Curses

Here in Philadelphia, there is joy. Baseball is about the third-favorite sport in this town, but most people are just happy that the Phillies' NL East crown means that the Mets' self-destruction is complete. I, for one, ache.

I've lived in Philly for 15 years, and the Phils are the only local team I've adopted, and they have not been in the playoffs since 1993. Yet my stomach knots for my real baseball team. I am a Mets fan by birth and right. If you love sports, you know what moments like their season's end mean in both the cosmic and statistical senses of the word. My mother won't even take my calls because I live in Philadelphia. This isn't just the end of their season. Their nightmarish late September surpasses the Phillies' own famed self-destruction of 1964. Their epic collapse is piece of history.

I was planning on having the Mets keep me comfortably distracted in October while the Jets were doing their usual thing. There is no special magic to the Jets this year. The silver lining to the Kellen Clemens and Chad Pennington storyline is that each is playing the best football he can. For Clemens, this means putting in a reasonably good performance in Baltimore three weeks ago. But for the dumb and pouty Jets fans who think that this means he should be the starter - well, I urge you to remember Richard Todd, Matt Robinson, Browning Nagle, and Glenn Foley. There is always a greener pasture in the form of a drafted quarterback for Jets fans, and that's because we still believe a bonus baby Joe Namath will lead us in an upset over Goliath again. This is absurd. Clemens will be ready someday to take the job, but not today.

Yet I know that even though Pennington went 32 for 39 this week against Buffalo and threw for 290 yards, this will not be enough to satisfy the yahoos who want to give Clemens the captain's chair. Welcome to the universe of the New York Jets fan. As good as Pennington was today, he threw two crucial interceptions in the fourth quarter at points where the game was about to shift the Jets' way. Never mind the fact that he orchestrated a perfect faked spike with seconds to go in the first half and connected on a great catch by Laverneus Coles to set up a kick by Mike Nugent. How many Jets fans saw that and thought about undoing the Curse of Marino's Fake Spike, 1994? The Jets would lose all four games of 1994 after that loss to Miami, and would then drop 28 games in two more seasons. Well, rest ye easy. Nugent's attempt against Buffalo today hit the crossbar. Another three points might have saved the game. The curse endures.

Or does it? When you're a fan of a franchise that has problems with getting and keeping good breaks, it's hard to know what exactly is going to curse you. Curses are real, even as psychological scars or as vivid reminders of already deep-seated fears. But certain acts on and off the field have a special mojo that unleash fresh hell. The Jets are cursed by many things. First, they won an impossible upset in the Super Bowl. Then they left New York City to play in Giants Stadium. There were also the the Faked Spike, the predicted greatness of the 1999 season, the Parcells departure marred by a shady attempt to keep Belichick from New England. Let's not forget how Mo Lewis' hit on Drew Bledsoe opened the door to the Brady era in Foxboro. Curses. Foiled again.

As an English teacher, I feel validation in the recent news that while students with autism and Asperger's Syndrome are likely to study math and science, manic depressives are more likely to study English in college. Obviously I studied the right thing in undergraduate life. I don't need statistics to tell me how and why I should be a Jets fan. If I enjoy the works of ancient Greece and of Shakespeare, then surely there really is only one football team to root for. Accept no substitutes.

I know that I will be an even bigger Mets fan next year. To this point, Mets' history was never filled with consistent brilliance, but this late September was a curse of the highest order. Curses inflict a cosmic damage on franchises. It took the Phillies 12 years to return to the postseason after 1964. After their collapse in 1978, the Red Sox were forced to endure Bill Buckner's error. There is mojo in the air in Queens. As a Jets fan, I can only attest to its power. I do not know the cure.

Are They Serious?

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

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

Shades of the Darkness

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

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

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

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

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

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

Did They? Are They?

Stop.

First of all, it's easy to blame New York Jets fans for what prognosticators not in attendance at the Pats game conveniently decided was a cheering of Chad Pennington's injury. I've always taken heart from the fact that Keith Olbermann has been able to rightly label Bill O'Reilly or Ann Coulter as "The Worst Person in America," but the device is not converting well over to the halftime at NBC's Hockey Night in Canada.

From checking with fans who were at the game, the consensus is unclear. Yes, some cheered when Chad limped off and Kellen blessed himself and went on. Some cheered Chad's grit - a character trait that we have come to admire about him, even though some of us (not yours truly) think that he's not up to the task. My main question is, did anyone cheer him when he was down? To me that's the conclusive evidence of craven behavior. When Michael Irvan was injured badly for good in Philadelphia, the fans at the Vet cheered loudly. That was the gold standard for shit behavior, or just Philly fans doing their thing.

So what happened? Suddenly Jets fans have to defend their integrity. Tony Kornhiser says it was a classless gesture. Steve Young said New York's the toughest market and anyone who plays there needs to know that this kind of thing can happen. Nice guys finish last. Tom Rock of Newsday says the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot and that no one there can conclusively say that the entire Meadowlands was cheering for one thing, sort of like the noise of Dylan fans in 1966 at Manchester.

"Judas!"

This is, eventually, crap. We are all wasting valuable time wondering whether or not 78,000 people all felt the same thing. Actually, now that I think of it, there was one thing that many, many Jets fans in attendance felt when they saw it happen. Too many felt, "Holy God, not again." Full stop. It's called trauma. What came out of them after that was subject to how much alcohol they had consumed in the tailgate, what kind of relationships they had with their parents growing up, how often they were bullied in school, and what kind of sex life they are currently enjoying at home. It's a fan's life, after all.

But for you boo birds who think that we need a new quarterback any way possible, I can only say that you are like cheap floozies who think that the next well-meaning guy who comes along is going to get you out of the trailer park. I'm glad Chad Pennington went back out and scored. I yelled and shouted and cried out in joy the way I cheered when Tom Tupa threw a touchdown after Vinny Testaverde went down against the Pats at home at the 1999 opener. It was a bellowing of traumatic anguish, sort of like James Cagney in White Heat:

"Look, Ma! Top of the World!!"

BOOOOOMMM!!

The Agony and the Agony

Regular season is back. Now my life can return back to normal. I don't need to supplement the wonder and love of professional football with lame things like the Tour De France or the NBA Finals. Baseball is more engaging - with many competitive teams this year. But football is its own animal, a game of inches more than heartbreak. You don't lose because you were unlucky this time around. You lose because you weren't good enough.

And now having said that, football leaves me with that familiar sinking feeling. My team loses 38-14 to an obviously superior New England Patriots club. Randy Moss was great, Tom Brady was amazing, they scored the longest TD in NFL history, Chad Pennington was brave but hobbling, Kellen Clemens was beguiled, Thomas Jones was neutralized. I hate myself, I hate my life. I want to die.

How much do I hate the New England Patriots? I don't talk to my in-laws anymore. During the last game of the 1997 season, while the Jets' loss to the Lions put the Pats in the playoffs, I sat with my in-laws from Boston; they screeched with glee, watching Barry Sanders finish off the Jets' season. They were just a little too happy - a little too happy to watch me suffer. OK, I'd be lying if I told you that the Lions' game was the only reason why we don't talk to them. I don't miss them, though. They were our guests, and they didn't respect that I loved the Jets. They taunted me, and I had bought those drunks a lot of scotch.

There was the opener against New England in 1999, when another Jet QB's foot planted into the hot Meadowlands turf and didn't let go. That was even more traumatic. I was at a reunion with former college friends, all of whom were Patriots fans. I should have known. When Vinny Testaverde went down with a season-ending Achilles' tendon fissure, they got up on their feet and laughed and sang like undernourished jackals who had decided that one of their own would make as nice a meal as anything they could have caught on their own hungry paws that night.

In that moment, I could see a primordial gleam in their eyes. Despite the fact that we must have spoken every day like family back in college, I could see that they really hated me for what I was, a Jets fan. They witnessed my pain and horror and laughed. So I walked out, leaving those bastards behind, and I have not spoken to them since. There's family, and then there's the Jets. At least the latter are more consistent, albeit not always to my pleasure. Still...there was no other way.

Today, the Patriots were the Jets' guests at Giants Stadium, and they manhandled us; we are the lesser team, they the prodigies. Their offense was literally unstoppable; ours was occasionally clever. When Coles made his nifty catch for the first quarter touchdown and made it 7-7, Belichik looked briefly worried at how methodical the Jets offense had been. But it was a passing moment. Pennington hobbled off. Yet even able and well, he never seemed up to the task of beating a team that seems to be surprising even itself with how good it is.

Here's why they won, though. Yes, yes, I know: we couldn't control their running game; they controlled the clock; Mangenius was out-geniused; Moss was amazing. Blah, blah, blah. But all week I was saying, "If Brady blows out his knee or snaps his Achilles', we win the game, we win the division." Back in 1999, the Patriots had no Super Bowl rings; we had one. My ex-friends sneered at Vinny's vanquished dream like disadvantaged children with nothing to lose, knowing that they weren't going anywhere either. In wishing ill will on Brady, I have sunk beneath those disadvantaged voices speaking out of crude despair.

Somewhere the jackals are still laughing, and I walk away, grumbling, irrational to the point of institutionalization. So, yes, life has returned to normal after all.

New York Jets By The Numbers: #3

As of September 2008, #3 Jay Feely has been the Jets placekicker, in for the injured Mike Nugent. He was the fearless kicker who stared down the haters after he missed three crucial kicks for the Jints against Seattle in 2005 by using satire and, unfortunately, Dane Cook on Saturday Night Live. A mere written summary of the SNL sketch seems even more painfully unfunny than it probably was. I remember hearing somewhere that in the midst of his turbulent tenure with the Giants, Feely spoke of someday running for office. But can you name an NFL kicker who's actually been elected to political office? Name me a good Giant kicker, and I will show you a Jets kicker in waiting, Raul Allegre. I will show you fear in a handful of dust. There's no political career in that. There's never even been a Jet in Washington, minus the Jetskins, but that's an entirely different issue.

But I would strongly urge Jay Feely to consider a different day job after his mixed career in placekicking. There's his appearance on Sean Hannity's show; then there's his unsurprising Tweet on Chris Henry's death, which, to be fair he apologized for later. Still, the first Tweet is the truest, which is exactly why Twitter is fascinating and why I will also never have a Twitter account. Still, the Hannity appearance and the Tweet (am I supposed to capitalize that, by he way?) shows a consistency of mind found among a very particular kind of conservative that you meet from time to time - a person who 1) uses every possible moment to invoke what they perceive to be the "culture wars" concerning the lapsed values of irresponsible (often black) people and 2) makes an unconscious (and that's being generous) irresponsible joke which he then takes back, often citing the politically incorrect sensibilities of "sensitive" people. I'll be glad when Jay Feely no longer wears a Jet uniform. UPDATE: 3/10 - GONE.

Boston College grad Tom O’Connor crossed a picket line of angry Jets during the 1987 strike to take someone else's spot, punting for three games. Duane Carrell punted for the '76 and '77 squads. Each man probably played for a team of equal caliber. Each wore, for however long, the #3. The magic number. Yes it is. According to the Jets website, Duane hit a 72 yard punt in 1976 against San Francisco - a 17-6 loss, by the way. At that time, his punt was the third longest in Jets history. Remember the Jets have the longest in NFL history, but that comes many numbers from now.

While we were sitting there watching the Niners game on TV from Candlestick, Dad was making various sounds of displeasure, using the Jets weak offense as the foundation for what would prove to be a cleverly crafted argument in favor of abandoning his season tickets, and with it, the Jets. Had I been more aware of his secret agenda, I might have used Duane Carrell's 72 yard punt as counter-evidence. But then who uses a punt as evidence of anything other than whether or not his team has a good punter?

Bobby Howfield was the first soccer-style kicker the Jets ever had. I once had a drunken discussion in a bar with a guy who claimed that "Bobby Howafeld" hastened the end of the AFL by jumping from the Buffalo Bills to the New York Giants in 1965. He meant Pete Gogolak, a much more famous #3. I tried to straighten out not only his information about the identity of the kickers but also the pronunciation of the actual Jet in question. Bobby Howfield was a footie player from England, not a Jewish-American walk-on from Syosset. However, I don't think I was sober enough to even try clearing that up, so I just nodded my head. Back in the 1970's, if you were born in Hungary like Gogolak or from Bristol like Howfield, football fans only knew one thing: ya fuckin kick weed.

Finally, the Phenom #3, Rick Mirer. His greatest moment would be his curse - being put on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1990 as Notre Dame's "Golden Boy." Bill Parcells' initial interest in Mirer when he coached New England lead him to obtain him in 1999 with the Jets. By that time, Rick Mirer had already flagged as a starter with Seattle and as a backup in Chicago and Green Bay. Parcells didn't have an adequate backup ready, but he called Mirer up when Vinny Testaverde went down in the wrenching Achilles heel injury in the 1999 opener against the Patriots. Mirer threw five touchdowns and nine interceptions in eight games that year; that's why when you think 1999, you think Ray Lucas at QB, not Rick Mirer. We were so desperate to believe that '99 was The Year that when we lost Vinny, we briefly believed in the Phenom ourselves. This is the kind of story a Jets fan loves, for it is yet another metaphor for our faith in a team that makes you hope well beyond hope's boundaries.