Jesse Chatman Positive for Diuretic

It's bizarre, this ridiculous world. We share our lives with one another in ways that defy the basic codes of privacy and personal space. But that's the way it is. I write a blog that is almost exclusively read by myself, but even still I can't pretend that there isn't an enormous world out there gaping at its own senselessness, wondering at times at how stupefying is the scope of human life, how bloated the need for human domination of the natural world, how awful the infinite dimensions of the universe by comparison. You can believe you are alone, but every thought, every word and deed has already had a precedent somewhere out there. Even if you don't believe in the Almighty, you are not alone in the universe.

I will now offer the crudest possible story to illustrate my point. One afternoon last year at work, I experienced a particularly uncomfortable churning sensation in my lower intestine that I instinctively recognized - experienced man of 38 that I was - as my body's signal to unburden itself of solid waste. The sensation was more dire than usual, so I made quickly for the restroom. The event itself requires no description. We have literally all been there before. In situations such as these, I often seek a facility removed from the more traveled restrooms on the first floor. The fact that these washrooms are marked "Faculty Men" is only a slight relief. As a boy, I lived in horror of using public restrooms. This neurosis grew into a cathartic meltdown when I needed to similarly act without hesitation in the toilet of the boys' locker room as a high school freshman after a particularly grueling cross country practice. The olfactory remnant of this event was greeted by the suddenly incoming varsity football team with horrific blasphemies and genuine promises to violently end my life. I was so mortified that I would have submitted had they caught me before I ran out of the locker room.

Back at work, after completing the necessary task, I left the Faculty Men's in a similarly condemned state. However, I quickly realized to my horror that a trusted, respected colleague was about to enter with his own intentions, not knowing what aromatic horror awaited him. We locked eyes, and, coward that I am, I was unable to communicate the truth that I had made the Faculty Men's Room an uninhabitable place of business. There are euphemistic phrases like those employed even in this very entry. But my own sense of shame, combined with my feelings of failure at being to keep this mortification to myself, left me without the ability to speak. I smiled wanly, pathetically, and walked on.

Naturally he found me later. I was sitting in the faculty lounge, grading. I could feel his eyes on me. There was nothing I could do but look up and say what needed to be said.

"I don't really know what to say," I said. "I really have no excuse. I'm sorry."

"Not at all," he said compassionately. He opened up the newspaper. "Although I do feel like I have a window into your soul."

* * *

What was I saying? Did I have a point here?

My wife asked me about the Jets' injury status in preseason and I answered, "We're fine. We're great. Pity the Giants, really." It was then that I immediately got word of Jesse Chatman being suspended for violation of the NFL's substance abuse policy. The story on him was that he has a weight problem that disappeared while with Miami last year, hence giving him a second chance at a career. When you lose 60 pounds, how do you gain it back in all the right places? I myself suggest a diet of SSRI's and donuts. I don't know what Jesse did. His agent has pointed out that Chatman's positive test was from last December, not from a recent test.

But what's interesting is that the actual results only showed the presence of a diuretic often used to mask the presence of a steroid. It's probably not Ex-Lax. (Does Ex-Lax still exist)? Neither was it very likely coffee, oatmeal, McDonald's fries, cauliflower, watermelon, broccoli, Granny Smith apples, cigarettes, or any of the other things I find efficacious to my spastic colon on any given workday. I realize that the very thing that brings shame to a grown fallen-away Catholic man - the business of taking what a college roommate and fellow Jets fan once called a "Mark Duper" - is also essential to the maintenance of an athlete's weight and his masking of the rules of fair play.

But is the business surrounding this offensive diuretic also a window into Eric Mangini's secretive, isolating soul? After all, Chatman is being suspended for only four games. A friend of mine laughed off Chatman's suspension when I mentoned it to him - a natural response in an age when football players are shot, shot at and changing their names to "Ocho Cinco." It's only the four-game kind of suspension. Sort of like what the kids who've done hard time say when they react to a three-day suspension from school.

But did Mangini know the results of Chatman's December tests when he brought him on? Chatman did have an awesome game against the Eagles, but will he be similarly talented five weeks from now? Will he be flabby or thin? Does the coach know something we don't? If anything, maybe now among all three - Washington, Jones and the potentially modified Chatman - might equal one good running back.

I really haven't got any further cohesive theme to tie together this entry. I'm waiting on the final cuts of the preseason. I confess that the brief, stalwart performance Jesse Chatman put in against the Eagles threw me into sensations of hope for our backfield, and I feel like the news of his positive test left me in a catharsis that might yet spaz my colon a little more than Sumatra coffee. The volume of unrealized expectation and hope has built up so profoundly, that if it doesn't put me back into the crapper, it might yet make me bear the contents of my soul to my colleagues. It's what being a fan is all about. You cannot exist alone, harboring hopes and dreams, rooting for a team that plays in a division that also houses a club that could easily roll off another 18-1 season. It's no use hiding it. You have to perform your manly task and run the risk of exposing yourself to a world that will know the putrid truth. I am a Jets fan, though in exile. The very same colleague (and Eagles fan) who became the unfortunate witness to my intestinal ruin that sad day last year heard me complain yesterday about Chatman's failed diuretic test.

He smiled, obligingly. "Well," he said. "Tough shit, I guess."

Jets 27 Eagles 20 - Preseason Game #4

In the annual Jets-Eagles Meaningless Bowl, I actually glimpsed shades of seeming hope. There were suddenly answers to two offensive questions: Does anyone really know a good backup QB anywhere in a green and white uniform? and Does anyone promise to gain more than two yards a carry - NOT you, Thomas Jones? The answers to these questions were suddenly apparent last night here in Philadelphia, where I reside. No, I did not attend last night's game at Lincoln Field. In fact, at times, especially when Kevin Kolb was running the Eagles offense, I found myself switching over to the Cubs-Phillies game. Then I went to bed around 9:30 pm. Sitting through two three-hour motivational talks this week, both intended to get us psyched to teach a new school year, was exhausting enough. I think they put those things together to make us long to get back to work with our adolescent students that much more. Preseason education sucks about as much as preseason football.

Ah, yes. Of course, the answers came in the form of the other Brett and a Chatman - Ratliff and Jesse, respectively. Question: how do Ratliff and Favre avoid the confusion that their identical first names present? Answer: Easy. Ratliff is "You There," while the Favre is "Brett" or "Sir." I myself was needlessly worried about the extent to which Brett Favre's nose would feel out of joint about not starting a game, but I suppose I needn't have worried because the legend himself says it is no big deal. Then I said to myself, Self - are we going to worry the whole year about how Brett is feeling about being on the Jets? Like an ugly duck afraid that his hot date is going to ditch him, yes. It's hard to imagine a Jets fan not worrying about Brett Favre thinking exactly what he, well, actually said when he arrived: "What have I gotten myself into?" Brett, Sir, it is what we have been asking for years.

With Sir Brett on the sidelines, it was nice to see someone else steal the show last night, and while neither Ratliff nor Erik Ainge astounded, they didn't appall, either. Mind you, we once thought similarly of Clemens at another Meaningless Bowl with the Eagles last year; maybe it's just that our second team offensive line is really just a much better offensive line than the Eagles' second team defensive line. I have never done online dating, but I guess that the process of meeting and greeting on the interweb and setting up a subsequent appointment is not unlike watching preseason games and deciding how your year is going to go. Caution.

The show was actually stolen by Jesse Chatman, who almost took my breath away. Running, catching, a modestly prayerful touchdown celebration. Passing and receiving yards impressive. I mean, each time I found myself close to getting a little too excited over one of his runs - like his breakaway YAC from Erik Ainge in the third quarter - I just kept having to jolt myself to reality: It's a dream, only a dream. And it's fading now...fading away... This is preseason.

Now that I'm back at work, my co-workers find me setting up my classroom, and they congratulate me as if my wife had just given birth or as if I had just gotten married. They look at me and ask aloud, "Do you feel different? Do you like your new life?" While it would be nice to imagine that I actually accomplished something on my own of which they might speak with such anticipation and praise, I know that they're just asking about having Brett Favre as my quarterback. He keeps me up at night worrying about his health, but, y'know - it's a magical thing. I acknowledge the strangeness of it all, how peculiar it seems even now after nearly a month of it. I'm still making breakfast for him in the morning. It's almost as if the honeymoon's still going. But what the hell can I say? They look at me exactly as an Eagles fan does to a Jets fan. Even despite our playing the Eagles last night, all this past week my colleagues felt happy for me. I am not a Giants fan. I am no threat to the always fragile Philadelphia ego. "I'm happy for you, man," they say. "Really happy for you." Knowing a little of the Philadelphia mind - one I have come to acquire just a little myself - if Favre doesn't work out, then I'll probably be met with derision by the same people near the end of the semester. "Well," they'll say. "I could have told you that that whole freakin' thing wasn't going to work out." Indeed. Indeed, you could have.

September Nears

As I return back to work this week, I see the upcoming teaching year as part of the continuing arc of my career. I think about how many things I have yet to successfully put into practice after nine years of teaching public school. Technically, I should have learned by now how to put all my grades on a computer. More of my lessons should have had their start on the web. I should have a file cabinet full of lessons ready to go instead of six copy boxes containing mismatched pages with yellowing corners. I should change that lame bulletin board with the reference to old white writers whom no reads because, well, no one reads. What the hell is wrong with me? Ah, but there's always September, the month of new beginnings in education and in American football. God bless September. She's a harsh mistress.

We are unused, I think, to thinking optimistically about the seasons ahead; last year caught a lot of us off-guard. One of my colleagues is the only Jets fan I know within the Delaware Valley, and both he and I, each with a lifetime of grief to recall, were beguiled at how bad the Jets really were in 2007. We're trying not to be too promiscuous with hope this coming year, even with the radical changes in identity the Jets have undergone since August. Now many prognosticators are even imagining that we are perhaps a "sleeper" team for the coming year. I actually think Chad's going to beat us in the opener. But maybe I'm just overcompensating. I don't know what the hell I think anymore.

But that's not important, either. When I tried to quit drinking some years back, a rather intense non-drinking alcoholic advised me, "Don't think, stupid!" which...I don't know...just didn't seem like good advice even at the time. I mean, don't think? "Thinking just gets you in trouble," he added, failing to include that abstract thought is also what separates human beings from leopards, or ducks, or Labradors. I didn't argue with him, and not just because his name was "Sniper." Instead I consulted Eastern philosophy to help me to understand that while emotional thoughts within the mind were inevitable, emotions did not have to inevitably control my mind. So I took up meditation for a while.

Long story short, now I don't drink and I don't meditate, but I guess along the way I have learned the fine art of appreciating what I can and cannot control. I'm not very good at applying that appreciation often, but the truth is that nothing can help mediate the helplessness of being a football fan during the season. It's not as if I have a plan any better than the ones Mangini and Callahan have in mind for the offense. It's not as if I can will the Jets to have a more effective running game. It's not as if I can teach Washington and Jones to hit the holes better, to make Laverneus Coles talk to Brett Favre, or make Coles grow taller, or make Justin Miller feel better, or Vernon Gholsten learn faster. I don't have the solution to the Jets continuing problems in the secondary. And problems? Why so many penalties on false starts? I am so...alone.

Well, no. And how can I worry like this about something over which I have no control when I can't even find the will to clean out my classroom alcove? Does being a fan become indispensable when it mirrors the true helplessness of our lives? or does the experience act as a fiction of helplessness, a convenient existential excuse for not doing the things we have to do? Ah, screw it. I'll stop thinking now.

Commemoratives

This is what fans of other teams with bigger stars go through. No sooner did the second week of preseason come to a close than offers for expensive merchandise came knocking at our door. Yesterday my wife received an offer from the Danbury Mint - a lesser version of the Franklin Mint, I would gather - to purchase a commemorative plaque depicting Brett Favre in his debut for the New York Jets. We see a picture of Favre throwing one of his six passing attempts in his first Jets game, the preseason match against Washington. "Two 24kt gold-plated medallions and a replica ticket to the Jets' 2008 home opener" accompany the photograph. One medallion depicts Favre without eyeballs, making him look a little like he's been commemorated upon his death. No word on whether these medallions can be traded for food or whether they possess any particular healing qualities.

Also not available for bartering is a "replica ticket" that depicts a decidedly grumpy, almost disconsolate Eric Mangini. He looks as if he has been asked to look at the camera for a picture specifically to be used on a replica ticket.

Total for this commemoration is $129, plus $10 shipping and handling, payable in three easy installments of $46.30. My satisfaction is as completely guaranteed as Super Bowl III, but I will pass.

I can't be too critical of a bad purchase when I have personally contemplated the purchase of plenty of Jets crap. But when I buy crap, it is done so to commemorate things that are only important to great moments in The Martin Roche Experience. This is the essence of the fan's life. If the game did not actually have an impact on our daily lives, then we wouldn't spend our time so morbidly fascinated by it all year. For example, the 1975 Welch's jelly glasses I bought on Ebay commemorate all of the orange juice and milk (orange juice in the NFC glass, milk in the AFC glass) I consumed while staring at the conference helmets, twirling them round and round and round, memorizing every nuance, finding coherence in the disordered universe of a neurotic childhood. Gently hand wash, please.




And I don't even know what the New York Jets light switch cover commemorates, other than a wish I did not even know existed.

Jints

I post this picture because it is one of those unsung, unheralded moments in Jets history - the opening kickoff of the first Jets-Giants game, which Mike Battle ran back (leaping like a gazelle, actually) for a touchdown over the New York Giants in a hot August preseason game at the Yale Bowl in 1969. I was almost six months old, the nation had owned the moon for a month, and about 150 miles away from New Haven, both your uncles were looking for a Port-O-San at Woodstock. Once Mike Battle scored, the Jets then spent the rest of that humid, bright day pummeling the Giants into submission. Like Hal at Agincourt, it was a brief victory, followed by years attrition, illness and, ultimately, total loss. But for one moment, the Jets were the only football team in New York.

Oy me. Tonight's Jets-Giants game is not on in Philly. Instead, while following the game online, I will be watching the Steelers and Vikings in Minnesota. For the love of God, I hope that the Vikings will not be wearing their Bob Fosse outfits. I do not know what kind of pride you can have when you are taking on the Steelers in purple leggings. I don't know why I should care, except that I have a latent sympathy for the old Vikes from their days of unbeatable home field advantage. They were one of my three adopted proxy teams during the first great Jets miasma, the 9-43 years of 1975-77. Basically, I rooted for them in the playoffs, the one place where I knew I wouldn't find the Jets, and Minnesota was well in the thick of it back then. What clinched my proxy feeling was the loathsome outcome of the 1975 playoff game at Bloomington against the Cowboys, the game that is the titular owner of the first "Hail Mary" pass. Like anything else associated with the Cowboys, such a claim is a ridiculous fraud born of the worst form of American hubris. How could I ever root against the Vikings when they were victims of Drew Pearson's push off of Nate Wright?

This well edited tailgating retrospective on the moment epitomizes the kind of fans and game the Vikings were once known for. In the present, we see stout descendants of actual pillaging Norsemen drinking beer in a parking lot, dressed for the kind of shattering cold that, strangely enough, was not in evidence on the day of the 1975 game in question. Two things here: it is impossible to appreciate the madness of that playoff game without forgetting that the referee who blew the interference call was then tagged by a bottle to the head from one of the end zone fans. This is a remarkable detail often forgotten, one that transcends the Lake Wobegon stereotype of Minnesotans as withdrawn, shy, and largely harmless folk. Second, it is important to remind ourselves that since they left the frigid, abandoned-by-God confines of Metropolitan Stadium, the Vikings have never returned to the Super Bowl.

Back to our heroes: An uncanny number of the past and present preseason squabbles between Jets-Giants have been humdrum, awful games - usually won by a point, a touchdown, or by apathy - 16-15, 15-14, 16-14, 10-0. Nothing at all like the circus Aaron Rodgers and Jay Cutler apparently put on display last night. Whereas during that hot weekend in 1969, as his country transformed all around him without his really understanding it yet, my father saw Don Maynard leading a chorus of "Goodbye Allie" for Jets fans to sing at the conclusion of the game at the Yale Bowl. Maynard sang it for Allie Sherman, the coach who cut him from the Giants in the late fifties. Jets 37 Giants 14. Dad still remembers it.

True to the drama of the moment, Sherman lost his job that season and never made it to the Hall of Fame. Maynard kept his job, and his bronze bust is visible in Canton, Ohio. I will take whatever belated pride I can. Beat the Jints.

Bizarro

Jets fans are not Packers fans, and maybe it's in their nature. Join with me right now as we imagine once again the parallel universe that Earth occupies somewhere in the cosmos where Al Gore won the 2000 election and the Jets have not suffered the misfortunes, mismanagement, bad coaching, bad drafting, bad luck of their post-1969 history. In this alternate universe, Brett Favre was drafted by the Jets in 1991 and not by Atlanta. Of course as Favre himself admitted, had he been offered the chance to play in New York, he might not ever have had a career anywhere at all. I don't think he meant any disrespect by that; yes, it would have meant being coached by Bruce Coslet and Ritchie Kotite. But without the aid a good front line to protect him, his career might well have gone the way of Browning Nagle's. As he himself is aware, Favre might also have killed himself with the reckless abandon and self-destruction that the city that never sleeps offers to the kind of hellraiser he was reputed to have been when he first broke into the NFL.

Still, let's say things worked out swimmingly for Favre and the Jets back in the Bizarro Jets world of the 1990's. By 2008, Bizarro New York Jets legend Brett Favre leaves the Meadowlands this summer (actually, the Jets would probably have had their own Lambeau by that time, maybe even at Willets Point) after hemming and hawing over his retirement and ends up somewhere else for the beginning of the season. I propose that even then, Jets fans would not have worn his jersey in an act of grateful respect the way so many Packer fans did to the second preseason game in the real world of last week. Even in their Bizarro world, Jets fans are not good sports. It's in their blood. They are not polite or respectful. I suppose it would have been easier and nicer to have been a Packers fan, a Chiefs fan or the 12th man of the Seahawks organization. No dice.

Brett Favre's Debut II

Seasons end. Seasons begin. This time next week I will be digesting the business surrounding our new school administration, the new course I'm teaching, the old course I've made my own. I'm an old pro at this, but lots of things have changed, and nearing Labor Day, I'm not quite where I thought I would be. But I can do this. I've handled beginnings and endings before. I guess I'm just like Brett Favre. Just like him, in fact.

I expected to go to Hofstra this week in order to see the Jets say farewell to their old training grounds. I did not. I attended none of the practices this summer, which is kind of too bad - except that it isn't. I have no excuse except that I didn't feel like schlepping from Philly to Long Island to see the Jets train. This is contrary to my previous feelings about "seeing the greatest QB ever to wear the number 4 blah, blah...," but like many Jets fans who did not attend Brett Favre's preseason opener at the Meadowlands, I just didn't feel like it.

You know, I too was surprised at the number of no-shows at the Meadowlands for Favre's preseason debut, but unlike Peter King, I sympathize with the fans. Maybe people were at the shore. Maybe people were spending time with their adolescent kids. Maybe they were in a nice air-conditioned bar getting hammered, complaining about their PSL's. Maybe they were at home, fixing something that got loose under the sink. Maybe they were arguing with a spouse. Maybe they were out on a date. Maybe they were tucking their little ones in. There are lots of good things to do instead of attending the second preseason game. There are even lots of good things to do in lieu of seeing Brett Favre wear a Jets uniform for the first time. Jets fans are a little like the "difficult" and "reluctant" students I teach who never really seem to like what you're teaching, never appreciate it when you're teaching your ass off for them. They greet your extra help after school like they're taking toll money from you on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. But those students are always the ones who wave their arms off the next year and say, "Mr. Roche! Yo! My favorite teacher!" Really? Why? I thought you didn't give a damn. Well, they don't. Except that they do. Afterwards, though. It's complicated.

Because of Gate D, because of the cheers for Chad's injury in the opener last year, Jets fans are now the convenient (and often justified) target of the talking heads at ESPN and Sports Illustrated. I spent the better part of the last two days digesting Peter King's anger at the disrespect his friend Brett Favre got when so few fans showed up for his debut. So here's yet another reason to say Jets fans have no pride, no self-respect, and on and on.

Maybe. I mean, these are Jets fans. Look who we are rooting for. The team that won the Super Bowl over New England...oh, wait. No. How embarrassing. I'm confusing us with that other team from "New York." Gosh. Is my face red? Green, more likely. Envy and shame have a corrosive effect on the conscious and subconscious processing of the human mind. We have always has been the runt and mutt of the litter. Fans behave accordingly. Sometimes it's ugly. Sometimes it's just a matter of being difficult.

So maybe it's nurture and not nature. Like the blue collar 11th graders I teach who spend their Monday mornings discussing who got arrested over the weekend - as opposed to the better off kids I teach who spent the weekend studying - Jets fans have not had the opportunity to hone the skills normally attributed to the better class of person. It would be easy to blame the former; why can't they just be more like the latter? But what does it take to be a Jets fan when really you could just root for Big Blue? It may be loyalty, dedication, love, faith, and other such wonderful traits. Or maybe not. Maybe Jets fans feed off of a hearty KFC bowl mass of passive aggression, fear, self-hatred, shame, and insecurity. Despair and disappointment are a hearty stew, but they can be an elixir, too. You get used to it. And it changes you. So you don't show up.

Actually, I don't know if any of that is a good explanation of what Peter King is upset about. Of course none of this character analysis can excuse Jets fans' garbage behavior at Gate D last year, but those were the specific actions of a minority of fans. Not showing up for Favre in exhibition, however, should not be equated with the sociopathology of a bunch of sick fans last year. There's an enormous difference.

The no-shows are just parcel of the general air of grumpiness and disconsolation in Gang Green Land, and there should be no apologies for that. It's a tough crowd, but then they're not the only ones. Football itself is a large, grumpy person's sport. It's sad, but here it is - I wouldn't take my kid to a Jets game the way Dad took me to Shea back in the day, but then I wouldn't take my kid to Lincoln Field to see an Eagles game, either. Some places are just not suitable for kids. That's why baseball exists. That's the reality.

And finally, if - as is suggested by the way the PSL's are promoted - fans really are investing in their seats the way you think of investing in other things like education, cars, boats, etc., then maybe fans are entitled to do whatever they like with their investment - like not use it for a preseason game. Owning the license to your seat does not require you to be a good sport. If sportswriters, the self-appointed gatekeepers of good sportsmanship, do not appreciate that truth, I would hope that Brett Favre does.

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.

NY Jets #28 - Curtis Martin

So far, in our efforts to identify every player who's worn a Jets uniform, number by number, we have given some past players legendary status on the basis of trivial things - funny sounding names, weird hair choices, astounding anonymity, or maybe stellar ineptitude. But only two - Don Maynard and Joe Namath - have gotten their own entries. We are at the end of discussing all the players in #28 but one, and he deserves a similar honor. Between the two, #28 Curtis Martin is more like Don Maynard in that he's a legend in both Jets' lore and in the annals of the game itself.

When Bill Parcells took Curtis Martin from the New England Patriots, it was the beginning of a high time for morale in Jets' history. The Jets won the division the year he arrived. Martin uncharacteristically missed one game that year, which proved to be not at all in his nature because he just didn't miss games. He was just the kind of player whom Parcells loves and rewards. Of course, being Parcells' favorite is a decidedly mixed blessing;  such a player must be forced to sometimes haul around the coach's emotional baggage; he must expect to be blindsided, derided publicly, made to feel public shame and humiliation whenever necessary before being finally pulled back close to the coach's heart. Just ask Parcells' first wife or Bill Belichick about it. Just ask Phil Simms. When he picks you, he often picks a punching bag that must be painted with a smiling face. But though he was highly respected by Parcells, Curtis Martin remained either impervious to the Coach's Treatment or he was immune by virtue of his basic integrity. Everyone loved Curtis.

He knew he was special, yet this did not compel him to distinguish himself with the manner of similarly talented men. He did not wear gold teeth, he did not sport extravagant tattoos with Japanese calligraphy, he did not hide props for a vaudeville routine in the padding of the goal post. He did not wonder aloud if anyone could possibly stop him. He did not gather around him a posse of "friends" whose intention was to use his acclaim to settle their own emotional troubles. He did not blame his teammates. He did not feign injury for the purpose of passively addressing his discontent with a team. He did not threaten to not show up for training camp because he was generally unhappy. He did not market himself in the commercial world as if he trying to stave off death. He never brandished weapons, solicited prostitution and did not batter a girlfriend or child. He was never caught with a handgun in his suitcase at airport security and claim that he kept it for his own security. He did not blame fans. He was and is a grown-ass man.

It's a shame when you have to identify someone as great because they haven't distinguished themselves with habits more appropriate to dysfunctional high school kids. You can identify many contemporary players in the traits above, yet few of them will never make the Hall of Fame. There are exceptions; Terrell Owens and Randy Moss probably will. But to be great is also to stand out for the best reasons. Curtis Martin will be in the Hall of Fame for three important statistics. He stands at #4 in the all-time rushing leaders as of this writing. He managed 1,000 yards in his first 10 seasons, and he scored more than 100 touchdowns.

But he also represented something that only fans of predominantly losing teams can appreciate. I was walking around in Philly last year and a complete stranger saw my simple Jets t-shirt, and he felt comfortable looking me in the eye saying, "Jets suck." He said it as if he were letting me know there was a huge bug on my shoulder or there was toilet paper on my shoe. He was saying it out of general courtesy. When I calmly replied, "Go to hell," he looked surprised. Jeez, asshole, he seemed to say. I was only trying to help.

As long as I've been a Jets fan, I've known that, traditionally, when my team comes up on someone else's schedule, their fans look at us and say, "OK, but we've got the Jets this week. That's a win." I know it. Last season we fans knew that there was usually no one on our squad that represented a tangible threat. Maybe as a team we came together and rallied four times. There were close games, but we were never really in it. With Curtis Martin, we always knew that somehow we were in it.

When he lined up in the backfield, we knew something might break open. He wasn't about to break out in the style of Barry Sanders, but he would consistently wear defenses down. His opponents knew it; we knew it. His blockers knew it. Larry Csonka once said he felt the greatest self-assurance in his life when Bob Kuchenberg demanded that Csonka "run behind (his) ass" in Super Bowl VII. It was also the blocker knowing that Csonka could run up his ass that made him say it. Blockers love great runners, and Martin inspired that kind of belief in his blockers and in us. He gave Jets fans a consistent sense of self-confidence that fans of a losing franchise crave even more than they do a Super Bowl appearance. Perhaps I exaggerate, but Namath did that, Maynard did that, and Riggins did that. That's what makes them legends. They made the opposition worry yet made their fans proud. Opponents' fans wished Martin would go away, even while they wanted him on their fantasy teams. It's nice to be envied that way.

Curtis Martin didn't really miss games. In this sense, he has something in common with our current starting quarterback. But then the differences emerge. Brett Favre's airing out his thoughts and feelings as he approached the summer were uncharacteristic of the kind of player Curtis Martin was. As Martin was preparing to play in his hometown of Pittsburgh in the 2004 playoffs, he identified with his underdog Jets because they flew "under the radar." Though he grew up amid the titanic Steelers of Pittsburgh in the 70's, he nevertheless felt more at home as a player in the role of an unflappable spoiler, even toward the end of his career.

He would manage one more season in 2005. To him a career played out and ended. That's all. There was nothing about which to ruminate aloud. There was nothing to look back on in dismay. Even though he never won the championships that his old team in New England would have, with or without him in the backfield, he preferred to be indispensable to the Jets than an ornamentation on the Team of the Decade. He refused to regret. There was nothing about which to equivocate. He might have managed another 1,000 year in 2005, but he ended up about 240 yards short. It just wasn't to be. And we could scarcely endure parting with him.

Brett Favre will probably sell 6,000 jerseys by the opening day snap. That's more than the Jets probably sold all last year. But Curtis Martin's is the only one I've spent my money on (my wife bought me Joe Namath's for Christmas). Buying Favre's jersey is a message of infinite hope, a characteristic well suited to a loyal Jets fan. It would be nice to imagine that it might mean something more than that someday. But owning Martin's jersey signifies a rare, specialized pride that a Jets fan is entitled to feel. You want to wear a jersey that speaks to the best of your team, and Curtis Martin represented all the best things that Jets fans can claim (unless their knuckles drag along the concrete turns of Gate D): loyalty, dedication, hard work, and showing up. His success was special to us.

The other #28's start here.

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.

New York Jets By The Numbers: # 28 - Part 2

You wouldn't think there would be so many football players for whom there is no statistical information. But until fantasy football, until the expansive growth of sports coverage as an industry and football's reorientation as America's #1 sport, people like defensive back Chuck Dupree, the first of all #28's in Jets history, didn't really exist except as a name on a list. Next to that name on the Jets' All-Time Database is the lone designation "14G."

The news is similar for Jim Gray, but there are some additionally tantalizing clues as to his life beyond football. He returned kickoffs about half of the 1966 season but, as always, the Database drops unexplored details that leave you scratching your head. "Represented entertainment groups during the offseason," it says of Gray. Really? I mean, really? An athlete and an agent? Have any of today's players considered such employment? I think we have some naturals out there, like our own newly acquired quarterback. He's erratic and unpredictable enough, God knows. And no, I know it was your first question too, but this is not the sideline reporter Jim Gray who ambushed Pete Rose at the All-Century Team - the Jim Gray about whom apparently no one feels ambivalent. Keep in mind that a few years after the interview, Rose finally admitted to gambling on baseball. However, if Kobe Bryant gambled on basketball, I'm not sure he'd receive the same treatment from Gray. Just a thought.

Between 1985 and 1990, Carl Howard filled in the Jets' secondary as needed. Years of promise, but years of injury. Each time the Jets came close to a division title or even the playoffs during that time, limbs and joints would fly out of whack, collisions would level careers. I always wondered if the Jets were not given the right conditioning in training during the Joe Walton years, and let's face it, Walton was Head Coach for too long (1983-89). So people like Carl Howard were necessary, particularly during 1987, when another injury-ridden season was further complicated by a pernicious football strike. It was a strange time, when men didn't know whether they were starters, backups or replacements. Some were all three. The NFL's main database offers this strange comment with regard to him: "Some believe that 1987 was Carl Howard's best season, when he caught three interceptions." Perhaps, but did anyone think to ask Carl Howard?

I talked to Dad today about Brett Favre, and he made a sound like he had indigestion. "Another New York team buying a has-been player in his last year." As I have mentioned here before, the Jets probably have a high rate of players who finish their careers in Gang Green. Ronnie Lott and Art Monk come to mind. So does Leonard Marshall. But then across all of New York itself I also think about Willie Mays, Mickey Lolich, Tom Seaver redux, Dave Kingman redux, Larry Csonka, Joe Torre, Norm Snead, and Bobby Murcer redux, Frank Tanana. There are many people who have crawled back to New York in search of one last paycheck. The entire 1962 New York Mets squad fits that definition. In 1967, Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs pioneer Abner Haynes had one year left in him, and he spent it with the New York Jets. He shared the backfield with Emerson Boozer, Bill Mathis, Billy Joe ("My Favorite Hayseed," as Dad called him) and gained some 60 yards above the next best rusher on the team, Joe Namath. So this was the end of Abner Haynes' career as a groundbreaking AFL rusher, one that started in 1960. The picture you see is the beginning of it all. In green? you ask. The green of North Texas University, in Denton, whose color was the same shade as the one in which Haynes would retire. This is technically Haynes' rookie card. Midsprint, he appears to be in a flying Heisman toward a career whose end does not even seem possible.

New York Jets By The Numbers: # 28 - Head Shots

A professional photographer is assigned to get shots of the players comprising the newly established team roster. The photographer blandly instructs his subjects to express something professional for the camera, yet he also captures a player at the brink of his year, after training camp, after scrimmages, and cuts. If a picture can say a thousand words, then head shots can at least offer about three or four important windows into the souls of their subjects. As we embark on discussing players who've worn #28 for the Jets, let's take a look at five players through their team yearbook head shots. What do you see?

(all photos courtesy of the Jets' All-Time Roster)

In the last decade, #28 has become an important number in the Jets organization. A "28" jersey is one of two Jets jerseys I own. Though he wore #28 for the Jets, Raymond Austin's is not the name above the number. He is the last player to wear the number before the last player to wear the number. The truth is I can find no statistics on Raymond Austin for 1997, his lone season with the Jets. So what do you see in his head shot? I see an arresting expression, mixing self-confidence with a sense of vague unease. Damn right I'm good. But I was drafted on the 145th round by Miami and then got sent to the Jets. So now I don't know what the hell's going to happen to me. Best not to think about such things, Ray.

His predecessor in #28, Reggie Cobb, has a very different story from Austin's, yet as with Austin, Cobb's story is in his eyes. Like Austin, Reggie Cobb came out of Tennessee - much more highly tauted, though, and he did not disappoint. He played for Sam Wyche with Brucie-attired Tampa Bay Bucs. He finally reached the kind of mark to which all running backs eventually aspire - he gained 1,171 yards in 1992. But as is often the case with backs who reach 1,000 plus, it was all downhill from there. The running back who gains less the year after a big one has a target on his back. Everybody senses - perhaps rightly - that you're not going to get back on the hill. Your legs are out of gas. It's a question of sheer attrition. By working hard, you made yourself expendable. Once again, football is like life. There was one year with Green Bay, one year with Jacksonville, then a final year with the Jets - 1996 - with a grand total of 85 yards all season. So this is the look of a man who is about to gain 85 yards for a 1-15 squad. He senses that this is his end. Unlike Raymond Austin, Reggie Cobb knows what's going to happen next.

Then there's the expression of downright obliviousness we see in #28 Pat Chaffey, who came to the Jets from Atlanta in 1992. He played two years for us. According to the Jets' All-Time Database, when he was originally drafted out of Oregon State, Chaffey "was signed to the New England developmental squad for 5 weeks belore (sic) ending up with Phoenix's developmental squad lor (sic) the remainder of the season." Boy, can you imagine? The Patriots, back then? The Cardinals back then or, y'know, ever? How happy was he to play for a team that promised to win as many as six games in a season? You can see it in his face. Hot dog, he's saying. The possibility that his two seasons with the Jets would be his last years in the pro's may not have mattered to him. This is his last yearbook head shot. He's extremely happy to have gotten this far, I guess. He persists in a state of giddy delusion. As a Jets fan, I recognize the expression in the mirror.

I don't know if this particular head shot offers a window into Cecil Leonard's soul. But he seems to exude a wariness about the world and its promises, doesn't he? He graduated from Tuskegee, and his first year with the Jets was 1969, when the team was football's champion. Has he noticed that the good times aren't going to last in Flushing? Having lived all his life in the South, is he feeling like a little fish in a big pond? Is he mistrustful of the city folk and their ways? What's the problem, Cecil? Maybe if you had been born a man of color in this country right after World War II and become a professional in the year after MLK's murder, seeing fire hoses turned on protesters, seeing the destination cities of the Great Migration implode, then maybe you'd wear that permanent expression, too.

Whether he's just been caught in a bad picture or just plain old stoned out of his goard, Darrol Ray is probably about to have a good year. Darrol Ray was just a flat-out good free safety sometimes, with seven and six interceptions in his first two years, respectively, 1980 and '81. Like Cecil Leonard, he played his short career with only the Jets, but he lingers in my memory for plays that secondary players dream about. I remember him running an interception back 75 yards for a touchdown in the 1980 opener loss against Baltimore, and I remember a 90-something yard interception of a Kenny Anderson pass for a touchdown in the 1983 playoffs against the Bengals. Darrol Ray and the Big Play. There may be no more exciting play in football than a secondary player's recovery of a turnover for a touchdown. Just to prove it, there's Darrol Ray in my memory, clear as day, hauling that baby back home. A dusty, hot day at Shea. A rainy wet and cold day in Cincinnati. I see them as vividly today as I did back then, even though my original viewing of those moments on TV was somewhat compromised by my own jumping up and down and by the sound of my own screaming.

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.

Into the Modern Era...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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