find that out anyway.

Here #26 Jerome Henderson is pursuing the greatest receiver in the history of pro football, Jerry Rice, quite possibly in vain. This was the 1998 opener at Candelstick Park, a game that went into overtime. San Francisco won, 36-30. I had difficulty believing that CBS was not showing the game in Philadelphia, but they didn't - at least not until the overtime period. For some reason, they switched over, and I promptly turned from the AM crackling transmission of the game (Radio Free Europe sounded better in East Berlin) to my thoroughly beaten and often dropped RCA 15-inch TV, just in time to see the Niners' Garrison Hearst run what seemed like 500 yards to the end zone on the first possession of overtime. I don't like to brag, but I immediately spewed forth a stream of invective that equaled in quality the daily profane, screaming, freedom-rock tainted mental garbage that could be heard coming regularly from my next door neighbors, a family of truck drivers addicted to crack and methamphetamine. Those were the days. The Jets would lose the next week and then go 12-2 the rest of the season. In more ways than one, the worst of times are always coupled with the best.

A November 9, 1990 Times article about #26 Ken Johnson reveals the wandering part of the football player's life, its disappointments and all too brief hopes. Cut by the Vikings, re-signed by the Vikings in lieu of the Jets, then cut by the Vikings and signed by the Jets when they ran out of players in the secondary, Ken Johnson went where he could. The article quotes him: "I sort of wish now I had come to the Jets earlier," Johnson said today. "I had a chance to join them one of the times the Vikings cut me, but I decided to sign back with Minnesota. I know the cost of living was higher here, and I figured I could live better in Minnesota if I was getting the same money." He played an unknown number of games during 1990 and then was cut again, destined for nowhere else.

One injury is all it takes, and in the late 1980's, injuries and bad luck were all over the Jets. Number 26, strong safety Lester Lyles, is just one example. Lyles was not alone in being injured in the 1987 training camp that season at Hofstra; as many as seven starters were injured even before the season got under way. I vaguely remember the sense of disappointment I felt back then, especially after the Jets had done so well for most of the 1986 season. But by August 1987, I was also packing to go away to college for the first time while my family was abruptly moving from New York to the Deep South. I went from planning on going to school three hours by car from my family to living more than 20 hours away. For the first time in my life, the New York Jets meant little or nothing to me. It was an odd feeling, made only more absurd by the eventual 1987 strike. Lester Lyles was cut the following season, but by then I had decided to focus all my attention on the Mets and on their eventually unsuccessful efforts in the postseason. I wondered very little about the fate of my football team. I cannot imagine the young man I was then; I cannot imagine not being a fan now. So much older then and younger than that now. Yet I still find life as terrifying today as I did back then. The man always makes the fan in the end.

New York Jets By The Numbers: # 26 - Part 2

Rob Carpenter?
No, Ron Carpenter.
The defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals, right?
Ah, no, actually this Ron Carpenter did play for the Bengals in his first NFL season, 1993, but the one you're thinking of played for Paul Brown from 1970-76. Got it?
This is the one who played for the Eagles, too, right? Wide receiver?
No. No, again. You see, you're thinking of Rob Carpenter again, who yes, was a receiver for the Jets when Ron Carpenter was a return specialist for them, which was also confusing for Dave Jennings when he had to broadcast Jets games. But Rob played in #82 while Ron played in #26. OK? Got it?
Right, yes, the running back, #26, who played for the Giants.
No, no, no. That's another Rob Carpenter, who played for the Oilers and the Giants. We're talking about a guy who played free safety for the Jets and specialized in returns. He lead the NFL in kickoff return yards in 1995.
Wow. You're a fussy little man. Getting all worked about this stuff, aren't you?
I'm sorry. I realize this is confusing, but work with me here. (Silence) Actually, I guess maybe I'm having ridiculous fantasies about Brett Favre being snapped up by the Jets.
Oh. I see. Well, that is ridiculous.
I know, I know....it's what happens when you have a quarterback problem.

Erik Coleman has left the building. Though he was kept out of the some of the action in parts of 2008 for head injuries, it might be said that this past season was hardly a test of anyone's potential. We know how the coach feels about concussions, too. His time to blossom in #26 for us has passed, and he is playing in lowly Atlanta now. I include this extraordinary photograph (from NY Daily News) of him and Jason Taylor because here Coleman looks like another of Taylor's dance partners, though I can't figure out why both defensive players were on the field at the same time. Maybe this was an instance last year where the Fish were so rightly desperate they put Jason Taylor in as a tight end (my wife tells me has one). Even then, this picture just seems like a swing dance gone wrong, with Coleman throwing his partner away, a righteous gesture considering all of Taylor's alleged "false partnerships" on the ballroom floor. (I laugh.) Anyway, Erik Coleman also got attention last year for the rather poignant story of his relationship with his reformed and recovered mom.

Cornerback Donald Dykes played in #26 for the Jets at a time when I saw phantom possibilities of Jets glory that only an unknowing child could believe in. It wouldn't have mattered if I had understood the slang meaning of his last name when I was 10 or 11. I was naive to both the hidden meanings of words and to the hidden pitfalls of Jets teams. Even after the fact, he and his likewise unsuccessful teammates remain special to me. Sometimes I'll find myself staring at the administrative keylime green-painted cinder block walls of the teacher's lounge, and I will suddenly hear, echoing in the chasm of my rattled skull, the voices of Spencer Ross or Sam DeLuca of WCBS - 88 on your AM dial - saying a player's name, and it's sure to be a Jet of Donald Dykes' era, 1979-81. Dad actually tried to dissuade me from my high expectations during those years. Coming back from the hardware store some time in September 1980, he told me that the Jets would probably not make the playoffs, despite what the pundits were predicting. I told him I would eat my shoes if that happened. The Jets went 4-12. Dad did not hold me to any of it. Donald Dykes' own son, Donald Jr. was born that season, and today Donald Sr. coaches at University of Arkansas-Monticello. Donald the younger made dubious news in 2002 at Notre Dame but was cleared of all charges.

Wayne Fontes was and is that rare thing in pro football - a colorful character (and not Jerry Glanville) on whom a fan can hang all of his frustrations, neuroses, hopes, bastardized dreams, sorrow, and rage. Above all, rage. In other words, he was the perfect coach for the Detroit Lions, an organization whose true fans share a wisdom that might provide aid and comfort to me in my many hours of darkness. When they lost the NFC Championship in 1992 to the Redskins, I saw a grown Lion fan friend weep like a child who had been told it was time to leave the amusement park. Wayne Fontes - cartoonish, part-genius, part-guru, part-clown - so embodies the Lions' fans sense of frustration and purposelessness that a kindred spirit has named his Motor City sports blog, The Wayne Fontes Experience. Somehow I feel like we're all having that experience. Most importantly, Wayne Fontes played nine games in #26 for the Titans (of course) in 1962, during which he caught four interceptions at defensive back, one of which he took for an 83 yard touchdown - a record for the Gotham Football Club as a whole that would stand for 27 years. And it was his only playing time as a pro. Wayne Fontes. Share the experience.

New York Jets By The Numbers: # 26 - Part 1

In the early 1970's as choices were abounding, as athletes were beginning to feel as free as the revelers at a New Canaan key party, players came and went with different leagues like strangers in the night. Margene Adkins was one of them. His career inspires me to think of a journey, an odyssey, a veritable peregrination.

Or so that was the word used to describe his career in the 1974 New York Jets yearbook. Here, despite the grammatical problems: "Jet scouts impressed with him in college and followed his peregrinations with interest." That's not an SAT word. That's a spelling bee word, a word you pretend to know the meaning of when you hear it, even if you haven't got a ballpark clue. Is that a growth of some kind? A peregrination? Is that a tumor? Which frustrated wordsmith had the Jets employed that year? Clearly, once again, I was born at the wrong time.

Though I'm not giving him the Booth Lustig, I have to give him credit for trying. At the beginning of his football journey, his extraordinary name of Margene must have been an inspiration for him at some level, for he'd have to have beaten up more than one boy who'd made fun of him. Maaar-geeeene. (SMASH!) Football players are forged from such things. Then he was apparently a standout player for the Ottawa Rough Riders in their Grey Cup victory in 1969. As his own Wikipedia entry points out, "In 1969, Adkins was voted to the CFL All-Star team after setting a regular season record for the highest average gain per pass reception at 25.0 yards, a record that stood for twenty-eight years (broken by Milt Stegall)." Yes. Milt Stegall.

Then on to Dallas in 1970 and the American pro career for which he had been waiting since graduating from Hutchinson Junior College. But all that was available for this potential running back/wide receiver was a job as a return specialist. By the time he came to the Jets in 1973 - this is almost sounding like a refrain now - he was riddled with injuries, both Canadian and American in origin. But now rest here, Margene Adkins, and rest easy. Thy peregrinations hast come to an end. Your game-worn jersey remains as a memento at webshots.com.

It is Dewey Bohling to whom we give tonight's Booth Lustig Award for the Funniest-Sounding Name in the Jersey #26. Having just arrived in St. Louis as a war bride in 1946, she knows that the game with pins is important to her adopted people, so she asks the question every night in her broken English to her beguiled husband and his stonily silent kin: "Dewey Bohling tonight?" A Titan for two seasons, Dewey Bohling, among other things no doubt, scored a touchdown in the Tites' first Thanksgiving game - a victory at the Polo Grounds against the Dallas Texans.

Continuing Injustice to NFL Retirees

Here are some of the more interesting bits I've found on the ongoing need for the NFL and the Players Association to break open their banks to better fund the pensions of veteran players:

First, although you may recognize Kyle Turley as the guy who threw a Jets helmet into the lights of the Superdome, you may be pleasantly surprised to see his extraordinary support for veteran players. (photo taken from NY Times) If only each existing player were given the information about one player who needs their financial support, then perhaps many of them would become as involved as Turley. Imagine, as the Times article suggests, if each player donated one game's salary to the well-being of the pension fund.

On "Life After Football," the multimedia link for this Times page, former Bills and Cardinals guard Conrad Dobler makes three simple points. (photo from Ebay) First, he reminds us that each of the linemen with whom he played in St. Louis have at least a hip and knee replacement. Dobler himself has had five major surgeries on one knee. The exception to that front line is Bob Young, who died in 1995. My Mom just had her second knee replaced at the age of 71, yet none of the living linemen of whom he speaks are yet 60. Secondly, Dobler says that young players need to understand - particularly linemen younger than Kyle Turley - that they will definitely be where he is, in the hospital, getting expensive medical treatment all their lives. They will probably be there at ages even younger than 50 because they are physically so much heavier than Dobler, Dierdorf, Young and other linemen of the 60's and 70's. Finally, he says that if the league, the players and their union donated "10% of the cap" to the pension, it would make a big difference toward mending the gap between what retired players need and what they get.

Most of all, he insists that none of the former players he knows have even bothered to petition the Players Association or the league for their long-term disabilities. That's just his say, but he also claims that that the league has said to him that to begin a process of opening up the league's coffers would more likely mean an "opening of the floodgates" that would financially cripple the league over time. This sounds so much like the usual mantras people offer to put off righting an injustice. It's just more convenient to keep the same profits moving in the same upward direction without thinking about how those profits might be directed toward improving, in the smallest ways, the human nuts and bolts of the game's tradition.

The extent of the movement to reform the pension fund is embodied in Dave Pear's blog, devoted almost solely to the issue. The most consistent theme seems to be that the Players Association has a strong responsibility to make this a greater issue with the league. With Gene Upshaw in charge of the union, good luck.

Consider the millions and millions more it is costing both the Jets and the Giants to build their new stadium. Sure, the Jets are having a harder case for pricing PSL's to fans, despite the success the Giants are having bilking their fans with the same idea, but Jets fans know PSL's are inevitable. But consider that we also know that that these two teams have overseen a construction process that is running hugely over budget. According to Richard Sandomir in the Times, the Patriots' Gillette Stadium "opened in 2003 at a reported construction cost of $325 million, all paid for by the team. No seat licenses were sold." I don't need to tell you how galling that is. Two teams, building one stadium, need PSL's to cover construction costs that should have been managed properly. Imagine that. Well, let's face it - the costs are convenient considering that Mara and Johnson were probably considering PSL's from the get-go. The league allows that kind of financial irresponsibility to go on, forcing fans to refinance their lives as if they were planning to send a phantom child to college or to buy another house. Yet apparently reaching out to struggling players with only a fraction of its billion dollar business would be considered "opening the floodgates."