Former Jets And Their Current Homes

I realize that you can't hold onto all the good talent on a team, but with a good new coach, I would like to see this kind of thing ended. The following were drafted by the New York Jets somewhere between 1997 and 2004 and are enjoying/have enjoyed the playoffs this year:

John Abraham (Atlanta)
Chad Pennington (Miami)
James Farrior (Pittsburgh)
Derrick Ward (NY Giants)
Erik Coleman (Atlanta)
Jason Ferguson (Miami)

I'm currently watching former free agent acquisitions Justin McCareins and Kevin Mawae for Tennessee against Baltimore, although Mawae's on the sidelines.

Let's not neglect teams that nearly went to the playoffs, like New Orleans, where you'll find first draftee Jonathan Vilma, or Dewayne Robertson's Denver Broncos, and the Jetskins, Santana Moss and Pete Kendall.

More Dispatches from Hell

I am still reporting from the Bad Place, as Huck called it. I watched the Miami Dolphins fail to come back against the Ravens in the Wild Card, but it had only a minimal effect. I struggled with a desire to see Chad Pennington do well. Even Phil Simms struggled with instinctively saying "this Jets offense" when he talks about Chad Pennington's team. My wife made a sound when she saw Chad brooding over a second half turnover deep in Baltimore territory. Poor Chad. I am sure that the weary and senseless troubles in Gaza are a better example of what constitutes Hell, but as train-set miniature versions go, being a Jets fan sucks.

One person with whom I work suggested that the Jets' circumstances aren't really hell by definition but are more apropos of "Insanity."

"You know what the definition of insanity is, don't you, Marty?" my colleague asked.

Many discussions I've had lately seem to begin with that question. Maybe its predominance is the product of discussions concerning the failure of the Big Three, or the Detroit Lions.

"It's doing the same dumb thing that doesn't work over and over and expecting a different result?" I offer.

He nods his head as if I haven't said anything. "It's doing the same dumb thing that doesn't work over and over and expecting a different result."

But I shake my head. I disagree. The point was that the Jets were hoping to avoid insanity with Chad at quarterback. Chad's lob throws, his limited efficacy in the clutch, his jittery motions in the pocket, his spent body - all of this was going to be history. The Jets had unburdened themselves of a lot of money on a better offense and defense. They needed someone else at the helm of the offense. And now we still do, though don't mistake our current surroundings with an asylum. We are in Hell. On Hockey Night in Canada, Peter King said he had spoken to Brett Favre "for about a half an hour" and King got the sense that Favre will retire for good now. (Peter King always always characterizes his discussion with football players as if they are counseling sessions. He always says things like, "...and we agreed that..." as if the player needed King's input on an important decision.) At the beginning of the season, we had Mangini and Favre. Now we have Kellen Clemens and a coach to be named later. Yep. Happy New Year. From Hell.

Now that you and I have already taken the Inferno tour of our past head coaches, recall that the last time the Jets gave total control of their field and front office operations to a head coach was when Bill Parcells helped us to win the AFC East with the best record in franchise history before and since. Before then, Leon Hess insisted on having a "football man" alongside his coaches, like the late Dick Steinberg who advised Bruce Coslet. Then there were the geniuses advising Rich Kotite. The constant flurry of last summer was exactly the kind of thing three different people nosing themselves into the decision might have come up with. If Eric Mangini had been coach and GM would we have been Favre-less? If the Jets now offered coach and GM in the one job offer, then maybe it would be more appealing to Bill Cowher, Mike Shanahan or (one would presume, God help us) Bill Parcells. Or Tony Dungy, if he's looking.

Is the idea to find the next Mike Smith or Tony Sparano (each of whom lost in the first round of the playoffs)? Was Eric Mangini supposed to be that guy? So who's next? Mike Westhoff or Brian Schottenheimer? Heavens. The spectacle of seeing Westhoff prowling the sidelines next season is rather cinematic but terrible all the same. According to Jay Glazer, the Jets are the franchise sending candidates through the heaviest battery of interviews, all in anticipation of finding the best fit for their boss, Robert Wood Johnson. (I don't call him "Woody"). Personally, I want Steve Spagnuolo; my wife's been helping me practice saying his name since she also has a Sicilian surname with a silent g. He also does not carry the taint of the Jets' failure of this past season.

But in Hell, you have no right to dictate your terms of punishment. It is delivered to you. Raised as I was as a devoutly religious child, I subconsciously hold onto a sense of being a sinner in the hands of a proud and angry God. The retribution dispensed to us for last summer's pride is to sit here now in this circle of the Bad Place. We'll pick somebody who will still be struggling to lead us out of this self-imposed darkness just as Cowher, Dungy, Shanahan, and everyone else who demands front office and field control become available again.

Greetings, Eric Mangini....

We have been waiting for you.

We are the ghosts of a near and distant past. We are your predecessors. You thought your place in history would be different from ours. You were wrong.

We are lonely in this place. Join us, Eric. Join us. You are among the kindred.

Well, hey, kid. That's right. Weeb Ewbank. They called me "Weeb" because my little brother couldn't pronounce the name "Wilbur."

You like this? I'll bet you do. It's my Hall of Fame bust. Bet you'd like one, wouldn't you? Well, the world needs also-rans, kiddo. No offense. Literally.

I was the very first Jets coach, so I guess you could say that I am the father of this bunch. The only Jets' Super Bowl win is my work, and Namath's, of course. That boy was a crackerjack. But then I sold away many of the great players on that team because I wanted to save money. As punishment, I've been forced to walk around this place carrying this very same bronze resemblance that the Super Bowl earned me. One thing's for sure, though. This thing is Super Heavy. You wanna hold it for me? Just for a few minutes? Where you going?

Hello, Eric. I'm Charley Winner. No need to stay. You can keep on walking. Weeb might consider himself the father of us all, but I got the Jets' job because I was his son-in-law. Weeb won't admit to this, but like you, he didn't finish with a winning record as a Jets coach, either.

Of course, neither did I. I was around for two and a half seasons, and then they let me go when my players started fighting like a bunch of teenagers on the sidelines of a really bad loss at Baltimore in 1975. Ken Shipp took over for a couple of games, but who cares, right? It was a wash. I was a winning coach with the Cardinals organization in the 60's. Did you know that? Try naming anyone else other than Don Coryell who managed that. That's a different circle of hell, though. But fate was cruel to me. A Winner became a loser with the Jets. Sound familiar?

Hey! Anyone want to play coach? Ha! Just kidding, son, just kidding! You're probably not in the mood right now. You never seem to be.

Ah, but you have to admit - you're probably a little bit relieved right now. No? Well, heck, I know I was when I quit even before the end of the 1976 season. Just couldn't take it anymore, kid. I mean, the pro game just eats dirt, spits it up and dudn't grow nothin' where it's been planted. I'm TV's Lou Holtz, by the way. Sorry. Didn't mean to be rude. They used to make fun of the way I looked. Said I looked like Granny Clampett. Well, it's not like people ain't cruel. You know they are. They said you looked like a penguin.

They said, boy, that you was a genius.

Just stick with the college game, son. Kids'll do whatever you tell 'em. Just listen to some of the fellows that came after me. They'll tell ya. Better get going now.

Next!

Next!! Oh. It's you. Hello, Mangini. You're here already, are you?

I'm Walt Michaels. That's right. Like the name tag says. You know about me. I had a long career with the the team. My brother Lou threatened to wring Joe Namath's neck the week before the 1969 Super Bowl, but I was an assistant on the winning side. And then ten years later, I was the Jets' coach.

 Those were good years. We were on the brink of something, son, but then...

Ah, damn it. That playoff win over the Raiders was my last one in the league. Damn.

 How can a playoff win get you fired? It's just that I thought Al Davis was calling on the phone to heckle me at halftime. Sounded like him. It was just some drunk guy in Queens playing games with me. How the hell does some idiot in a bar manage to get through to the Jets locker room at LA Coliseum, for Christ's sake? You tell me.

And I believed him! Whole thing got me canned. Being a Jets coach does funny things to your mind, son. Well, anyway, fill out the forms I gave you and move it along. Next!

Out of my way, please. I've got parents weekend coming up. Can't talk now. Got me lecturing a class on physical education and Humanism. I don't even know what that means.

Oh..., wait. You're that Eric Mangini kid, aren't you? I'm Joe Walton. Pleased to me you. I coached the Jets from '83-'89. Yeah, sorry to hear about your troubles, son, but you know what they say.

No? Oh. Well, it's like what Lou Holtz said about the pro game. Can't...uh, grow shit, or something like that. That guy's a raving lunatic.

Anyway, he's right. I spent seven seasons of my career with the Jets. Can you imagine? I had to coach Mark Gastineau. Yeah. Exactly. Now, I've been coaching at Robert Morris University for almost 15 years, right here in western PA, where I grew up. It's been great. Named a stadium after me. Say, maybe someday you could coach a college team back home in Connecticut. Some pansy Liberal Arts college that needs to start offering football scholarships along with the rest of America. Like Yale, maybe, huh? Well, anyway, it's been nice chatting, but I have to go. Some kid's failing his Shakespeare seminar midterm. You know anything about King Lear, Mangini? Something about an old guy who's going insane near the end of his career. I keep telling those damn kids to just read the SparkNotes. Numbnuts.

Hey! Psst! Over here!

Hey, Mangini. Let me ask you something. Honestly. Is there something funny? Something that's making you laugh? Are you laughing? Why the hell not? I am. I mean, I spent sleepless nights trying to build the Jets into a competitive franchise once all the Michaels-Walton players wasted away. I was a rebuilding coach, Bruce Coslet, from '90-'93. The Jets let me dig my own grave for four seasons before I got canned. And what did we get out of it? One lousy playoff loss to the Oilers in 1991. And that year we went 8-8.

Hilarious, right? Look me up on Wikipedia one of those days. Under "References" - right? - there's one 2007 article from ESPN that puts nine losing teams under the "Bruce Coslet Division." Funny, right? Oh, real funny. I don't care what they say about you, pudge. There probably won't be an "Eric Mangini Division" for the lowliest of the low.

Ah, forget it. Just leave me alone. There's more of us down the hall. Just keep walking.

To be continued....

Denver vs. Jets - First Half

It's raining everywhere east of the Mississippi. In Cleveland, Foxboro, East Rutherford, and Philly, there are cold, black sheets of rain falling. It feels eerie. And all week, as the world was virtually crowning the Jets with the AFC Championship, I have felt nothing but profound unease. How many other seasons have the Jets been 8-3 at a Thanksgiving weekend?

The answer is three times: 1968, 1969 and 2004. Even with the 16-game season, there isn't that much change to report. In 1985 the Jets were 9-4 going into a 30-21 defeat on Turkey Day in Detroit. They were 10-3 going into the holiday weekend in 1986, a season that saw them then plummet helplessly the rest of the way. That's pretty much it. So when I saw the cover of The Sporting News, with Favre's victorious image and the phrase "Kings of NYC," I became uncomfortable in the way that the Professor on the unchartered desert isle does when he realizes that the antidote for the skin rash over which the survivors are glowing is not really the antidote. Despite their ridiculous wide receiver the Giants pummeled the energized Redskins, whereas the Jets have been behind all the first half against Denver. Two Jets turnovers have yielded Bronco touchdowns.

Jets 34 Those of Whom We Do Not Speak 31 (OT)

Well, I...OK.

I feel like I just woke up from a bad dream and was just told that my football team just beat the reigning AFC Champions in overtime.

Oh snap. Look... Well, I'll be damned.

I'm not kidding. At approximately 10 pm - at which point the Jets tenuously lead the Patriots 24-21 in the fourth quarter - I could no longer keep my eyes open. It might have helped if I had actually been watching the game. But again, I do not have the NFL Network. I am waiting for the league to give their network profits to the retired players pension fund. I could not receive the game online during the first half because, for reasons I cannot fathom, our wireless was completely non-functional. So I followed the game on my wife's BlackBerry. Refresh every 15 seconds. Thus, I experienced an explosion of athletic brilliance in the following way:

NE: Gostowski 31 yard field goal. NYJ 10 NE 6 (refresh)
NE: Gostowski 31 yard field goal. NYJ 10 NE 6 (refresh)
NE: Gostowski 31 yard field goal. NYJ 10 NE 6 (refresh)
NE: Gostowski 31 yard field goal. NYJ 10 NE 6 (refresh)
NE: Gostowski 31 yard field goal. NYJ 10 NE 6 (refresh)
NYJ: L. Johnson 92 yard return. NYJ 17 NE 6 (refresh)

At this I unconsciously made the same sound a squad car makes when it's trying to creep through an intersection without stopping (a move not unlike Leon Washington finding the crease through 11 charging men): Woop-WAHP. Odd. You have to enjoy Deion Sanders' postgame comment on Washington's kickoff return for a touchdown. In addition to noting the obvious, that Leon went untouched, Deion also exclaimed, "You know, look at the vision. Look at the awareness." Almost as if Leon Washington were a spiritual leader, or maybe an abstract expressionist painter. I will not argue with that.

Anyway, neither the BlackBerry nor the NFL.com game tracker could capture the continued weirdness of yet another reception of a pass (against the Patriots) with one's helmet, here seen in a reception by Jerricho Cotchery, who pressed the ball between helmet and the inside space of his right arm. I'm going to suggest that Cotchery's catch was above and beyond David Tyree's Super Bowl catch in that it was one-handed, or one-armed as the case may be, and with a Patriot defender's hand pushing on his facemask. The irony was that after it was declared a reception, Cotchery rolled over and dropped the ball as he tried to release it.

(Greg Bishop's NYT article the next day suggests that Bishop was actually text messaging David Tyree during the game. Was that during the game, Greg? The entire piece is written a little like a chapter from a middle school reading level Punt, Pass and Kick book, with Jets players popping in and out of the action to discuss their reactions to the events of the game. I mean, Bishop uses post-game remarks as if they sideline commentary.)

So what did I miss when I went to bed? A Cotchery fumble. Thomas Jones scores after a lucky penalty. Kris Jenkins' critical late game stop on Cassel. Randy Moss beats his man and is overthrown in the end zone. ANOTHER THOMAS JONES RUN UP THE MIDDLE THAT COULD HAVE SAVED THE GAME BUT DID NOT. Randy Moss' incredible catch against Ty Law, who now wears #22. All of this in one quarter.

And then Favre's extraordinary drive. That's where the dream turns from mirroring life to revising it. There are dreams that you have that seem very much like reality, and then some where the absurd reality fulfills an improbable wish. Or maybe the dream goes so far as to dabble in the impossible. When I was a kid I dreamt that the Jets would someday play in the Super Bowl at Shea Stadium. Thus the Improbable and the Impossible. Favre's drive, with its recovery from a 3rd and 15 situation, reflected a different kind of Jets season from the one that doubters like myself expected or continue to expect. It is one where the Jets are down and then regroup and recover. Again, in addition to seeming like a Young Readers' account of the game, Greg Bishop (consistent with the Times' Jets reporting, post-Eskanazi) takes pains to constantly remind us that THE JETS ALWAYS BLOW IT, but look - this time the Jets won! It made me ashamed of my own compulsion for doubt.

But then we can't just associate this habitual doubt of the Jets with such haughty voices as the Times'. After all, my wife turned briefly from the game to KYW news radio here in Philly, where they announced, "In sports, the Jets have now tied it up in their game against the Patriots. Late in the fourth quarter it's now 24-24 in Foxboro!" Of course, it was Those Of Whom We Do Not Speak that had come from behind a 24-6 Jets lead to tie it. Everybody puts the Jets behind. It's a hard habit to break.

But now I'm compelled to say aloud in response, "Look at the vision, look at the awareness..!" If anything, the dancing, leaping Brett Favre on the field and sidelines is the pied piper, if not just the signal caller. By his effusive example, we are hopping to Nashville, there to meet our metaphorical makers, the Titans, if not our actual ones.

Have you noticed Brett Favre's new game-end celebratory gesture? Now alongside Red Auerbach's victory cigar and the cumbersome Gatorade cooler is Favre's victorious ass-slap. He did it to Brian Schottenheimer last week after the win over the Rams. Its recipient howled in pain. After beating the Pats, Favre reserved it for Eric Mangini, a man who has so assiduously imitated Belichick to the point of wearing his old mentor's zombified expression of evil genius. If there's one thing both men definitely need after a game is a good, swift smack in the rear. Mangini embraced Favre, gripped his helmet with both hands (a gesture women like, too) and whispered something grateful through the earhole. They separated, and as the coach made for the locker room, Favre seem to take a beat and almost whisper to himself, "Smack that guy in the ass." One hopes that after taking it, after wincing in pain, Mangini might have said to himself, "And thanks, for that too, Brett. I needed that." Yes, coach, you did, and you do.

But whose ass will Favre spank next year? I still think he'd like a chance to smack the ass of a coach that plays Green Bay twice a year. Couldn't be Detroit. Minnesota? I'd hate to think of Brett Favre in purple leggings. Chicago? No, no. Still, I think he'll jump ship at year's end, and if he does, can the Jets have Matt Cassel? Because, well, he really is that good.

On Winning a Championship

It's fourth block, and with about half of my students at the Phillies' victory parade in the city, I'm sitting here in a half-empty classroom writing. I have been cheering the Phillies on throughout the Series, and I made sure to go into town right after they won to at least drink deeply the mania Philadelphians have felt in the wake of the team's slightly improbable win. I saw young men and women kissing each other like strangers on V-J Day. I also saw a man climb a lamppost, only to have his pants slip to his ankles in the process. I saw people queuing up to climb atop bus shelters, trampling them down by doing so. Someone in an Easter bunny outfit was dancing around on someone's shoulders. Innocent vegetation and landscaping on Broad Street were pulled from their roots and paraded around the streets like war booty. For some mysterious reason someone carried a floor lamp around, its chord trailing behind, as if it were torch. The lampshade wobbled ominously.

After living here for a decade and a half, I still don't call Philly teams my favorite. I would have been happier if the Mets had lived up to their potential and payroll the way the less salaried Phillies did. But still, the Phillies are a team with a 45 year-old starting pitcher, with largely homegrown talent and no free agent bigwigs (minus the peerless Brad Lidge). They are, in other words, extremely likable. Can you name a team of professional athletes that qualifies for that description? Keep thinking. The Phils are a bunch of nice guys, finishing first. But I would have been happier with Johan Santana, Carlos Delgado, and their expensive contemporaries doing the same.

The Mets did once in my lifetime, when the 1986 team managed somehow to escape ignominy by allowing the Red Sox to practice a calamity on themselves. It was an beautiful, awful, terrible thing to watch. My parents went to bed for the final inning of Game Six, fully anticipating that I would report to them that the Red Sox won. They gave up. As for me, I wanted to stay up, with tears in my eyes, watching the Sox win because I felt that it was an historic moment. I was so disappointed. How could the Mets lose to the Red Sox, a team inferior to them in every category? And then, it happened. And when it happened, I knew I had to let Mom and Dad know, but in truth I didn't have the words. I didn't have the schema. I was overwhelmed and humbled by life's unselfconscious penchant for shocking both its winners and losers alike. The Mets won Game Six by virtue of a wild pitch and a missed Mookie Wilson grounder that should have been an easy out. I didn't know why the gods, for once, picked my team to enjoy the fruits of others' misfortunes. Why? Then the Mets won Game Seven. Why? Why me? Why was I so lucky?

I haven't had occasion to ask the same question since. The Jets were 15 football minutes away from the Super Bowl (one that they would have won) against the Falcons in January 1999 had it not been for the Broncos' Terrell Davis scoring 12 touchdowns in the fourth quarter of the AFC Title Game. It's not the same thing. Not even close. Having a beloved team win a championship is a life-changing experience. Don't ask a Yankees fan about it, at least maybe not 10 trophy-less seasons under the the current spawn of Steinbrenner have passed. How did Sox fans feel after 2004? How did NY Giants fans feel after 1986? I remember a sign held aloft by a Giants fan right after Super Bowl XXI in Pasadena that read, "Dad, Your Dream Came True." It wasn't just the sign holder's own dream, but a generation's dream. That's how it feels. It feels that big. When the Mets won the 1986 World Series, it felt like that. Like my dream came true. And my Mom's. And my grandmother's. It was freakin' huge.

But in 1986 I wasn't quite ready for it. It was just too overwhelming. It had to mean something that the Mets, a baseball team that I had followed with almost as much zeal as I had the Jets, were champions of their sport. It could have meant that my life was looking appreciatively better, but I chose instead to read Bill Buckner's misfortune as a foreshadowing of my own. Surely the gods (or God) looked upon the Mets victory as barter for something calamitous in return. I remember how Gorbachev and Reagan left their summit in Reykjavik unhappily in October, and I took the confluence of a potential world conflict and a World Series to be a sign. If the Mets win, the world will be vaporized in a nuclear war. Yeah. There would be no other way. So the happy championship of my life turned into a nightmare of assured doom. Instead of the metaphorical, "Now I can die happy," it was "OK. So this is it. Now I'm going to die."

This is what obsessive fandom does. It enervates your spirit. It takes years off your life. The numbnuts who trashed Broad Street Wednesday night weren't real fans. The guys who either scaled the lampposts or who carried the lamp weren't interested in baseball. The true Phillies fans were probably too exhausted to even leave their house. A parade or a riot are not enough to exercise the full feelings of fulfillment, so why bother going out?

I got over my fear of instant death. Nuclear war was probably not contingent upon Bill Buckner's sore ankles or Ray Knight's World Series exploits. But luckily the formal feeling of joy didn't leave me for years and years. A sign hung over the Long Island Expressway leading up to Shea Stadium that read "New York Mets 1986 World Series Champions." It hung there after an incongruous number of years passed. But that hardly mattered. It hung in my heart a similarly ridiculous period. So should it for the fans of the Fightins.

One of my colleagues suggested that if the Jets ever won the Super Bowl I would have the right to go to New York and quiz the lamppost jumpers about their own credibility. He is a Philadelphia purist, which means that he hates New York, but I suppose a New York Jets purist is better than a bandwagoneer. Plus, I'm not a Giants fan. "You would have every right," he said, "to ask as many factual questions about Jets history as need be in order to figure out who did and who did not deserve the honor to cheer on the Jets' victory parade."

"Can you name the backfield the Jets brought into Miami to play the unbeaten Dolphins in 1972?" *

"I wasn't even born yet."

"That's not relevant. Next question..."

The fact that we will probably not need to worry about such an event any time immediately soon is irrelevant, I suppose. Being a true fan means you always dread the unthinkable, you always harbor the dreams of the impossible. Everywhere people tell you, "Be realistic," "Be reasonable." I don't go to work in skin-tight lemon yellow denim pants. I am reasonable. But I believe the Jets will someday hoist the trophy again. I have my limits.

* John Riggins, Emerson Boozer, Cliff McClain, Hank Bjorklund, Steve Harkey

Delusional

I am going through the stages of Delusion, fully expecting to land squarely in a thorny patch of reality. What are the stages of Delusion? I don't know. I think its different from plain old Denial. There might even be actual stages of Delusion, but for our purposes, let's just say that when I heard at about 4 am on local news radio yesterday that Brett Favre had been traded to the Jets, I thought I was literally still dreaming. When I tried to shake the dream away some more, I thought that maybe news radio was pulling an early morning hours prank on us again. Early on in our relationship, my wife and I swear that we heard the news radio guy say, "In other news... free french fries at Little Pete's Diner tonight." We heard wrong (but really - we heard it).

Likewise, with the Favre story, I figured they were just playing with one of the few Jets fans I know in Philadelphia. And believe me, I know myself - kind of. Anyway, once I digested it, I felt the unease that accompanies a false vision or hallucination. If you've ever had a fever dream that wandered into consciousness, you know what I'm talking about. At first, you try to shake it off, but it's not going anywhere. As Auden says, the vision seriously intends to stay. So there are stalagmites hanging from the ceiling. Someone painted the face of a clown on your wall. Your floor is 70 feet away. OK, you think, if this is the way it's going to be, then OK. I'm ready. It's whacked. But OK.

The vision kicks in. Brett is here to stay. To stay. Right? Right?

Maybe.

ESPN spoke glowingly of the deal last night. The Post, the Daily News, and Newsday all put Favre on their covers. The Times? In their usual, detached, can't-be-bothered approach to the Jets, the Times was kind enough to make it their lead in the sports section, but the first three paragraphs of the top story made it clear that the Jets fan (they presume such persons are not Times readers) is getting Favre for only a year. He's not staying, they indicated. Favre himself said, "We'll see" when asked about it. Oh, the Times seemed to suggest - like the iniquitous girl who sat next to you in your 10th grade Chemistry class back in the day - oh, you think he likes you? Oh my God! How funny! Oh, no. Nooo. He just feels sorry for you. Silly Jets fans. Aren't they so...delusional?

What's horrible is that like the bitchy classmate, the Times is often right...well, I guess with the exception of when they insisted that Clinton step down from the Presidency, or when they initially supported Bush's war in Iraq. And then there were the plagiarism scandals. Outside of that, though, they enjoy a readership in that reality-based part of the American mind that seems less important to both the News and the Post. But though I read their paper, I hate the way the Times has always relished the inadequacy of the Jets, as if they were forced to report on the bastard child as well as prince. As if the Jets were the only team that moved to New Jersey. And while the Jets are definitely not the team that won the Super Bowl last February, and while Brett probably still wants to get with an NFC team that might play Green Bay twice in a season,... I mean,...well...y'know...

Well, look at Newsday. They changed the color of their paper's trademark on the cover to green just for the occasion. You know? It's just thoughtful. Jesus. You know? A weary fan appreciates a story that exists outside the realm of reality sometimes. For now, the vision still seriously intends to stay - even if Brett doesn't.

Into the Modern Era...

Despite the assured move from one Bay to another, this, dated today, from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune regarding Brett Favre's status:

"The sources were also under the impression that the New York Jets were not out of the running for Favre's services."

As an altar boy in a small town in New York, there were two churches for the one Catholic parish - one Italian, one Irish. Everyone in town knew that the big Catholic church in the center of town was the one founded by the Irish, the one where the pastor lived. The other, humbly made from the granite pulled from the nearby quarry that had also been used to construct the nearby Kensico Dam, was the Italian "chapel." The Irish ran the parish, and one day the pastor decided to take the statues and idols out of the Italian church due to what he deemed "excessive idolatry." Statues of saints Mary, Jude, Joseph, Anthony and Clare were there, but so too were saints lesser known to Americans, like Cabrini and Rocco, who pointed to a wound below his knee. When the residents of the "Flats," as that section was deprecatingly called, heard of this, they were up in arms. To them it didn't matter if the pastor was addressing an issue as old as the Nicene Creed, nor that he was insisting that the Italians in town move into the modern era. Their point was not that the idols meant anything literal or miraculous; the objects simply gave inspiration to the believers. He soon saw that his would have been a losing battle for many years to come. Embittered devotees do not always forgive a slight. The statues stayed.

I'm actually grateful not to be a Packer fan. I'd prefer to go without feeling angry an entire season that a man I had come to treat like a parish icon was not welcome on my team anymore, all in the name of "moving forward" toward the club's modern era. Did Mike McCarthy insinuate that Favre was making a deal with Ted Thompson back in March for Favre's non-retirement retirement just to drive the quarterback crazy? Was McCarthy telling the truth? I can't imagine that either McCarthy or Thompson will really be better off taking the idol out of the church. As Boomer Esiason has said (and it's difficult for me to say that) no one will care whether or not the Packers made the right decision when Favre will be inducted into Canton. Packer fans will remember that he was spurned by the team, and they will not be any happier than they are now, unless Aaron Rodgers leads them to the Super Bowl in the space of time between Favre's Florida arrival and his induction speech. And that is unlikely to happen, even with Rodgers' admirable character habits, like last summer's flirtation with the fu manchu. More likely is the possibility that the people forcing Brett Favre out will already have been looking for new jobs by the time he is immortalized in bronze.

Too much of my summer has been taken up looking for quotes like the one above. There's been too much time following the insane Favre story and chastising myself for following it, knowing that the Jets are really not in consideration for his services. I know it. You know it. We have two - eventually three - quarterbacks. (Sigh). Let's just get going. Nobody's adding an idol in this parish (or building a church, for that matter). Who wants to be guilty of idolatry, anyway? Packer fans, witness to occasional miracles, are entitled to it.

A grievance, though. I would like to take issue with Harvey Araton of the Times, for suggesting the Mangini and the Jets are unworthy of Favre's attentions because of Mangini's breaking of an "honor code" (among whom? the "honorable?") and turning in evidence on Belichick. As if there had been no AFL to begin with, the Times would prefer the Jets just go away, as if they were a nuisance taking us from the full focus that they want to give the Super Bowl champion Giants. Even when the Jets were helping to prosecute dishonesty (and usually the only way to do that is to hear the canary singing of other dishonest men, like Mangini) they remain at the fuzzy end of the city's lollipop. Such is often the fate of the squealer. So be it. I'm still glad Mangini did it. The city itself still remains a bastion of the Yankees-Giants world. So be it, too. The Jets have always been the working class team, and nobody gives the blue collar anything. He must fight for his place. Though I am neither a fan of Mangini nor of the cynical leadership of Woody Johnson, I still prefer the sentiments of Angel Navedo, my personal favorite in the world of Jets blahg insanity. He has helped me to believe in my own my gut feeling from the beginning that, for better or for worse, we don't need Brett Favre. Damned be my own science fiction and pipe dreams to the contrary.

Pennington at QB. Clemens at QB. Ainge somewhere in the hazy background. Time to move into our modern era. God help us. J-E-T-S.

Vanity Fair

Hope is the thing with feathers.
-Emily Dickinson

Under how many labels can one entry fall? L'Affaire de Favre has become something so outlandishly bizarre that I am left oddly mute. Brett Favre will actually be paid to retire, stay retired, and be part of the Packers "product," working from home in Mississippi. All the while he has played the Bucs and the Jets, perhaps to raise the dollar value of what the Pack will pay him to stay retired. He will quarterback for no one now, which was what he said he would do - or not do - earlier this spring. But now we know that these earlier plans probably included this mime show of interest in front of the gullible press. I suppose the notorious paucity of post-retirement for most players in the NFL has driven him to this extraordinary shadow play. Even I, for brief periods of time, had some ridiculous notion that he would wear our green, finding that by doing so, I too was only covered in more feathers. Look on yourself, Jets fans. There are probably a few on you, too.

This House is Our Home (I Guess)

Recently I had a chance to drive by the Meadowlands and see the progress on our new stadium. (image from Baseball Fever, ironically enough) Its initial supports are raised, and with no one living within its reaches, there are no chances of urban crane accidents here. Incidentally, it has recently been christened "MetLife Stadium," one of many corporate logos the stadium will have over its first decade of use. Such a plan finally casts aside the illusion of permanence involved in the corporate naming and renaming of stadiums throughout the country. Cut to the chase, in other words: John Mara and Woody Johnson are paid to use these names and by these many names will parts of this house be known. As more than one science fiction writer has predicted, we are not too far off from the time when you can choose to corporately brand yourself, maybe even just so someone finally read your blog.

First, some background. You can gripe about sharing a stadium with the Giants, but as you'll see from this link, there is actually considerable precedent for strange bedfellows and stadium sharing in New York. If you already know the story, you can skip it, of course.

Isn't it a shame, though, that we didn't get our own stadium? Frankly, no. I don't know what we would have done with a midtown stadium, with its million dollar views and its high priced parking and victuals. As evidenced by the knuckle dragging cretinism of the slobs at Gate D, Jets fans don't really belong at an address anywhere near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Speaking as one myself, albeit from a considerable distance, the fans of the Gotham Football Club are falling further and further from the graces of basic civilization. (image taken from the Daily News) This shouldn't come as a shock to anyone who has also noted the increasing appeal of ultimate fighting. I also know football's not exactly for brain scientists, but the now upscale people living on the Lower West Side are grateful that no one will be asking them to remove their shirts to show us (under pain of being hit by beer bottles) their rack.

And isn't the West Side debacle just grist for the mill? Jets fans have always been a regretful lot by nature. I mean, what would we do without regret? We regret that we traded Bob Talamini to Boston in 1970. We regret letting John Riggins go in 1975. We regret hiring Lou Holtz. We regret not getting Walt Michaels psychiatric help when he needed it. We regret three-fourths of the Sack Exchange crossing the picket lines in 1987. We regret drafting Kenny O'Brien and not Dan Marino. We regret drafting Roger Vick, Johnny Mitchell, and Blair Thomas. We regret drafting Kyle Brady and not Warren Sapp. In fact, Jets fans show up at Radio City for the draft exclusively for the purpose of expressing their disappointment and regret in advance. We regret Dade County pulling up the tarp for a rain storm before the Mud Bowl.

We regret Pat Leahy missing a field goal in 1981. We regret Bill Belichick rejecting us in favor of New England, further compelling us to regret his very origin in this world. We regret Mo Lewis' hit on Drew Bledsoe. We regret Parcells' decision to have the Meadowlands changed back to artificial turf in 1999. We regret Joe Namath ever agreeing to speak with Suze Kolbert. We regret letting James Farrior go to Pittsburgh and Kevin Mawae to Tennessee. We regret drafting Kellen Clemens. We regret leaving Shea in the first place. The West Side Stadium itself is merely the Jets fan's imaginary Fortress of Regretful Solitude. We regret everything. When you don't have much to celebrate, you inundate yourself with the stories of Regret, the Janitor of Fate. Two missed field goals in the 2004 playoffs by Doug Brien still make me nauseous and dizzy, but at least that feeling lets me know I'm still alive. I'm a Jets fan.

So I can live with the sharing. But here's where I object. As I understand it, according to what's planned for the stadium, the technology is available and will be used to change the arena's colors and appearance from green to blue from game to game, its decorative holographic touches from Jets to Giants, depending on who is playing that day. (photo taken from Baseball Fever again) At the flick of a switch, you can have a Jets stadium or a Giants stadium. There is cynical truth implied in the stadium's scheduled name changes, and the changes of shades from green to blue belies this. These teams do not belong to the fans, but to Mara and Johnson, and so too does the stadium. The fans swarming into its surrounds are like their mice in the maze, being lead to through the various turns and gates, looking for familiar signs and, ultimately, to the metaphorical cheese, i.e., beer. Recall again what Horace Stoneham of the baseball Giants and Walter O'Malley of the Brooklyn Dodgers taught us 51 years ago. Teams don't belong to their fans. (Except in Green Bay.) I just hope none of the fans going in and out of its doors won't get fooled by the (G)iant-sized images of George Sauer accompanying them to the new Gate D. There's one of Spider Lockhart just behind it at the touch of a button. But imagine if someone pushes the wrong button....

Head Games

This morning, George Vescey - a writer predisposed to speak poorly of football, I think - made reference to a report in yesterday's Times about the Jets and head injuries. His usual blarney about "Why are we trying to make athletes into role models" interested me less than the fact that he seemed to suggest that the Jets were hiding something.

We know they're not hiding a secret for sustained winning. It's about injuries, and while the normally suspicious New York media already has had a special axe to grind with the morbidly silent Eric Mangini, apparently the matter is more serious than any of that. We know that the Jets organization does not allow players to talk about their own injuries to the media. Specifically, there are serious concerns about the way that the Jets handle matters of concussive injury.

Certainly in the NFL the problem is not the Jets' alone, yet the Jets' insistence on silence is complicated by the presence of their own physician. New York Times writer Alan Schwarz said Elliot Pellman, who oversees much of the team's health, has been a supportive of a less careful approach to concussion injuries within the team and around the NFL. Schwarz writes that "Dr. Pellman, until recently, led the National Football League’s commission on concussions, and he has been criticized by many medical experts for playing down the effects of concussions and for clearing players to return to the field too soon." The fact that Pellman is the primary consultant to a team with a history of losing receivers with Hall of Fame caliber like Al Toon and Wayne Chrebet, should give any Jets fan concern. Each of them retired because of compounded concussion injuries.

The article mentions the extraordinary losses Wayne Chrebet has felt to his ability to remember things. His permanent losses to his long-term and short-term memory since he left the Jets in 2005 have had a tremendous effect on his overall sense of well-being. Presently, Laveranues Coles has been affected by concussive injury, and while he has been sitting out the rest of this season for such injury, Schwarz reminds us that this was not the case late last year when, even after Coles suffered a serious concussion, the Jets still used him as a decoy against the Raiders as they tried to acquire a playoff spot. Crippling injuries are as common to football as they are in Rollerball, but the loss of one's mind in football is slightly different. As Schwarz points out, Pellman's lax attitude toward concussions - and Mangini's imposition of player silence on injuries - are characteristic of the entire NFL's (and the Players' Association's) attitude toward this same issue, even when generations of retired players are experiencing the same kind of long-term effects as those felt by Wayne Chrebet.

Are They Serious?

I'm at a loss here. Who broke the NFL rules? Who operates above the rules while appearing to embody the best characteristics of NFL coaching on "60 Minutes?" Is it necessary to posit Mangini as an equal villain in Belichick's unethical mess because it makes the drama more Shakespearean? The New England coach got what he plainly deserved. In a competitive business, what exactly does Mangini owe Belicheck? Nothing now. Does it matter that other coaches object to Mangini's actions? Not at all. Would they not have done the same had they the same background with Belichick that Mangini has? You better believe they would have.

But Selena Roberts of the Times actually suggests that Mangini is the Judas here. The New York Jets cannot win the battle of New York even when they are in the ethical right. The Times story accompanying Pennington's return this weekend was a footnote to their story of whoever it was replacing Sam Roberts in the secondary for the Giants. Business as usual, I guess.

Shades of the Darkness

So after all the fuss over whether or not the fans were cheering Chad Pennington's injury, the real scandal was underneath their scornful eyes the whole time. Belichikgate. What kind of fan would I be if I didn't feast on the slightly wounded, otherwise freakishly good killing machine that is the New England Patriots? In truth, the killing machine is only vaguely stunned. Nevertheless, I will muster some righteous, if not rambling indignation.

Bill Belichick, ladies and gentlemen. Schmuck. A graceless, paranoid, shabby little man. We all know that even without videotaping the defensive signals of "an opponent" (HELLO?! How come every article I read about this refers to the Jets as "an opponent?" Isn't J-E-T-S easier to spell??) the New England Patriots would still be able to beat most of the teams in the AFC. But the crucial question is whether or not Belichick feels the same way. It's his team, isn't it? Wherefore the confusion? If you have the best team in the NFL, then why the need to cheat?

The answer might be partially found in New England itself. My ex-friends who live there provide evidence of the strange and infectious mindset of the world the Puritans once called home. I still don't really think New Englanders (read: Bostonians) really know what to do with the Red Sox since they won the World Series. This is the area of America that had the greatest squad in any sports with the Boston Celtics of the 60's and 70's, yet it couldn't muster the decency to make Bill Russell - the greatest basketball player of the era - feel even slightly welcome. My own in-laws from Boston acted like my wife was too uppity when she accepted a scholarship to go Barnard rather do a co-op than Northeastern. This is an area of the world that subconsciously wants the ball to go through Bill Buckner's legs - a place that doesn't want success unless it's complicated by a simultaneous misery, like an annoying ringing in the ear that won't go away.

At last...a scandal worthy of the comparison to Watergate! OK, fine, but there is a little of Richard Nixon in Bill Belichick. Nixon didn't need to bug the Democratic Headquarters, just as Belichick didn't need to violate NFL policy and steal the Jets' signs. (I promise; I'm not just loving the analogy because the Jets are the underachieving McGovernites). The temptation to cheat probably became too intense when the ringing in Belichick's ear probably became too impossible for him to ignore. No level of greatness is enough; how could it be? There are enemies everywhere. Cheating's the only way to guarantee that they will consider him a real success.

There are several informal coaching schools throughout the game. There's the Walsh school, the Gibbs school, the Noll school. Belichick learned through Bill Parcells, and although cheating was probably beneath the Tuna's gargantuan ego, there is a well-known darkness about the old teacher that I'm sure he engendered in the pupil. I remember scenes of Parcells as Jets coach haranguing Belichick about his defensive coordinator calls right in the middle of the game. His insistent, nasty remarks at Belichick - even snippets of them - were insulting, really. I've never seen another head coach do that to his assistants with as much venom as Parcells did. Perhaps that insistent ringing in Belichick's ear is the lingering voice of Parcells himself - a man who insulted his first wife's intelligence on 60 Minutes while he was still married to her.

So no wonder Eric Mangini is a little weird. His characteristic secretiveness stems probably from a similarly regenerated darkness within Bill Belichick, the mentor who shook our coach's hand is if it were a slab of raw chicken. Let's hope the darkness doesn't catch up with Mangini, at least no more than is already evidenced by his obsessive silence with the normally curious press about his player's injuries.