It's hard to write about a football team you love and care about in a blog without sounding pathetic and redundant. I'm going to be perfectly honest about that. I'm tired of writing about my feelings regarding this team when, well, to tell the truth, I'm too screwed up about how I feel during the season to really express any coherent thoughts. I'm a mess every weekend worrying about them, and the better they have to potential to be, the lousier I feel. I get this blank expression on my face most of the time, hanging around in my 12 or 28 jersey staring at the TV set, hoping for something that won't make me wince rather than hoping for a big play that will make me happy.

Which was appropriate for Monday night's game to be sure. It was painful, gut-wrenching. Not fun stuff. I figured out my next door neighbor was a Ravens fan. He has been kind enough not to gloat. But then this wasn't a blowout. The Ravens just strangle their opponents like a boa constrictor, watching the light in its prey's eyes slowly die out before ingesting it whole. He was worried that he was being too loud. He wasn't. When Kyle Wilson committed the pass interference that help set up the Ravens' lone touchdown, I took the Lord's name in vain so loudly that my wife told me that I sounded like the kind of man whom neighbors think beats his wife.

The Jets committed 14 horrible fouls throughout, the kind that reminded me of the heavily penalized teams of the early 80's that had all the potential to win the division but none of the luck or the discipline. The did talk big, they did swagger, and eventually all they did was make other teams shake their heads in bemusement. Nineteen eighty, Walton's first season, Parcells' last and Mangini's second - they all had the kind of promise that went into this new year, and they all leave my personal history with this team feeling empty and meaningless.

And then there's Inez Sainz. Of course my first reaction to all of this was to recall those whorish-looking babettes jiggling in front of the cameras during World Cup coverage on Univision and Telemundo. Still, wrong is wrong. In one week, the Jets coaches and players behaved in a way that has been rightly deemed inappropriate. (deep breath here) Even Rush Limbaugh said it was wrong to catcall Inez Sainz, although the next day he did say that the Jets were "celebrating her body." I mean, Rush is scumbag, after all. Still, when he's right, he's....well, never mind. The problem isn't really that a team of inhumanly sized men made animal farm noises at Mexico's idea of female sideline journalist, which includes a booty about which men with gold teeth often wax poetic. The real problem is that these two phenomena are made for each other in a sport mostly celebrated by lumpy and fat men like me. It's all wrong. Just all wrong.

I got sick watching the Ravens game, so I don't even know what I'll be like for New England on Sunday. I can't really write about it anymore. I've just got to go back to numbers, sweet numbers, because the past is filled with a disappointment that is comprehensible because it already happened, while the nature of the future's disappointment is unpredictable, leaving me with feelings of unspeakable dread. I believe what I'm actually describing is what my mental health care specialist would refer to as trauma. Ah well. Now let's go eat a god@#$ed snack.