Thus It Ends,...

And a great wave of relief washes through my system. Mike Nugent's field goal sails through the uprights. The Jets win, 13-10.

"Four and twelve!" I say, my arms raised in what can only be described as a seriously compromised sense of victory. My wife remains unmoved. But wait. Of course. A holding penalty on Wade Smith.

There is no undiluted pleasure. The play goes from being a 33 yard attempt to a 43 yard attempt. The idea of enduring the game much longer seems cruel, but then I've been here before. It's the end of another gruesome season. There have been several shots of a lone fan wearing a D'Brickshaw Ferguson jersey - standing on a seat, mind you - from the concrete peak of the Meadowlands, surveying with a restless sense of undiminished purpose the conclusion of a meaningless game against a Chiefs team that has lost eight straight games. (If only Miami had been in their division, but then Kansas City is coached by Herman Edwards, and my sympathy dies there. Ha.) So few fans actually came to the game that the announcers speculated with uncharacteristic savvy that it was possible that CBS' cameras had panned across the man in the #60 jersey as many as six separate times.

Mike Nugent's field goal sails through the uprights. The Jets win, 13-10. Thus it ends, and a great wave of relief washes through my system.

"Four and twelve!" I say, my arms raised in what can only be described as a seriously compromised sense of victory. My wife remains unmoved.

****

It has been a ponderously dull season. Maybe it's because I went off Paxil four months ago. Maybe it's just that football in general has become less important in light of the existential funk into which I fell when someone in my family died young and unexpectedly in early December. Maybe my job has just been bothering me too much. Maybe that fucking dog that my neighbor leaves alone to bark and whine day in and night out in the apartment next door to mine makes me perpetually insane with anxious rage.

In Philadelphia, an unpleasant pallor has colored the complexions of most Eagles fans. They are angry with Andy Reid for being a bad parent or a bad coach or both. They are angry with Donovan McNabb because he is getting old. Should the Eagles really have kept Jeff Garcia and sent Donovan to the Bucs? Hardly. If they were Jets fans, they would have had plenty of similar disappointments, watching as we have all kinds of former favorites going to the Pro Bowl wearing someone else's helmet.

To be fair, this hasn't been a good year to enjoy athletes in America. Of late, they seem like an unpleasant manifestation of all the things we dislike about a society that we seem unable to change. Perhaps in them we see the bloated sense of entitlement that comes to people who possess power and money in the United States who also want to shirk responsibility for their actions and ideas.

The plain truth is that the glaring disparities between the classes in America leave us loathing and envying those who possess more than they will ever need. Professional athletes only get to the top through hard work and practice. Theirs is hard work. No one would question that. It comes down to money. Glaring up at these high-paid performers makes us wonder if we'll ever get there, especially since many of us - me, actually - work our asses off in work that will always underpay us, not overpay us. Such is the American economic status quo. We grind away, buying on credit, living with minimal health coverage, placing our standard of living at risk. Meanwhile the extravagantly paid gods in American sports play out the contradictory allegories of our age. This is how we roll.

I read somewhere this year (you know you're reading a blog when a sentence begins that way) that contentment runs statistically high among northern European countries because their populations go through the day with low expectations for happiness and success. I'm sure this also means a high rate of suicide attempt, but, well, whatever... My point is that being a Jets fan means having low expectations. I feel bad for Philly fans - their expectation for high performance is labored with a self-involved cynicism that somehow always means that they are right - even when they're unhappy (especially when they're unhappy). That's not living with limited expectations; that's wallowing in misery. I've made that point often on these pages, and I'll keep it mind as the real-life miseries of the winter compound. As my wife pointed out to me, the Jets cannot lose next week. There is that.

Tonight, We Are All Giants Fans

I wouldn't say this if I didn't mean it. We are all united today. Just take a look at the logos in the corners of this snapshot if you don't believe me (as if Giants fans would be comfortable with that!) I trust that if it were the Cowboys who were unbeaten going 15-0 against the Jets, the Giants would feel the same. It was a good game, but going ahead of the Patriots is always a bad idea. Ask Philly. Ask Baltimore. Don't ask the Jets because they have never had that luxury against the Pats this year.

Gets

What did I get for Christmas? Thanks for asking! Yes, I did get the vintage Joe Namath jersey. I am very happy about that. There are so many things for which I might have asked on the festive holiday. And a good thing, too. Every year's end - often to settle my mind over a particularly sad, dull season - I find myself shopping for some kind of Holy Grail on Ebay that will make me feel better. Often these things are vintage NFL or New York Jets items whose value could only be real to the real fan - and even then, there is nothing about being a real fan that can justify purchasing any of this stuff.

Here's a sample, not in any order:

Someday, someday, baby, I'll buy the NFL Thermos circa 1976 with the newly enfranchised Seattle and Tampa Bay teams in the wrong conferences. I saw this thing at a church sale in the middle of Lancaster, Pennsylvania about ten years ago, and I've never forgiven myself since for not picking it up. I was too afraid of what the people traveling with me would think. Can you imagine? How stupid.


First of all, it needs to be said that when Shell Oil did their NFL smoked drinking glass giveaways between 1971 and '73, they did it just before OPEC starting biting America in the ass. It seems that when every red meat-eating American filled up at the pump, he got a drinking glass with his favorite team (or whichever team was playing locally) printed on the side in white. This is not to be mistaken with Sunoco's 1972 NFL sticker book giveaway, which was cooler. The smoked drinking glasses were given away when people promiscuously drank hard alcohol (which was advertised promiscuously, too). Out of rounded smoked drinking glasses, apparently. It was an era I just missed by a generation when drinking and driving could still be associated. Americans have been trying to sell these at garage sales ever since. Go on Ebay right now and you'll see people practically giving them away. As for me, no thank you. I could find some at a flea market.

Then there's gems. These were also gas station giveaways. I drank milk - whole milk, of course - out of these suckers. In the 80's, my brother had a Giants one and I had the Jets. They're actually quite brittle. Too many washings and it's back to the Mobil station for another pair.

I had this baby in the 70's - a Welch's Jelly glass with the 1976 AFC Central Division logos on them. I think we owned the AFC East as well. That would make sense. But we didn't eat that much jelly, and frankly the Welch's people sold us short on these given the year's previous ones, with all of the conference helmets on them. Now those I unashamedly bought off Ebay eight years ago. I offer no excuses or explanations.

Do I need a used 1970's rubber plastic rain parka? I cannot imagine that it would stand up to another lousy, rain-drenched game. Which one did this last endure? The 43-0 home drubbing to the Dolphins in 1975? Hmmm.

Tempting, but no. What are they? These are early 70's commemorative lids to bottles of Gatorade. "Ah, I remember that particular bottle of Gatorade. I drank it while waxing my Torino." Indeed, sir. That's why the smell of Turtle Wax always makes you think of the St. Louis Cardinals football team. And cars that get 12 miles to the gallon. Interesting item, but what would you do with these, except keep them in drawer where they will clang together with that jar lid sound. Do you put them on display?

I owned a hat like this one. But don't be fooled. This is a new wool hat fused with an old logo taken off an old hat. However, I recognize the sewed-on circular "Jets" emblem. It's not even accompanied by the actual Jets logo. Can you imagine such a time when such little care was given to NFL merchandising? Ah, innocence.

Who buys the pre-season prospectus for the 1975 season? What's the point? I can tell you how the '75 season went without consulting the prospectus. 3-1l. They went 5-0 in the '75 preseason, and everybody thought they'd compete for the division title. Then they tanked, like so many seasons before and after. Is this supposed to be some veiled joke at the crushed expectation of the Jets fan? We cannot give that much credit to the seller. That would be too inside a joke. It's just something an old season tickets holder had lying around in his basement. How sad.


Look, there are just some things I'm never going to experience. Buying the prospectus is not going to create a different outcome for the 1975 season. Nor am I going to be able to recapture the pure, childlike wonder that I felt upon entering into the world of being a Jets being a fan in the mid-1970's - as terrible a time to enter into Gangreendom as any. I will also never persuade the New York City Parks Commission to reinstall the hard plastic colored ceiling to the Tent of Tomorrow at the old Fairgrounds at Flushing Meadow Corona Park. The Jets are not moving back to to Queens, either. These things are gone forever, over a long time ago.

Still, in those dark moments at night when I cannot sleep, maybe - just maybe - having the 1977 New York Jets Media Guide will be like having a security blanket nearby. Don't you agree?

Go Jints

Every time I have written in support of whichever team is playing the New England Patriots, the outcome has been a New England win. That must be why the Patriots are undefeated.

How about the NFL's decision to broadcast the final game of the Giants' season. When I was a kid, one of the treats of the end of the football season was Saturday games. No college football, only pro games on Saturday. Much ill has been made of the NFL Network, and knowing the NFL, the network's decision to keep competitive games toward the end of the season within their clutches will stay in place next year. But apparently John Kerry threatened to have Senate hearings to discuss the matter of the network's existence, so now the game will be seen by all this Saturday. Kerry's constituents will have a chance to see the game after all. Hearings called off. False alarm. Who better to extort the billion dollar league than the Federal Government?

Man, I hope the Giants win.

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.

A Farewell to Arms

We know Chad Pennington became a backup quarterback and remained thus (despite having a better QB rating than his younger colleague) until Kellen Clemens became injured in last week's game. We know that one way or the other, it makes no real difference. I want a new set of options for arms.

Tis the season for giving. I give you the best reassurances I can offer:

- The New York Jets lost 20-10, not by an atrocious total, and it would have been 13-10 had Kellen Clemens not thrown an injury-rendering pass to the Patriots for an easy touchdown. Again - none of these are in any order.

- Yes, the New England Patriots have San Francisco's draft pick next year, but the Jets have never done anything so worthwhile with the draft such that we need to bemoan this cosmic injustice. The Jets may yet finish with the same record as the Niners, and maybe they will steal the Patriots' pick, and not the other way round.

- The Jets did not lose to Miami, nor did they give up the Buccaneers' first kickoff return for a touchdown. They were also not victims of the New York Mets' first no-hitter. Thank goodness.

- Thomas Jones will gain 1,000 yards before the end of this season. Jerricho Cotchery will as well. You will find their names on lists.

- Joe Namath finally received his Bachelor's Degree from the University of Alabama this past week.

- David Harris deserves consideration for Rookie of the Year. Stop laughing.

- The New York (football) Titans' uniforms are spectacular reminders that the New York Jets' green and white remains one of the classiest in the game. I can't believe I just said that, but I did. I mean, can you possibly take the Vikings' monochrome home uniforms seriously? Holy God. They look like something Mummenshauntz would wear (below).

- Kerry Rhodes remains tied with six other players for seventh place in the NFL with five interceptions. Number one draft choice Revis has four. Who says the draft doesn't (kind of) work?

- We are not in last place, nor will we by the end of the season.

- In a year when Devin Hester is described as a human miracle, Leon Washington - who did not get into the Pro Bowl (no Jet did) - may tie a record for kickoff returns in one season. He is the Jets MVP, justifiably. As you can see, he thanks the Man Upstairs. It will suffice for me to thank you, Leon.

That's ten. So even in the season of tremendous disappointment, there is reason to be thankful. If I tried hard enough, I could think of one more, but to be honest, it would be too much of a stretch. There are other struggles with which I must contend before the holiday comes. I'm hoping that someday I'll find the Joe Namath sideline parka with the #12 on the front that I should have bought on sale years ago. No luck on Ebay. I might blow $125 on a NFL Throwbacks Namath jersey, which isn't so bad when I consider that the new couch we tried to have delivered to our apartment just barely did not fit into out unit, and we were forced to give it away, in this case to a local women's shelter. It's a tax write-off. It's been just exactly that kind of football season.

Let It Snow

The hopes of geriatric Dolphins and anyone else who loves the game of football rest on the Jets' ground game (smile quietly to yourself) and a wealth of snow to prevent Randy Moss from catching ridiculously open touchdown passes. That being said, is there really any reason why I should invest actual hope? No.

My sense of outrage over being hoodwinked and bamboozled by the cheating Patriots has long since passed. This entire football season has been a remarkable contrast to our last, with few surprises, few sublime moments. The Patriots are also 9-0 with heavy snowfall on the ground. My experience as a high school teacher leads me to believe that when you hope a lot for snow, you rarely get enough to close school.

The alternative to these basic realities are too awesome to contemplate, a little to much for a week of hell for my heart to entertain. No thank you. Just Endeavor To Score.

...or Not

The other alternative is to enjoy the pictures of the Titans of New York, hoopling up the largest margin of victory over the Dolphins this year. Ah well. I hope that it is at least understood that my primary concern is with the Patriots, whom I loathe beyond all human understanding. So, Monday Night...(sigh)...go, Baltimore Col- uh, Ravens. I mean Ravens. Go Ravens.


The funny part is that now everybody says Miami deserves to go winless. Word is that if you give up 40 points to the Jets, you deserve to go 0-16. Well, maybe so.

Of Flesh and Fish

I'm not alone in thinking this one of the less gratifying football seasons in years. It began with Michael Vick, I think; it continued with the bleakly efficient but shady Patriots living well beyond even the best expectations for their season; it has gruesomely continued with Sean Taylor's untimely death at his Miami home. Even if you're not a Jets fan, it seems like professional football only heightens America's compulsion to cannibalize itself.

One of the other disarming oddities of the year has been the failure of the Miami Dolphins. I'm aware of how many games they've lost only by a mere three points (including a loss to the Jets), but the point is that of all the seasons to lose every game, regardless of how many points decide it, they have managed it in a season when the Patriots might break the 1972 Dolphins' unbeaten record. The Jets might seem lackluster bystanders in all of this, except for the fact that they are playing the Fish this week.

It feels wrong to feel any real compassion for the Dolphins. They made a mockery of the Jets in the 1970's. They left the tarp off the field before the Mud Bowl in January 1983. They jump-started the Jets' famous collapse in 1994 with Dan Marino's Fake Spike. This is a franchise that has a richer playoff and championship experience than the Jets have had (that could describe a lot of teams) but Miami has also found the Jets to be an enormous challenge year by year, and it's always been fun to watch them struggle against us. And when things go wrong for the Jets, as they have this season, beating Miami has always been an oddly satisfying consolation.

So two cheers for the Dolphins. I feel confident that the Jets will stumble, and if they do, it will be an oddly satisfying moment. The Jets have also taken their pound of flesh of Fish. They registered a winning streak against them from 1978-81 even when the Dolphins did better overall. Indeed the Dolphins have often been nettled by the Jets the way that Tom was by Jerry. Throughout, beating them has always made me feel better about being a Jets fan. No matter what, our friends in the Sunshine State have always had to take their friends in the north seriously - especially when too many of those Floridians were transplanted New Yorkers who became Dolphin fans. At least a win against them could make you feel better about the lost season.

When Jerry noticed that the local neighborhood dog had gotten the best of Tom, he went out of his way to thwart the bully canine so that Tom could go back to tormenting him. Why not allow them to avoid the shame of being winless during the Patriots' perfect season by playing Jerry to their Tom? After all, we aren't going anywhere this year. Dolphins fans will always be grateful to us for that.