We Hardly Knew Ye. We Hardly Cared.

Well, we cared a little. We cared enough to believe. I wanted to believe. And now the dream, such as it was, is over. It was a brief relationship, and like many that fly by in our lifetime, this one is going to seem surreal yet inconsequential in the long run. It will ultimately be more embarrassing to Brett Favre than it was to the Jets, and I cannot imagine any team taking a page from our book and signing Brett on. This whole thing never seemed right from the start, like Cher and Gregg Allman, like Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts, like Ernest Borgnine and Ethel Merman. How vain were we? Perhaps as vain as Brett Favre himself.

It's time to make some things clear, though:

1. The man's name is mispronounced. Everybody knows it. Nobody wants to admit it. It's French. He should be "Fav-re." That's always bothered me. The fact that only the Farrelly brothers have been willing to say it aloud just makes it worse.

2. Even if another owner smokes enough crack to allow him to play again, Favre will not (God will have to strike me down out of rage if I'm wrong) - repeat will not - bring any team to the Super Bowl. It cannot happen. It will not happen. He will just chuck the ball in the air all over again, with the same care and accuracy as, say, I would. He and I are the same age, after all.

3. He will not return. Not just because no one will have him, but because the more demure, modest, quiet withdrawal from the game this time probably signifies a sincere desire on his part. The torn muscle in his arm was a gift to him and to us. It enabled him to save face and walk away. It enabled us to believe - correctly - what we have all secretly known for months: that he is not the player he once was. So this time there were no operatic press conferences acting as dress rehearsals for a curtain call or three. He has lived to think differently, and so have we.

If you, or a friend of yours, can responsibly and efficiently lead an offense with a good front line, a moderately talented receiving corps and a strong backfield, please let Rex Ryan know. The team you save may be my own.

REX !!!!

I don't know if I'm feeling the endorphins kicking in after a particularly grueling season or whether I'm just a complete cockeyed ass/Jets fan, but when I read the news that Rex Ryan was our next coach, and considered the implications for the next few years with this football team, I became nearly happy. Yes. Not just encouraged, but happy. Usually the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl are spent in preparation for the enormous letdown that is the Super Bowl (last year excluded) and its aftermath. But here I am - not just buoyed by the absence of George W. Bush from the White House but positively pleased that Rex Ryan is our Head Coach. After waiting 21 days for the announcement, I have come to the conclusion that this is awesome news.

Why? I don't know. I liked Steve Spanguolo. I wondered why nobody called Jim Fassel, too. I had the abused partner's second and third thoughts about bringing the Tuna back into the house. But this is great.

Yes, it might just be the euphoria one feels early on in a new relationship, either with a significant other or a pet (no, it's different this time; I'm really going to take care of this one; I am!), but Ryan's optimism on defense - an area of the game with which the Jets have sketchy history, Sack Exchange and all - has made me feel rejuvenated. According to the Times' coverage of Ryan's press conference, the new coach referred to Darrelle Revis as the best cornerback in football. Really? Well,...OK! Sure! “I just knew that this was where I wanted to be,” he is quoted as saying. Really? Here? Here. OK. Want a tour of Hell yet? You do? Alrighty, come on in.

One of the things I notice in the coverage of his hiring is that Rex Ryan apparently wants Brett Favre back for next season, which, if you read the article above, is not really what he's saying. He said he would welcome Brett back. He didn't say he wanted Favre. It's a careful way of saying, "Not yes but not no," which, as far as I can tell, means no. You have to welcome him back the way you welcome Nixon to a banquet with the understanding that he's a potential eyesore with a bad track record, but he's an historical icon all the same. What are you going to do? Gods don't answer letters, as Updike suggested of Teddy Ballgame, but they don't need invitations, either. I don't like our odds on offense next year, but then I don't like them with or without Brett Favre. What's more, my only worry (at the present time)is that Ryan will carry over the Ravens' long-standing disdain for the position of quarterback. This year was a lucky strike with Joe Flacco, but it's been too many years since they cheated Trent Dilfer out of a job while trying to pointlessly disprove Vince Lombardi's old assertion that football's weakness is an over-reliance on the QB. But I digress slightly. I don't think Rex Ryan wants Brett Favre back, any more than Brett Favre actually wants to return to the Jets. I don't think either man smokes cheebah, much less the quantity required for such thinking.

And the Haters? Those of Whom We Do Not Speak? Here's the Boston Herald taking a gentle swipe at the selection. They speak as if they never had to cover a sports team that couldn't coach Jim Plunkett, that let Chuck Fairbanks go off to Colorado, that let the guy from Norelco mishandle a sexual harassment case in the Patriot locker room, that hired Dick MacPherson (sorry about that one, Charlie), that couldn't manage a much better winning average than the Jets had until the day Bill Belichick chose them over the Jets. They're like a bunch of shanty Irish pretending to be lace curtain or descendants of Mayflower. Having gone to college in New England from 1987 to 1991, during which the New England Patriots went 29-50, I remember them a little differently.

How differently? I was a sophomore at my small Catholic college in Rhode Island when my friends and I decided that our collective frustrations with the meal plan, the lack of sex, the local TV, all-night studying and general boredom could only be relieved by a gorging at the Burger King located across the street from the local U-Stor-It, which had to be greeted with one of us starting to say, in a Rhode Island accent:

"You stawh-vit."

Answered by:

"Nah, you fackin stawh-vit."

And so on. Repeat. For hours of fun. Inside this Burger King were ceiling-to-floor black and white photographs of New England sports celebrities, courtesy of the moment. There, accompanying our deep, fat-rich dinners, were the Boston Celtics of that heralded era like Larry Bird, Robert Parrish, Denis Johnson, and Kevin McHale. Then there were the larger-than-life Red Sox like Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Mike Greenwell, Oil Can Boyd. And the Patriots? A single old shot from the mid-70's of Steve Grogan.

"God," said my floormate Mickey from Chelmsford, Mass. "Fuckin' Pats. They just suck it."

******

But I digress, less slightly this time. Here's the rub. Read Ryan on his defense's new philosophy:

“If you take a swipe at one of ours, we’ll take two swipes at one of yours."

Well. I see. Now that took me aback, or took me back a little. Who does that sound like to you? Is that supposed to sound like somebody I know? Well, the first thing I thought of was a pudgy little gnome from hell who was once a defensive coordinator for the Jets in Super Bowl III and the Bears in Super Bowl XX. There are two things Philadelphia is known for, in the strictly sporting sense: 1) Booing Santa Claus, 1968 and 2) A coach who put a hit on the opposing quarterback, 1988. Buddy Ryan. A Billy Carter look-alike whose sense of comfort owes its charm from ancient Rome's taste for criminal law.

I was probably about three days behind everyone else when I realized that Rex was Buddy's son, and that the sense of satisfaction I took above in Rex Ryan was a Jungian archetype of primal rage that Philadelphians relish sentimentally when they think of Buddy Ryan and the Body Bag Game. And now I'm a little less happy. Now I'm back to normal.

As Mangini is banished, the housecleaning commences, and Brett Favre's departure on the horizon, why not take time to reflect on the lady's question.

Dolphins 24 Jets 17

There is nothing left to be said, other than the fact that I'll be watching the playoffs with a lower blood pressure. This has actually been a fascinating football season. There were so many unexpected performances, so many normally given factors that went lame or dry. It was a fantasy football nightmare. It will make for a great playoffs.

The hardest part of watching the Jets lose was listening to Phil Simms make his post-mortem, his can-you-believe-that-this-team-was-8-and-3-a-few-weeks-ago?
Yes, Phil. I can. If you want to fill the space in a slow fourth quarter, then just keep talking about how the Jets lost four of their last five. It's been a tough year. Keep talking about it. Who would have believed that the tables would have been reversed - Favre out and Pennington in? Well, I guess would have. In my harshest nightmares.

In the midst of it, my wife said, "Fuck you, Phil Simms. Who would have thought when you walked down the aisle of your wedding day that your marriage would someday collapse. You didn't."

Here I reflected aloud whether or not Phil Simms was actually divorced. I believe he is happily married. My wife, undaunted, laptop in front of her, took a few minutes and then readjusted.

"Who'd have thought in 1994 that Phil Simms would still not be in the Hall of Fame by 2008."

Not me, I said.

The New York Jets are a young team with enormous potential for the future, but they will have a bigger quarterback problem than the one they had this summer. They will - I hope - have a new coach by then, too. It should be an interesting next season, culminating in what will be the last game in a stadium that the Jets will be sharing, not borrowing, from the Giants. As always with we Jets fans, it's the little things. And though I am absolutely heartbroken, I have plenty of experience with this. I'll be fine, and so will the Jets. Our curious adventure together will continue, with all of the expected pit stops in purgatory and hell.

And finally, the ridiculous Philadelphia Eagles are in the playoffs after showing America that America's Team is just a bunch of idiot circus clowns. But, above all, I thank the God of my youth that Those Of Whom We Do Not Speak will stay home this January. The Jets' victory over them in an earlier part of the season (a happier time) was one piece of Jenga off the Patriot pile. It's the little things.

Death By Pennington

When he was first drafted by the Jets in 2000, Chad Pennington was praised by none other than Randy Moss, who said that Chad, with whom he played at Marshall, was the best quarterback he had ever seen. Up until that point, that appraisal had included Brad Johnson and Randall Cunningham. Since then, it's hardly possible that Moss would put Pennington up against Tom Brady, but not even Randy Moss could possibly have predicted Chad's success in Miami. Perhaps Chad could have, just as Bill Parcells and Tony Sparano perhaps did. Even then, I didn't.



(Image from Fox. Remember when it wasn't imbued with stupid, ridiculous irony?)



This week was spent in and around New York Jets football with recriminations about Brett Favre's work in a Jets uniform. The tone of discussion has either identified Favre as a snake oil salesman coming to town with a miracle aid for an incurable malady or as a mismatched, delusional idealist whose glory heretofore could not prepare him for the fatal trap, like the one Che Guevara found in Bolivia. Either way, the movie originally written for an old man's last great ride has turned out to be about about an underachieving nice guy who rises to the occasion with his old team's nemesis and wins the whole thing. One presumes that the "whole thing" in this case is the AFC East, but then it's been a strange year, so who can really say where the story will all end up?

Well, I can. I believe it's called Death by Pennington. It's a helpless home team that runs the ball through the middle and throws dinky passes into dead ends when playing a defense that is designed to handle just such an approach. This week, in the spirit of wondering what went wrong in advance, many writers who were originally ebullient about Favre's arrival in New York have lately been pointing out disappointed Favre probably is by his experiment, and some even wonder if he'll return to Green Bay, as if nothing had ever happened. Enter the Prodigal Son.

Let me not point fingers or dissemble. Instead, I would like to track my own reactions to the dawning of Brett Favre in the Tri-State area. Written here are the basic human desires for doubt and faith, to believe and to be transcended.

I first conjured the idea of Favre playing for the Jets on March 18 of this year when I discussed a #18 in our past, Sanjay Beach, an absolutely unknown person in NFL history except that he was Brett Favre's first completed pass recipient. (The first person to whom Brett Favre actually threw a pass was himself. No joke.) Here I spoke as a fan of a team that might have drafted Brett Favre back in 1991 but did not. I wasn't drafted out of college by anyone in 1991 either.

"Would that Brett Favre had been with us, too."

I suppose. But I was just imagining something altogether immaterial. It was just another side in a game of What if... I've been playing for nearly more than 30 years. Even Brett himself has suggested that had he been drafted by the Jets in 1991, the harsh mistress of New York might have killed a country boy from deep below the Mason-Dixon.

Exhibit two: On July 11, while examining the life and work of a seemingly imponderable number of Rob Carpenters in and around the Jets and the NFL in general, I explained to myself my own confusion with the following:

"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."

Ah, but was there a quarterback problem? Was there really the risk of Laos and Thailand and Australia falling to Communism if Vietnam did? Sometimes it seemed so, yes. But as for Brett Favre, I took to the words of advice from Angel Navedo, the metaphorical George Ball in this argument. Just before preseason, I did feel Favre's value was overstated. Exhibit three - as late as August 6, I said:

"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 (blogs). 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."

Two days later, Brett Favre was a Jet. And like the trained fan, I already wondered about some catch in the deal. We all secretly wondered. Favre himself questioned what have I gotten myself into? One presumes that he has the answer to that question now. But regardless, even then we wondered, was Favre going to leave the Jets as quickly as he came? On August 8, I wondered:

"Brett is here to stay. To stay. Right? Right?

"Maybe."

And in preparation for week one, I offered a tribute to Chad Pennington's past experiences in a green uniform, a poetic ode meant to praise and not bury - although that didn't convince a Marshall fan who commented on my epic ode.

"And now we meet you on opening day;
I will root against you, though I must say
We owe you at least this grateful adieu -
We will likely fare no better than you."

But I didn't really believe it. Surely the Jets would do better than the Dolphins. That seemed certain. I did figure that the Jets would drop one game to Miami, but I didn't think they wouldn't lose a spot to the Fish in the division. And now, provided Favre's Jets can play a little bit better than Pennington's Dolphins tomorrow, the final couplet in my ode may yet turn out to be correct. Prescience is a bitch, though. Not even I, a Jets fan, could have believed it would be this ironic.

Seahawks 10 Jets 3

after Auden:

Shut off the TV, turn off my phone,
I'd rather now be just left alone.
I'll now keep my visage green and glum;
Bring out the coffin, the season's done.

Brett Favre's now throwing whate'er o'erhead
Scribbling on the sky this pass is dead.
No matter what comes of sweat and blood,
We've got as much shot as Elmer Fudd.

They are AFC East, belov'd best
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My 1pm, my 4pm song;
This season seemed hopeful: I was wrong.

Chad Pennington is really the man;
A great gift for my enemy's fans,
We strove for glory with Brett Favre's name.
But the result was much of the same.

Jets 31 Bills 27

This is one of those games where I recite beforehand, This is going to be one of those games. And it turns out to be exactly that. One of those games.

(photo "courtesy" of the New York Times)

As a boy I was lulled into a stupor about the Buffalo Bills; the Jets won five of six from Buffalo from 1976-78. The Bills were the only team that the Jets could beat the snot out of time after time. Since then, the Bills have been about as easy to handle as the Vietcong. Bill Simpson intercepts in the '82 Wild Card game. Nine consecutive losses in the Jim Kelly era. Lee Evans shredding our secondary for enormous touchdowns the past couple of years. It's never consoling when I tell myself Buffalo has won one less Super Bowl than the Jets. It's consoling when I think of the Bengals, the Saints, the Falcons, and the Cardinals of course. But not the Bills. We've lost too much dignity to that stark city of the white north whose architecture appears like a string of remnants from a lost city you learn about on the History Channel.

This game just dragged on and on. It started with my wife and I doing some Sunday shopping that overlapped with the game's start. The Jets immediately went up 14-3. (Is Thomas Jones the Jets MVP? Maybe. Is Brett Favre? NO!! NO!! I was happy to see some sportswriters considering Kris Jenkins as a possible MVP for the entire league. He's like a very mobile home with legs.) So I felt comfortable driving home, listening to my wife give the updates from her BlackBerry. No sweat. Well hell, I think to myself, what have I been thinking? It's not going to be one of those games. No sir. No way.

Second quarter, 14-10 Jets. Hm.

This is after we've gone to the gym earlier in the morning. We are a mile from home, and suddenly my wife says something about wanting a donut. I think I want a donut. OK, fine. But does she actually want a donut? I mean, really? or does she just say that she wants one but the subject won't even come up again? Because I'll eat a donut. But this might be one of those moments when I'll say sure, hell yeah, I want a donut, and she'll say, oh, actually, no, no, I was just saying that I wanted one aloud. Just to, y'know, air that out. And then I feel foolish.

"OK, here's the deal," she says. "If the Jets are still ahead, then we'll get a donut."

I nod. I like those odds. I feel like I'm about to get a donut.

But then I get that feeling. A familiar sinking that accompanies a game against Buffalo. (I'm trying to imagine a scenario whereby I root for Buffalo anywhere anytime. It's not coming to me. I remember laughing under my breath watching them go down to the Cowboys in Super Bowl Whatever in 1993, and the Cowboys are, to me, like a President you feel no problem throwing a shoe at. Or two shoes. Then the following year, my wife and I watched the two teams repeat in the next Super Bowl. We watched from what she called the Little Boy Bed. We had been dating about six months back then, and I was pointlessly clinging to both bachelorhood and Catholicism - neither of which was ever particularly good to me - with a single bed in my studio apartment. Back then she didn't even like football. She asked with a bland interest for whom she should be rooting. I answered that I honestly didn't know and that I didn't care. Now we both love football. Both. It took another season for her to fall under its sweet, terrible spell. Now, 15 years later, here she is wanting a donut on the condition the Jets are winning.)

"Shit!" she exclaims. "They're losing." Buffalo up by three.

"Screw it!" I yell. "We're getting that donut. I want a coffee roll!"

"So do I!"

"Yes!"

Screw it, I thought. Screw the Jets and their insane cruelties. I mean, never mind that later on I nearly choked on my coffee roll while watching Leon Washington go off tackle for 47 yards and touchdown. (If Bruce Harper had been shot with gamma ray radiation, he would have been Leon Washington.) They have toyed with my desires long enough. Indulge and live while you can. Chad Pennington is the best rated QB anywhere. The world is upside down, but whichever way, the Jets are always down. Have your coffee roll. Get a Big Boy Bed. Life is short.

****

To conclude, though:

- I don't know if Abram Elam has reformed his life, made amends, or fixed what he needed to. I do know that he is having a great season.

- When they brought Brett Favre on to quarterback my beloved team, I envisioned, in the worst case scenario, all his countless, irresponsible, wasteful interceptions heaved into the air without a single thought while playing for Green Bay. Brett's deep pass into double coverage intended for Jerricho Cotchery in the third quarter was just that kind of daydreamed disaster come to life.

- Then, there was the moment where we had to watch the Jets getting pushed as a person pile into their own end zone by Fred Jackson. This produced the physical reaction pictured to the left. For several consecutive plays afterwards it appeared as though the New York Jets - a fully accredited professional football team from the American Football Conference of the NFL - could not tackle a single Buffalo player. It was horrifying.

And when it was all over, the word around the TV tables continued unabated: the Jets got away with a win. They won't beat the Dolphins in two weeks. How can they possibly win on the West Coast when they've shown that they can't, y'know, really do that? The haters, the doubters are out with a flourish. They know it all. They spell the death of my team for the 2008 season. It's only a matter of time. Having seen Frost/Nixon this past weekend, I have finally found my Venn Diagram overlap with Tricky Dick in the priceless moment in the film where Frank Langella's Nixon has an apocryphal 11th hour drunken phone conversation with Michael Sheen's David Frost. Nixon says, with mistaken solidarity, "We're gonna make those motherf!@#$ers CHOKE on it!!" Fused to my core is this selfsame feeling of twisted, wounded entitlement. Damn you all. Give me my donut.

49ers 24 Jets 14

Despite the strangeness of his voice and what my wife calls his weird name, Cris Collinsworth is a likable, smart character as Sunday talking heads go. He was too articulate and calm to stay on CBS-now-FOX, too clearly intelligent to fit in on NBC-now-CBS. And how long can he possibly last as a normalizing influence at a table of psychological air vortexes like Bob Costas and Keith Olbermann? This is the man who was forced to deal with Bryant Gumbel (my college graduation speaker, of course) last year when Gumbel called the Thursday night NFL Network games, although they sometimes did not seem to be the games Gumbel was hired to call. Patient and enduring, Collinsworth has always kind of been a favorite of mine. But then I actually like John Madden, so what do I know?

Collinsworth was the only one in the pregame to pick the Jets over the Broncos in the 1999 AFC Championship. Two weeks ago he said that the Jets and the Giants looked like they were going to the Super Bowl. But this week, after the Jets' offense spent five minutes on the field while their defense was unable to control Shaun Hill, Collinsworth had to reverse course, expressing a righteous indignation at being fooled by the Jets. "They're done," he said. Collinsworth spoke with the realization that his table mates would be instructed by NBC programmers to pile onto him. We're supposed to believe that these pregame talking heads are just like dirty college fellows in a dirty college dorm room, putting off their late-night studying for Monday morning exams by ordering food from the local grinder shop and berating one another for failed predictions of a Sunday nearly done. "Who was the idiot who said the Jets would go to the Super Bowl? Who was the dummy who said that Brett Favre would throw more yards than Chad Pennington?"

(Frankly, NBC's Hockey Night in Canada can never hope to replicate the original, persistently intoxicated repartee of the original dummies - Cosell, Gifford and Meredith, crystallized here in pregame mode for a 1973 Steelers-Dolphins game on Monday Night Football. Cosell first comments on "Jefferson Street" Joe Gilliam [apparently a black quarterback was still so exotic he needed a boxer's nickname] filling in for Terry Bradshaw:

Cosell: "BLACK QUARTERBACK. Look at 'im! In there. Til the last possible moment."

Then, Gifford and Dandy Don on the latter's missing mustache:

Gifford: You look funny.
Meredith: I am funny.

What's advertised on 1973 TV before the kickoff? Schlitz, Schick, and Gillette's "Dry Look" for all you fellows who've had the wet head for too long. Then, back to the game, we see an actual prayer recited on the field before the kickoff [this is Great God's America after all], and then Meredith corrects Gifford on who is singing the National Anthem. They are hammered.)

But I would like to thank Collinsworth for allowing himself to be set straight. To be fair, Collinsworth and a whole nation of football fans know nothing about the behavior of the New York Jets in December. How can they know better? Let's clear things up then. Witness, gentle friends, the extent of December's plagues on the Jets:

1970, 1976: 0-3
1971, 1975, 1977, 1978: 1-3

In '74 and '79, the Jets managed three consecutive wins to end December, compelling an otherwise unknowing world to predict a Jets' division championship for the following season. Futile.

The trend continues into the 80's, including that 1986 season when the Jets lost five straight, three in a row in December. With or without the help of scabs, the Jets did the exact same thing again in 1987. Then they managed to go 1-3 in 1989 and 1-3 in 1991 after an impressive 7-5 start. Or how about the great collapse of 1994 that began with Marino's Fake Spike and ended five losses later at season's end, three of which came in December? Do the Kotite years even count? You bet! The Jets did not win a single December game during those two seasons. In this century, the Jets have been 1-3 in 2000, with a weird pattern of a 2-3 in the Decembers of 2001, '03, '05, and '07.

Granted, these statistics represent a norm that can be found in a variety of teams' experiences. But I'm thinking here about clarifying things for all the nice people who speak hopefully and helpfully to me during the day about the Jets going to the playoffs. It's not their fault for trying to be friendly. They talk up the Jets because they know that if all else fails at least they can have a polite and encouraging conversation with me about my football team. It's kind, really. And perhaps because they do not take the season-end failure of any sports club so seriously, they cannot grasp what it did to me to see my Jets lose yesterday by 10 points to a mediocre NFC West team. My friends, colleagues, students shouldn't worry, though. It hasn't ruined Christmas. Christmas was ruined a long time ago.

Even Dad expressed an amnesiac surprise at the game. "I figured, y'know? I mean, it's Favre, for God's sake. He was going to do something."

"Dad," I responded, "it's December."

In the silence, the years spoke to him. First with piecemeal memories forged in the rain and cold of watery hot chocolate and off-duty cops in the Loge seats, then in an avalanche of disappointing fragments. One frigid, wasteful, frustrating Sunday after another.

"Yeah," he said.

Hang On

What do you do when the drowning stops?

The question is a good one. It is posed by Philadelphia's own Dr. Dog, a band with singers who sound near the hysterical breaking point at all times on their terrific album Fate. The question infers two possible states of being: 1) You have stopped drowning because you have been saved. 2) You have stopped drowning because you have ceased to be and are no more.

So which are we? I've been putting off the question all week. I'm surrounded by Eagles fans who, still buzzed from the contact high of the Phillies' World Series Championship, are living with an uncharacteristically high-humored resignation over the likelihood of the Eagles being out of the playoffs. I know one thing about Andy Reid's teams. They rise to the occasion like an uncle you thought was sewn to the fabric of his La-Z-Boy chair, only to watch him smilingly rise to his feet when an old drinking buddy comes to the door. "Playoffs? Well, shit. Maybe I'll have one." I put on my Jets scarf today while getting ready to go home from work, and an instinctive look came over the face of one of my colleagues, a close friend, someone who knows how much they mean to me. She gave me a withering look. I love Philadelphians for this. They take their teams so personally that it is impossible for them not to react to someone who feels something honestly comparable for another team. She looked at me almost as if to say, "What's that all about?"

The trouble is that I don't know what it's all about right now. Still reeling from the fact that the Jets' experienced offense could not outsmart in an inexperienced Denver Broncos secondary, I'm left wondering if the drowning is done because I'm either dead or alive. I remember Dad using the 1968 Jets' loss to the Broncos at Shea as an object lesson in not counting yourself out. Everybody thought the Jets were done after Namath threw five interceptions in a 21-13 loss, and at the end of the game Joe Willie said, "I stink."

Did he stink? I asked Dad. I was eight. By my bedside he was reading the chapter on the '68 Jets' from Random House's Championship Teams of the NFL, putting me to sleep for the 78th consecutive night with the story of the plucky New York Jets team that interrupted the four-year battle for AFL primacy between the Chiefs and the Raiders with a season that culminated with a ridiculous upset of the NFL in the Super Bowl. It was a Jets season that could be read by a little curly-cued boy in need of a metaphor for all of life's hopeless endeavors. You think you stink, kid? Dad asked. Lots of people think they stink. Sometimes they do stink. But it doesn't have to last forever. Doesn't mean they actually stink forever.

Nobody says that anymore: stink. It might not mean anything now, but when Namath spoke of himself in this way, it sounded to reporters like a startling self-denunciation. Can you imagine a modern player evaluating himself this way? Even John Unitas in his time refused to denounce himself with anything more than a dismissive hand. When you reporters make mistakes, Unitas said sarcastically, you use erasers. I wish I could do that

But Namath said, I stink.

But it didn't mean he believed it about himself. Had he believed it, he would never have taken command of the offense with his more conservative play through November and December of that year, 40 years ago. He would never have taken on Lou Michaels. He would never have guaranteed a January win, even after with as many Johnny Walkers in his system as he had that night in Miami.

So where do we go from here? Did we stink last week? Yes. But to invoke Dr. Dog once again, I wonder of the answer is right in front of our eyes. We can do this. Damn it, people. We can do this.

And what you though was a hurricane
Was just the rustling of the wind
Why'd you think we need amazing grace
Just to tell it like it is?

Let's go on. Hang on. Hang on.

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 Titans 14

Before this game began, I took this photograph of myself, wearing my Namath greens. The shot's most prominent feature is, of course, the index finger pointing somewhat obnoxiously at the viewer. The picture unwittingly conveys my own mixed sense of hesitation and hope. I thought I might try to communicate some enthusiasm before an important football game during this most unusual Jets season. But to be honest with you, it's difficult to hide years of disappointment. I'm sort of gesturing like, You guys better not be getting me excited over nothing. I'm freakin' warning you guys!

And yet, realistically, I knew that this was going to be a tough game. How could it not be? Keith Bulluck alone frightened me. And though last year's Patriots would have manhandled this year's Titans of Tennessee, I did not think the modern manifestation of the Titans of New York would escape a late fourth quarter Jeff Fisher drive. The worst was realizing that if the Jets didn't beat the Oiler-Titans then Tennessee would probably go 14-0, if not 16-0, so light is their second-half schedule. And that just wouldn't have been right. Mercury Morris would have just about lost his mind. And I right with him.

But break out the champagne, Nick Buoniconti. Have the Jets been the spoiler of an undefeated season (other than their own) ever before? I don't think so. I would like to have my crack GGL team work on that one. Anyway, this was one of those days where I was forced to follow the game online. Again, I don't know if I enjoyed this win more following it online than I would have had I watched it on the set. There are lots of complicated emotions at work here. If the Jets are on a good drive downfield, do I feel less stress if it's just manifesting itself as a series of arrows and markers on a green field that looks like the old NFL Strategy board game? Yes. Why? Does it really matter?

And what was on CBS-3 TV in Philly? Well, nothing football-related, actually. No one wanted to compete with Fox's coverage of the Eagles, even when the home team play as bad as they did against the Ravens. This is one of those seasons where the Eagles are like a bickering, unhappy family who are making everybody at a reunion picnic incredibly uncomfortable. One was almost tempted to watch CBS Sports' coverage of rodeo at 2:30 pm instead. On public access was a paid programming infomercial that outlined the most successful ways that you - with just a minimal investment - can profit many times over from the epidemic foreclosures across our nation. Is there a better candidate for Hell than the twisted amoral f@#$ who came up with that little idea? Happy Holidays! Now you can buy up homes and turn their former owners into your servants before flipping the house and turning them out onto the street! Ah, America.

But what of the Jets game? The story is the exuberant Favre, the irrepressible Leon Washington, the consistent and determined Mr. Jones and the best draft choice at tight end in Dustin Keller that the Jets have ever, ever, ever had. Kyle Brady? Silence! Johnny Mitchell? Howls of derisive laughter!! But how fantastic was the defense? Well, actually it did precisely the job it needed for the 20 minutes of game time that were required for them to play. Twenty minutes. Beyond that, the offense controlled the ball and the entire game. I kept following it online thinking there was some kind of delay in the f@#$ing wireless again, but there was none. "Wait," I thought. "The Jets don't still have the ball, do they?" Surely it was an "optical gallusion," as a somewhat lower level student of mine described the picture on the cover of his copy of The Great Gatsby on Friday. You be the judge.

No and no, but thanks for sharing. The Jets simply kept the ball and controlled the clock the way the '90 Giants did against the Bills. Keep it, run it, throw short passes. This Brian Schottenheimer is some kind of genius, isn't he?

Well...maybe. Are you just joining us? Would you like me to delineate the host of blown expectations for the Jets over the years? I hope the answer is no. I'm tired - really tired of doing that. Instead here is your offensive captain speaking of his afternoon in Nashville:

"We didn't think we could dominate them in the running game or the passing game, and in all honesty, we did both," said Brett Favre after the game. We didn't think we could...(but) we did both. Do both again, boys. For the love of God. Do both again.

****

In the midst of my postgame meditations, I got that confirmation that this was a Big Game - a phone call from Dad, the fallen-away season tickets holder from the 60's and 70's. He has never spent too much of his time devoted to watching Brett Favre over the years, but he mentioned that the Jets hadn't quite had a QB like Favre since Namath, and obviously he is correct. To compare the two is misleading on one level. Favre is a much better quarterback at 39 than Namath was at 33. And no one since Joe Willie for the Jets can even compare to Namath. Recall if you will Todd, O'Brien, Ryan, O'Donnell, Testeverde, Lucas, Pennington. Some better than others, obviously. No. Even if he had more interceptions than touchdowns, it was Joe's style that made the permanent mark. And though Brett Favre doesn't wear fur coats, Joe Namath's insistence on playing in his own style and in his own way, his throwing with abandon, his refusal to abide by sensible quarterbacking standards - all of this is embodied in Brett Favre. That's what got Dad excited about the Jets in the first place - their unconventional style of play. Brett Favre's fake, fade and hurl to Laverneus Coles for the 20-3 lead in the Titans game was a microcosm of all of those little, weird idiosyncratic things of which a genius is capable.

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.

Jets 47 Rams 3

When I came into this game, I fully expected something reminiscent of the Jets' loss to Oakland a few weeks ago, a game that left me silent, troubled and withdrawn. Well, I'm always a little troubled, but that's an issue more appropriate to discuss with my mental heath care professional. No, I expected the Jets to let me down as they have done, historically, week by crushing week, year after year. But for all the wailing and gnashing of teeth that goes into the hype of being a Jets fan, most of it occurs when the Jets win.

I've said this before - it's actually more stressful when the Jets win because winning raises the stakes of hope. Last season had its dismal sides, but after a while most of it had to do with my job. Things at the Meadowlands went quickly from bad to worse and didn't really get better in 2007. I got used it, I accepted it (I've had plenty of experience) and felt...well, not comfortable, but at peace with it, just as one must always finally accept the prevailing limitations of human existence, living as we do with free will and subjective powers of abstract consciousness. On the other hand, though, some bad shit was going on last year at work, and I had to really fucking deal with it. And deal with it I did, and with much better aplomb than the Jets did with Brian Schottenheimer's offense scheme.

In this way, the losing Jets are the dulling reminder, the momento mori of human existence. Things suck, don't they? You can get that message from a lot of places, too. From the local or international news, perhaps, or maybe even just by looking outside, like in Walt Whitman's "I Sit and Look Out." Or from Dylan's "Blind Willie McTell." This Rams team appeared ominously tidal coming in; one of the reasons why I was doubtful about the game was because the Jets were exactly the kind of team that the Rams would find appealing for a rebound matchup from a previous loss. But this was a win so effective that the Jets' starters got a rest for Thursday night's game. And when the Jets win, they tend to conjure the ubiquitous refrain of "Yes, We Can!" over and over, a cry so encompassing that it becomes the truth in one's mind, the way most political slogans do. The Jets won by 44 points, a franchise record. (Yes, we can.) Thomas Jones ran for 149 yards and three touchdowns. (Yes, we can). Brett Favre didn't throw any interceptions. (No, he didn't! Yes, we can). Jay Feely hit one from 55 yards away, another franchise record! (Yes, we can). Eric Barton had another great game. (Yes, we can).

But hold on there, little dawgie. There's Thursday. Then there's the unbeaten Titans (I wish we could wear our Titans unis for that). This is only the flush of excitement before the wash of gloom. There's still a crumbling economy, a plummeting stock market, a vanishing workforce, a lost sense of international respect. What about that stuff? Can we handle that? There's no other way to frame it. Right? Big wins like this one always raise questions, like how big? If the Jets managed this kind of domination of a team like Those of Whom We Do Not Speak, then it would be different, wouldn't it? Ah, the crushing spectre of hope again. Against the Rams, the Jets' front line was scarily effective, opening up enormous holes for Thomas Jones. In the image above (photo taken from New York Times) you see the lyrical poetry of an offensive line performing their job. Click on it and it suddenly seems as if you are looking at a work of art, a neo-classical painting, complete with the master's sure eye for symmetry, depicting the tableau of some ancient combat. Even D'Brickshaw Ferguson lying on the ground to the lower far right seems an intentional touch. With such an inspirational image, there's no way we can't keep hope alive. Surely now there is a means for opening the holes up the middle for Jones that were missing in week 2.

Ugh. God help us.

Anyway, regarding my earlier, strained metaphor above between economics and football, it seems as if the Jets' financial prospects are in good shape, especially after successfully selling their PSL's at inflated prices for next year's opening. One guesses that most of their seat buyers weren't CEO's for companies recently bailed out by the Federal Government, but were probably regular folks of a variety of backgrounds and incomes likely hurt by this economy. Go team, huh? Yeesh. Woody Johnson invested his money in Alan Faneca, Damien Woody, and Brett Favre, so apparently the Jets are a much more appealing expenditure for fans who mortgage their livelihoods for PSL's. King Woody's investments have yielded rather a merciless profit for the company. Next time take note, General Motors.

Responding as a Jets Fan Does

This has been an interesting week, hasn't it? I mean, yes, I had a feeling the Jets would win at Buffalo, but then I was even more surprised that they did it well, especially at the front line, especially in the secondary. I came away feeling oddly uncomfortable, as if this meant something truly sinister. This is the way I am. I've commented before that my wife has picked up on the general mixture of happiness and displeasure that accompanies my experience of my football team actually winning. When they do.

Then there was the election. I work with a 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans in my department. This is a highly conservative white blue-collar community with a diversity of relatively conservative Asian, Middle Eastern and South Asian families and a politically liberal African-American one that has been growing for years. Our English Department is 90% white, which means that it reflects its community, especially among its men. I can talk sports with my fellow men, but when we talk politics, I know I'm going to be somewhat in the minority. I voted for Obama this year, and in any other high school in any other suburban area outside Philadelphia, I would probably not be as alone as I am here among Reagan's children. But unlike in years past, when I had to endure the self-satisfaction that I grant some of my colleagues felt in the wake of two Presidential elections (one more notorious than any in American history), this year my team won.

My team? Actually, I hate that. When I was in high school during the final decade of the Cold War, no one spoke of Red states and Blue states. Red was the dubious color of international Communism whose influence could be felt in pink and purple. Lots of colors weren't safe from red's emasculating influence. It's what Tories wore in the Revolution. Blue was more manly and patriotic. It's what we were taught the Minutemen wore. It was the color of all Government-issued material. I drove my parents' blue 1980 Chevy Malibu in high school that I discovered one day my friends had garnished with the words "Property of the Federal Government" with their fingers in its layers of winter dust. We weren't split into teams yet. Yes, there were Democrats and Republicans, but even then these weren't two absolutely discernible sides. There were Democrats and Republicans of a variety apiece, some liberal, many more moderate, some conservative. I may be romanticizing the past a bit, but I recall that we were not yet forced to identify ourselves with the colors of the electoral map. I have only one team, and their colors are green and white.

But since I have a team already, I'm accustomed to what it feels like when my team wins. Or, rather, I'm accustomed to my team losing, which is why I'm more at home when they do lose - in the regular season, in the playoffs, or even in a Presidential election. When they do win, it's an uncomfortable thing for me to talk about with people the next day. I'm used to complaining about a losing pass rush, no offensive line protection, a mercurial coach, a lack of tall receivers. I'm never under the impression that I need to explain or enjoy their winning.

In fact, I usually predict a loss ahead of time. "I wouldn't bet on it," I say to someone about the Rams-Jets this week, even when, at home, the Jets might actually win. Nevertheless, history teaches us nothing if not caution, and so I advise NFL pool people to take the other side in almost every case. After a while they know not to ask. So when a couple of my Republican friends asked me a few days before the election what I thought were Obama's chances, I responded as a trained Jets fan. Predict the loss. And I feel I predicted with a level of accuracy. I mean, how was it possible that Obama could win Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado and New Mexico? How could one have expected him to win in the Pennsylvania's Carbon, Centre, Cambria and Elk counties? History tells us it's safe to bet against. I realize that this borders on a superstition, but superstitions are made for the fans of losing teams; they are a safeguard against the pain of an unrealized hope. Why bet on your team, as it were?

So the next day my colleagues might have thought I had been putting them on. I swear I wasn't. Who would have predicted Obama winning 364 electoral votes? I was just going by what I knew, following the basic instincts of my less than sunny disposition, my less than hopeful outlook.

Which made me consider things even further when I saw Happy-Go-Lucky last night, by one of my favorite filmmakers, Mike Leigh. What if I went through life favoring the best in people and circumstance and not relying on a depressive's doubt, on superstition and the subsequently comforting need to make everyone else think the way I do? Now wouldn't that be nice?

Jets 26 Bills 17

The Jets and Bills reversed roles today, as it is the Jets who are usually brought down to earth by the Bills. Not so here now. The Jets play mostly the same game week in and out. Brett Favre wins more often than not but throws truly risky passes that sometimes lead eventually or directly to touchdowns for the other side. Thomas Jones and Leon Washington earn more passing yards than rushing yards. Darrelle Revis has a big game. In the red zone, the Jets become mysterious and frustrating. Eric Mangini becomes physically larger. Many dumb penalties for the Jets. Illegal procedure, late hits, unnecessary roughness, delay of game. But the Bills played the more frustrating game. Two grinding drives produced nothing for them, almost as if, for this one game, I were watching the '07 Jets play the '08 team.

But they beat Buffalo, just. Several key moments stand out. Leon Washington incurs a penalty on Buffalo by having one foot out of bounds when he receives an inbounds punt. Darrelle Revis breaks up a certain Bills third down touchdown attempt by timing his coverage of the pass perfectly. Eric Barton plays an unheralded but brilliant game, with seven tackles. Kris Jenkins nearly concusses Trent Edwards as he hurls him to the ground in a perfectly legal sack. The Jets' offense may not be running perfectly, but the Jets' defense was the best I've seen all year.

The big play was obviously Abram Elam's interception in the red zone and his 92 yard return for a touchdown. This is exactly the kind of play the Jets needed, and they got it. I've been waiting for a moment like this to point out the odd juxtaposition of two players in Jets history who have worn #27, one of whom is Abram Elam. Consider that if the letters of his name are reshuffled and then listed last name first and first last, then "Male, Mabra" is another way of describing Ron Mabra who also wore #27 for the Jets, in 1977. The evidence is in our entry on the number. Of course anyone who knows the name Abram Elam might also know a few additional things about him that make this anagrammatic observation a little less charming.

Anyway, my wife and I have a new policy on weekends, the "Sixty Percent Solution." We operate on 60% of everything negative - dread, anxiety, annoyance, anger - none of which is allowed to exceed the 60% level. This allows for neither the denial of a feeling nor its exaggeration. Elam's touchdown brought it to about 75%, which allowed me to make an audible, "N'yeah. Yeah. Yeah!" This was the loudest I got all game.

My wife got loud when Brett Favre threw an interception for a touchdown at the beginning of the fourth quarter. I had decided to use the end of a Bills drive as the opportunity to take the shower I had missed in the morning, so I missed the ensuing interception that went all the way for the Bills. When I heard her disheartened response, I emerged from the bathroom just in time to see the play end. I swore under my breath. My wife suddenly exclaimed at the sight of me without my Joe Namath jersey. Actually I was without anything at all. Her reaction was one that a long-married person gives to the nudity of her partner - one of muted interest, tinged with novelty of seeing him in the nude for the first time, long ago. This reaction was at more than 60%, which, to be honest is all that a guy can ask for.

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

Jets 28 Chiefs 24

Congregation gathers down by the riverside
Preacher stands with his Bible, groom stands waitin' for his bride
Congregation gone and the sun sets behind a weepin' willow tree
Groom stands alone and watches the river rush on so effortlessly.
Wonderin' where can his baby be.
Still at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe.

- Boss, "Reason to Believe", Nebraska



What are three things that are interesting to Jets fans about this picture? One, the irony in this week's win of Leon Washington scoring the most exciting play for an offense lead by the most exciting quarterback in football history. Two, Joe Klecko's number in the background reminding us that, though he appears on the nominating list of defensive lineman eligible for the Hall of Fame, he has about as much chance as Ken Anderson does at being named a Hall of Fame quarterback. Third, those boots, those belts...our cheerleaders look like Catwoman's henchgirls from the Batman of Adam West. "Ladies," says he, "I know for a fact that it's not too late to turn away from this life of depravity and crime."

Another week, another disappointing Jets performance, albeit this time a win. For most of the game, the Jets' offense was outshined by the #29 offense in the NFL. All three of Brett Favre's interceptions eventually (if not directly) lead to Chief scores, so I guess he's not really NFL's top rated passer anymore. He looked like Joe Namath from the early 70's, only probably a little more reliable. Laverneus Coles' game-winning catch was nothing short of magic. At long last, the general Coles-Favre misunderstanding seems at a close. But make no mistake. Favre was frightening today, and not in a good way. Sure, every time he passed today, the computer screen read "FAVRE short pass to...," or "FAVRE pass short to...," but still he threw two of three interceptions as a result of just basically chucking the ball into the air with that strange nihilistic flair for which he is so rightly infamous. Perhaps he's still unaccustomed to an offense scheme that runs counter to his basic instincts, or maybe he's just batshit crazy. Chad Pennington, on the other hand, had as fine a day as he could expect in Miami. He is no longer a Jet. After Favre's interception inside the Chiefs' red zone was returned by for a 91 yard touchdown by Brandon Flowers, my wife said, "Well, at least Favre really is a Jet now."

Still, a win's a win. The Lions haven't gotten there yet. Neither have the Bengals. At the beginning of the season, one might have seen games against the Raiders and the Chiefs as wins, easy or no. This did not entirely prove to be the case, and we are left with the usual feelings of unease as another game crawls to its uncertain end. Though the Bills lost to the Dolphins, this just signals the general chaos of our division. The AFC East, once the feeding ground of Those Of Whom We Do Not Speak, is now the home of football's Moe, Larry, Curly and Schemp, all of whom behave as if they are reacting to just another eye jab from just another Stooge. Speaking of slapstick, one of my favorite images from the Chiefs game is of a Favre pass just barely making into Leon Washington's hands after nearly doinking the ducking Alan Facena in the head. And how many times can #75 and #78 be activated as receivers on pass plays? Many, many times, apparently. I'm not altogether sure if anyone was fooled by Robert Turner and Wayne Hunter as receivers, but they sound like a pair, don't they? Tonight on Turner and Hunter, the boys get into a scrape with the precinct captain over "excessive use of force." Next week, New York's toughest cops pose as wide receivers...

And may I here offer my special pleasure taken at the idea of beating Herman Edwards yet again, the coach who was so eager to leave the Jets after 2005? He was so eager to leave the largest football market in America, and (here we sound like a spurned relative) where did it get him? He will be fired at the end of the year. He is dead to me. Which begs me to ask the question...

Who else is DEAD TO ME?

This is just a cheap rip-off of everyone else's rip-off of Stephen Colbert, but since no one reads this blog anyway, it can hardly matter. We're just going to keep rolling that boulder uphill. I mean it's not like it's ever going to roll down over me. It's just a continuous, endless, infinite uphill climb. This is Gang Green Land. I can't go through a list without going off the NFL map, so obviously let's just say Parcells and Belichick are the devil, Jerry Jones is a medicine show huckster fraud, and that despite the universal NFL hate he's gotten outside of Denver over the years, it actually took John Elway's cheesy public endorsement of John McCain in Colorado this week to finally render him dead to me. Blah, blah, blah. The Jetskins are dead to me. The NYT sports section is dead to me after being on notice for a long time. I'm still pissed at Al Groh. I still don't know why Weeb Ewbank thought Charley Winner made a better coach than Chuck Knox in 1973. Why won't the Hall of Fame nominating committee put Winston Hill's name forward? When are they going to vote in Joe Klecko, those bastards? Doesn't anyone who plays professional football vote vaguely left of center? What's the matter with all of these people? I'm going to take down some names here. Some of you people are in some serious @#$%ing trouble.

There. That's another blog entry shot to hell. Ex-Jet Jonathan Vilma proved why the Jets deserve to be dead to me. He proved his worth in a game-saving interception for the Saints in London this past weekend. But here's a great piece about an American going abroad to watch English footie over there - specifically a match involving my new favorite footie team, the Blues, in Birmingham, England (pronounced BEH-ming goom).

The Reason for the Season

I've lived in Philadelphia for 16 years, and in all that time, a home team has gone to a championship series five times, always without success. The Flyers went to the Stanley Cup in 1997 and promptly got swept by Detroit. The Sixers played brilliantly against the Lakers in game one of the 2001 NBA Finals, only then to lose four in a row. The Eagles nearly beat Those of Whom We Do Not Speak in Super Bowl something-or-other in 2004, and of course there were the rip-snortin' Phillies of 1993 who won the pennant and were undone by Joe Carter's home run. When they've been in a position to win I have always rooted for the home team, which sometimes confuses natives who look at a native New Yorker as though he were a Bolshevik at a square dance. An Eagles-Jets Super Bowl is not bound to happen any time soon, so I'm in the clear, I guess. Above all, through their good years and bad, I have grown very found of the Fightin' Phils, and their current World Series against the Rays has me too distracted to write of late.

There's no doubt about it; sports brings people together. It's extraordinary, but Philadelphia has been a genuinely pleasant city of late. This morning, I awoke to an odd, pervasive odor. What was it? A house fire? A blocked chimney? Actually, it was a gagging, residual cloud of smoke from a forest fire in nearby South Jersey. It was disturbing. But you wouldn't have known it from the smiling faces all around. As Jason Robards' character in A Thousand Clowns says, the saddest sight to see in the world is people going to work in the morning. Even worse are Philly working people, arguably among the nation's grumpiest. So here they are - Philadelphians - choked by smoke, living in a city that sees some of the nation's worst gun violence, living in a country that may well be crippled by an economic collapse. And they couldn't be happier. The Phillies are in the World Series.

And they're underdogs. Has euphoria among people here blinded them to the fact that in this Series the Phils are playing like the 2008 Mets, like a team whose specialty is leaving men on base? The Rays are certainly playing like the Mets of 1969, whose specialties were spectacular fielding, clutch hitting, intimidating pitching and unflappable, unselfconscious determination. No, I think the natives here know exactly what's going to happen. Many mention it with a smile or a wink like some of the Republicans I work with whose candidate would seem to be poised for defeat in November (from their wink to God's eyes). We're going to lose. It's an expression of comprehension laced with the slightest drab of hope. But they're not clueless.

So what's preventing Philadelphians from collapsing into their characteristic Mass of nihilistic despair? They're just happy, I guess, or at least they're telling themselves they're happy, which is sometimes the same thing. And this is what following and loving a team can do. You follow the outcome of your favorites whom you love as if they were related to you, and yet there is nothing you can do to improve their chances. This can be simultaneously comforting and discomforting, but that's a universal human reaction to fandom too complex to discuss here. The fact is that their team is in the big one, and if Philadelphians' puffy grumpiness is actually a lacquer that covers a fragile ego, then their euphoria is rooted in a rare, authentic pride. And this is true whether we are speaking of day-to-day baseball fans or not. Among my less fervent colleagues and friends who suddenly find themselves Phillies fans, the Series is at least enabling them to think about something other than the dissatisfaction they feel with their jobs, their home lives, their fragile sense of well-being. At the very least, these two weeks in the World Series defy the existential horror found in the saddest sight in the world. As for my grumpier colleagues and friends who take no pleasure in the Phillies this week, I ask that they consider that this is exactly why people are fanatical about their teams to begin with. It's more than just a hobby. It's a key to psychic survival.

Jets 26 Bengals 14

I love this football season, and not just because the Jets won this week. It's because I have no idea how all this nonsense is going to work out. I can't tell who's going to win what division. Jetskin Pete Kendall tried to run with the ball and fumbled. The Jets are winning in the unconvincing disguise of the New York Titans. The Tennessee Titans are the best team in the AFC. The Lions have a quarterback named Orlovsky. The Bidwell Family Cardinals beat the Jerry Jones Cowboys, and now Tony Romo has a broken finger. The Chargers beat the snot out of the Pats. Heavens to Mergatroid. This - this is what your momma told you a real football season was like.

Of course it helps a lot more if the Jets win, and they did, despite three Favre turnovers. Has Thomas Jones ever scored three touchdowns in a Jets game? TRICK QUESTION! He had two all last year! Abram Elam's excellent tackling yesterday served as reminder that he needs to be placed on the updated list for #27 in the NYJBTN. That's way overdue. And little Hank Poteat needs to be placed somewhere on the list for #23, especially after he enabled the much larger Calvin Pace to recover a fumble yesterday. It's nice to celebrate the little things. I'm not sure that the Jets did many of the little things all that well, but hey, they won, which is more than New England did. Did I mention that The Ones Of Whom We Do Not Speak got blown out as badly as the Jets did against the Chargers? Well, duly noted.

I have to say that following a Jets game online is a strange experience. It's like reading a game through distant smoke signals or by getting it ship-to-shore. You must be satisfied with the unpredictable "live" updates, knowing that more recent things have already happened. Plus, it's the Jets, so any kind of insane upending of fortune is possible, and you're just sitting there, waiting to get word of some inevitable tragedy. On this Titanic, the iceberg is on shore. You're much safer on the boat. Never leave the @#$%ing boat.

It's almost as strange as the experience of seeing grown men in my father's generation in the 1970's trying to watch games on their unreliable black and white TV's. Cranky male neighbors with drinking problems, uncles, friends' emotionally unstable fathers from down the road, even my own Dad from time to time would crouch down, looking into the errantly flipping TV screen or the snowy reception, hoping for a stable picture. In the bluish-grayish frame the man sees a representation of all that has gone unsatisfactory in his life; he is able to distinguish an almost perceptibly demonic, taunting smile in the midst of all that fuzzy interruption of an afternoon's respite, and it makes him think of everything in his life that has gone unattended and unrealized. Or maybe it's just that he sees how life has thrown up an obstacle when he's most vulnerable. No matter what his achievements in life, no matter how close to OK things went at work this week, no matter that he traded up for a Chevy Nova this year - he's not going to be able to watch the game on TV today. It makes him absolutely crazy. The worst part, though, is that he can't dodge the feeling it's his own fault. Shit, he says, getting louder to more than just himself now. I shoulda junked this @#$%ing thing last year while they had a goddamn sale at Sears. What was I thinking? And when his vain efforts with the white knob in the back of the RCA yield nothing new, when turning it on and off again doesn't work, he commences to beat the hard plastic TV top as a last resort. It's hard to see it as anything but a gesture of despair. The sound of his fist, pounding on the set's faux wood paneled top, is audible all throughout the house. His words are nearly clouded in the punishing sound of each concussion. What! Was! I! Thinking?!?

Anyway, it was a little like that today, only I have my laptop, and it's borrowed from the school. And when the little transmometer-thingy toward the top of my MacBook screen goes in and out of focus behind the little computer display thingy, signifying that the wireless has temporarily gone out, I feel a little like all those angry, gameless, sorry Dads and men of a Sunday long ago. Their only option was to return to the mundane chores to which they'd been assigned by gender - to leaves, to a garage oil spot, to hedges, gutters, and trees. But then the thingy comes back, the mimed game goes on with slow update after slow update, and I can go on.

And when it was all over, I breathed such an unsatisfactory sigh of relief that my wife dropped her crossword puzzle down just to observe that, "When you find out that the Jets have won, you're like someone who's just been told that he might not die from his cancer." Guilty as charged.