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.

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.

Brett Favre's Jets Debut and Whatnot

A friend advised me the other day to write entries that are more about my life and less about the statistical and historical content of the New York Jets By the Numbers. Nevertheless, the NYJBTN is a pet project, a hobby, a model ship in a giant bottle whose ongoing construction will be renewed when the 2008 season is done. In the meantime, the parallels between art and life come easy, for to be a lifetime fan is to experience new things that are, in many ways, simply repetitions of the old. Like love, we say. Seasons come and go, and with them come the perennial sense of disappointment and grief. Before the late 1990's, grief is all the fans of the New England Patriots felt (minus 1985, under Raymond Berry). How will a current seven year-old react when his beloved Pats start careening downwards somewhere over the next five years? It will happen. Like death, we say. That child has no schema for it. Enough. Never mind.

When I first started following games as a kid, the home games that I couldn't go and see at Shea with Dad I had to follow on the radio. No TV. The Jets didn't sell out games back then, and NFL rules prohibited locally televised presentation of home games for non-sellouts. You got used to the idea that you were responsible for your own misery by rooting for a team that wasn't even good enough to sell out a home game. With only the radio broadcast, you were left to the devices of your own obsessive imagination, and with one loss after another, it was a little like leaving a kid unattended with an aerosol can. There was a 43-0 loss to Miami or a 37-6 loss to the Cardinals of St. Louis, both in 1975. You became accustomed to picturing the awe-striking ineptitude of your newfound team solely within your mind.

Well, you had a little help. Each game, announced by Marty Glickman on WOR, was its own psychological saga. Dad couldn't stand Glickman's penchant for drama, but I loved it. As I've said before, Glickman's broadcasts were like listening to a salad bar's offerings being described while the entire restaurant was on fire. Glickman's original claim to fame was as a championship track star who was excluded from running alongside Jesse Owens with the US team in the 1936 Berlin Olympics out of respect for the racial sensibilities of Germany's Fuhrer. The only reason for this exclusion was that Glickman was Jewish. Let's just take a moment to remember that this decision came from then USOC (and later IOC) leader Avery Brundage whose own legacy of racism throughout his entire career speaks for itself. Glickman's harried voice carried all the qualities of a man traumatized by the experience of being betrayed by his own country. His was my first football voice, and it gave me a better feeling for experiencing the Jets than Curt Gowdy, John Brodie, Charlie Jones or Len Dawson ever could.

Back to imagining games. This is relevant to last night's second preseason game against the Redskins, aka "Brett Favre's Preseason Debut," which I was not able to watch anywhere because it was an exclusive to the NFL Network. Since we've recently been reminded that keeping your tires properly inflated will improve your gas mileage, I've noticed that you now have to pay for air at most gas stations. But though air is no longer a privilege to which I am entitled, I still steadfastly refuse to subscribe to the Network, and I don't know anyone who has done so. The sheer amount of money it costs to be a fervent fan is depressing. The latest strategy of having vaguely funny Jimmy Kimmel advertise the network's advantages is not compelling enough. It's extortion. I can't give in, especially when I recall how satisfying it was to see Roger Goodell having to reverse course and show the regular season Sunday night game between the Giants and the Patriots last December. I would rather follow the example I set as a little boy on Long Island - or as an overgrown child in Philadelphia - and use my imagination.

So I followed the Jets game online, which is nowhere near as informative or loyal to the ongoing action as is Major League Baseball's online coverage of their live games. That's by design, no doubt. Brett Favre threw a short touchdown to Dustin Keller, which was the only story people were interested in. From there, the game was handed to Kellen Clemens at QB, with little else to speak of. Mike Nugent hit a field goal from 40-plus, and then he errantly hit the upright from 23 to tie. Welcome to Gang Greenland, Mr. Favre. By the time it was over, I was myself well into the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres the experience of which, I propose, is not unlike the experience of watching a full NFL exhibition game. Having long loved Aqua Teen, I know that it is, ultimately, a program best suited to its intended time frame of 15 minutes - which by the way, is also the amount of time that Brett Favre was on the football field last night. Of course, the makers of the Aqua Teen are aware of the absurdity of trying to work their creations into a 90 minute storyline, so they only heighten its stupidity to create a movie that intentionally defies narration. Let's see NFL Network even try to tackle the same issues. An entire exhibition game is a mind-numbing experience (unintended). "What the fuck am I still watching this for?" asks the NFL Network subscriber. "I paid good money for this?!?"

And how would the NFL Network's coverage have been able to do justice to the strange appearance of Tom Cruise at last night's game at the Meadowlands? It's me, Tom Cruise. I'm a guy like you, wanting to see Brett Favre play. I cannot ignore the odd coincidence of his offering signatures at a Jets game the same weekend Shawn Andrews is returning to Philadelphia Eagles' camp after struggling this summer with serious issues of depression, an ailment no doubt that everybody's favorite Scientologist would want to diagnose with an E-Meter. I'm glad to see Shawn Andrews back and unafraid to speak openly about depression as an illness treatable with something other than vitamins. Who would have believed that an athlete has a better grasp of reality than a movie star?

Provided the weather holds, I will be attending training camp on Wednesday. The promise of seeing one of the ten greatest quarterbacks practicing from noon to 5 is a remarkable thing well worth worth the price of a car rental. There are some absurd expenditures I'm willing to make. Next year I'm certain the Jets will charge for watching practices at their new Garden State facility. But I'll jump off that bridge when I get to it.

Brett Favre: "We'll See."

In the late summer of 1976, my family traveled up to Massachusetts to see my uncle and his family. It was always an epic journey. To a seven-year old, three hours in the car was longer than a movie, longer than a nap. It was ten Saturday morning cartoons. It was as long as a football game. As we got on the road, my mother told my father to pull over and let me go into the local shop so that I could buy something for me and my brother to read on the trip.

This shop sold both candy and cigars, and it smelled primarily of the latter. There was a soda fountain and a counter with revolving stools. The man working behind it seemed ancient and leather-faced. I loved it. I always knew as I walked in that I had entered the relic of a world nearly forgotten. Nothing looked like this anymore. There had been the 5 & 10 on the main avenue, with its wooden floors and large bins of inexpensive crap for sale, but it had been turned into a modernized Woolworth's and Woolco, minus the lunch counter. Our "candy store" in North Merrick, Long Island was a window into the kind of world in Queens where Dad and his brother had once worked as soda jerks, whatever that meant. The sign above the entrance to the store was bounded by the Coca Cola signs that suggested that you "Drink" not "Enjoy" the product in question. I loved any excuse to be there. Born as I was immediately in the wake of the Jets' past glories, I was in love with things that I had just missed and would probably not appear again.

Mom and Dad were waiting in the car, so I couldn't browse. I brought Charlie in with me, and I might have asked what he wanted to read. More likely not. He was four. I didn't know what he wanted to read. I looked at the myriad of magazines on a rack that definitely didn't stand at children's eye level. There may have been a prohibition against my buying another comic book. I had already put together a rather formidable collection. Sometimes when Dad and I would go into the candy store after Mass on Sunday, I would ask for a copy of Sports Illustrated. With that in mind, I took the couple of dollars my parents gave me and bought the August 30th issue, with Reggie Jackson on the cover.

Actually, I bought two. One for me and one for Charlie. I thought very literally, just as any knuckle-headed big brother would - one who had yet to recognize his sibling was a separate human being with a mind of his own. The leather-faced, lifetime filterless smoker behind the counter rang us up without a single change of expression. Why was a little boy buying two copies of the same magazine? The man was like the character of that Hemingway story who intones, Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee. A boy with a similarly dressed smaller one in tow buys two issues of the same Sports Illustrated with Reggie Jackson on the cover. Give us this nada our daily nada...












Back in the car, Mom was horrified that I bought two identical copies. Dad laughed. I didn't understand what the problem was. Two were better than one. That's why there were two of us, me and Charlie. I didn't get it. This was an issue with Reggie Jackson on the cover. Former MVP. Former angry A. Reggie. I didn't even have a particular attachment to him, but I knew he was probably as important as the Fonz. Certainly more important than Gerald Ford. And now apparently until the end of time, Reggie Jackson was a Baltimore Oriole.

A what? An Oriole? That's right, citizens. You may not know/remember/care, but before he came to the New York Yankees, thereby forcing me to endure four years of a jealous Met fan's indignation, the A's traded Reggie Jackson to the Orioles. At the time I didn't know about his attitude toward Baltimore. He was previously the subject of large-print grade school biographies that I got out of the school library. I didn't read the small print of a major magazine. Back then, SI was still written somewhere at a junior high level. I looked at the pictures.

Had I read the article, I might have discovered why he would eventually move on to the Yankees. Once you're passed the surprise that Reggie even played for the Orioles, you're less surprised that he never wanted to be there. He held out at the beginning of the season and played poorly up to the All-Star Break. He would play out a season there and raise his numbers high enough to make himself tantalizing to the free agent market. He wanted, as he says in the article, to "go to a place with a liberal attitude." Interestingly enough, he specifically eliminated both the Mets and the Dodgers "because they emphasize organization over individuality." For a Mets fan this is hilarious to consider, especially when the Mets of the late 70's were so consistently bad. It's impossible to imagine their possessing a concrete organization of any kind, except for Tom Seaver, whose days on the team were numbered. Did Jackson consider staying in Baltimore in 1976? In the article, this remains inconclusive. We'll see, he seems to say. Right.

I have a slightly older friend who's a lifetime Orioles fan, one for whom the 70's were a time he recalls being filled with constantly great expectation. But when I ask him about Reggie Jackson in Baltimore, he replies with a shrug that conceals a slightly perceptible sense of hurt and shame. It hurt to know that Jackson didn't want to play there, so much so that the fans made him feel even less welcome after his initial holdout. This then only intensified Jackson's urge to get out of town and take off for somewhere like the Bronx. My friend didn't say it, but I recognize a fan's wounded pride. Before Gary Carter came to the Mets, the path to Flushing apparently seemed appealing only to the dour, stony-faced and grim George Foster, or the perennially frustrating Dave Kingman. Likewise, the Jets never got free agents. This feeling of being undeserving was like a sense memory, a Jungian archtype built into the subconscious of fan a former AFL team in a city where the Giants once played in Yankee Stadium.

Thus I was familiar with this feeling undeserving apprehension, even before Brett Favre - at the conclusion of his first Jets press conference - answered the question of whether or not he'll stay another season in New York with a lukewarm and hesitant, "We'll see."

We'll see. It's what Dad said when I asked if we would be going to anymore Jets games after he gave up his season tickets. It's what I say to kids when they ask if they can watch the film versions of the books we read in class. It's what I fruitlessly say to my wife when she says we need to get three dogs someday. Already feeling undeserving, I want to approach this season with the naivete of the boy who doesn't read the fine print. But one's own experience is unavoidable. When Favre moves his arm around, speaks of its feeling "tired," reminding everyone he's 38, he seems almost to be metaphorically looking at his watch. Like a one-time chronic mercy date and third wheel, I read such signs with an instinctive suspicion and paranoia. It's not just that it's getting late; it's just that he's got somewhere else he'd rather be.

Epic Ode to Chad Pennington

Sing to me Muse, so that I may so sing,
Of a man who played with a broken wing.
Throughout his tenure, his time, if I may,
He made us scratch our heads, oft in dismay.
But unlike those whose face inspires bile,
There was something to him vaguely worthwhile.
Marrying his sweetheart long before June
He brought the playbook on his honeymoon.
Despite hostile Press and a gloomy coach.
Allow me Muse, this here subject to broach.
Speak of Chad Pennington this August morn;
Even the cynic feels slightly forlorn.

He came to us as QB's often will,
Fresh-faced, honest, young and modestly skilled.
Randy Moss said at Marshall U it seemed
Chad Pennington was the best he had seen.
Imagine Chad, mild mannered and clean
Throwing to that unstable philistine?
So disappointed from promises past,
We knew not to worry if Chad would last.
Hope is a terribly beautiful thing.
And we made it on Chad Pennington cling.
When he was good, he reached the playoff air.
When bad, it was like he wasn't quite there.

Without arrogance, or malice or greed,
Taking a pay-cut to support the team's need,
It's hard to have hard feelings for this man
Whom I admir'd as a miser'ble fan.
So I see his best works with happy thoughts,
And think on the happiness old Chad wrought.
Before there was a champion Peyton face,
Chad threw him a 41-zip disgrace.
Recall how that Jets squad they called "The Shrek"
Then bowed to Romanowski's steroid neck.
What commenced from there were highlights and lows
Hands dislocated, shoulders and elbows,
All subject to that one cold Hand of Fate
That has made Jets fans glumly ruminate.

I speak of Injury - she who felled Todd,
Namath, groin of Pat Ryan - this harsh god.
All our best promises blithely wiped 'way
Chad Pennington in an ex'bition game.
Against the Bills a torn rotator cuff
Made us think our season done enough.
Yet Chad snatched a win from playoff loss
In San Diego (oh, my cookies, tossed!)
And yards away from defeating the Steel,
Whom we humble little Jets had made squeal.
But lo! that rotator cuff din't quite mend.
And we figured Chad was finished by then.
So then Brooks Bollinger got the green light.
(This is why Jets fans are frustrated, right?)

Another coach, another outlook grim,
Chad Pennington got in there yet again.
And was the League's Comeback Player named
For at the least finishing every game.
In the playoffs he looked somber and weak,
Losing to Those Of Whom We Do Not Speak.
It was hard to see The Wheel turning clear
'Gainst Chad in another odd numbered year.
Look up years oh-three, oh-five, oh-seven
And against Chad are gathered the Heavens.
Bad luck, bad mojo, call it what thou will,
Last year Chad Pennington always seemed ill.

So the debate raged, yet many a fan
Saw that in training camp Chad was the man.
"His arm's too tir'd, he lacks the killer look."
"He's got the best knowledge of the playbook."
Whatever. Av'rages will tell a tale
Suggests that quarterbacks on average fail.
Our hero's career was now meant to run
To a place behind Kellen Clemens' gun.
But what came next I hardly suspected,
The Favre Saga my summer infected.
Expecting to see Gruden's stupid grin,
I see the short-lived Brett era begin.
So farewell Chad, you swim now with Fishes,
Far from the land of Lox and Knishes.

Actually, you could find plenty of them there,
Though I'm not sure they were ever your fare.
Do you bemoan saying goodbye to us,
With all of our angst and callous disgust?
We were so used to ourselves in the glass -
Arrogant ass beholds arrogant ass.
You were a Southern Gentleman compared
To the Jets fan, all mug and mullet-haired.
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.

Delusional

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

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

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

Maybe.

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

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

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

The First Brett Favre Post

I have spent most of my 39 years of life hoping that the Jets can repeat what they did 39 years ago. I would be lying to you if I said I wasn't excited that one of football's greatest quarterbacks is playing for us, even if he was born only a year after I was. Anyone who has loved his football team as long as I have can't help but conjure visions best suited to science fiction. I'm human. I can only speak as the kind of fan whose devotion further blinds him from being objective about a likely out-of-shape quarterback trying to return for one last hurrah. I refuse to look at the reality of him playing against teams like San Diego, Denver or, of course, New England. Or even Buffalo, I guess.

"I hope Marty's got his aneurysm medicine handy," a friend of my wife's e-mailed her today. "He's going to need it when Favre throws for 240 yards and 4 interceptions against the Pats."

I know, I know. Last year, Brett Favre did look very good. But in seasons prior, he sometimes looked like a guy who was phoning it all in. Sometimes it literally seemed as though he would get in the huddle and order his receivers to follow the schoolyard instruction to "Just go out." When I was a kid we'd get into the huddle and the QB would look at us and pretend to make intricate instructions on the palm of his hand with his index finger, vainly hoping to throw off the defense just in case they happened to be spying. But he was just winging it. We knew it. He knew it. It was a crap shoot. If Favre hasn't got the playbook down, how's he ever going to avoid just chucking it downfield? I've seen that look on his face before. Ah, fuck it, it seemed to say.

But listening to the talking heads on ESPN, you'd almost be convinced that... Well, maybe...just maybe...

This from a good friend of mine: "Do your beloved Jets have a new shining light of hope? Or have they acquired a washed-up, can't make up his mind about his career quarterback? Good luck!" The answer is that in the past the Jets have sometimes made it their business to be a retirement home for legends, like Ronnie Lott and the newly inducted Hall of Famer Art Monk. Personally, I would like to see the statistics on the number of players who have ended their careers after a single season with the Jets. What about that same kind of statistic for other teams? It's practically incalculable, but I think the Jets might have the record.

Here in Philadelphia, one friend of mine, who has long looked bitterly at Favre through the eyes of being a pained Eagles fan, was incredulous. "How...?" he began. "How can you prostitute yourself like this to this guy who can't even so much as figure out where he wants to be? He doesn't care about you guys." Over lunch another Philly friend expressed her contempt by calling him a "prima donna." She hoped for his failure. She doesn't hate the Jets, or me. She had just lost that much respect for him. I am compelled to feel otherwise.

As for me, I'm not even ready to write the blog entry on Chad Pennington, who was quietly and solemnly cut from the team today. But I will eventually. I really, really liked Chad, and sometimes for just the little things. Again, no other quarterback except for Chad Pennington ever led a Jets offense as far as into the second round of the playoffs more than once. Part of me wondered (improbably) why we didn't let Clemens go and let Chad stay. I'm sure that someday soon Brett Favre will happily wave at the Lambeau crowd when his number is retired. But Chad Pennington is entitled to nurse a grudge toward an organization that never really designed an ambitious offense for him and threw Kevin Mawae and Pete Kendall off his front line. He's entitled to be bitter toward Jets fans who cheered when he got injured in the opener last year. Yet he never seemed put off. He forgave our own lack of his kind of Southern hospitality. But more on that later. That's too big for me to contemplate right now. It's been a long, strange, frightening day.

Meanwhile, here's the apt analogy my brother suggested to me today. See? Some jerseys just never seemed right in the first place. In fact, last year Mental Floss offered a montage of jerseys never meant to be worn. You were able to buy the one below at about 1:30 pm EST today.


You have been able to buy the one above since 1977, that one miserable year that Hollywood Joe spent away from Shea. You can still buy his game-worn Rams duds for $5,000. And I had to go into a career in education. What a waste.

Please Note

We have a late addition to our list of winners in the Booth Lusteg Awards for Players in the New York Jets Organization With Funny-Sounding Names:

#4 - Brett Favre

Just trying to be thorough.