NY Jets #24 - Part 2

"Who? I don't know who that it is. Once I step on the field it doesn't matter who's out there. I don't pay attention to numbers or names. I go out there and I focus on what I'm supposed to do. That's not a slight on him, or whoever he is. I just go out there and play football."

- Terrell Owens, quoted in Newsday, November 21, 2007

"Who?"

I'll tell you who. Contrary to the above sentiments of everybody's favorite sufferer of undiagnosed bipolar depression, our work is very much dedicated to to paying attention to numbers and names. And the man about whom Terrell Owens was speaking that day was Darrelle Revis, our current #24. The Cowboys made mincemeat of the Jets on Thanksgiving Day 2007. Owens scored one touchdown, and Revis had five tackles, but now, after three seasons we know exactly who that is.

One of the first things Rex Ryan said when he was first hired was that Darrelle Revis was the best cornerback in the game. I thought, well, maybe someday. And someday was last year, at which point he made himself the central point of one of the year's best defenses. Behold. His remarkable domination of Ochocinco in the season's last game and against the Chargers in the playoffs were things to which Jets fans are unaccustomed. We are accustomed to Bill Romanowski speaking ill of us and then pounding us in the divisional round. Revis' interceptions are like works of leaping, pirouetting choreography. He is a star. We have so few in the history of these numbers and names. This is what one looks like. This is no Albert Haynesworth. This is Darrelle Revis. That's who, Terrell. That's who.

Until the summer, and apparently now this season of 2010, rumors swirled that this was the week when Revis would sign for the team, but as Jets fans know, if an essential piece of a championship is missing, it will stay missing. I'm terrified now that it's all too late; that Revis has missed too much and won't be as effective as he would ordinarily have been. I know Rex Ryan has done much to bluster away the long, stale fog of bad fortune in our franchise's narrative, and he was right to insist in episode 1 of Hard Knocks that one man does not a team make. But he was also right in saying that Darrelle Revis is the best cornerback in the NFL, and among Jets fans, such a one is so unique that we cannot help but believe that one man will make all the difference. For so long, on any given Sunday, 11 men seemed to make absolutely no difference whatsoever. So why not one? This isn't a logical thing.

Darrelle Revis, contractually satisfied (a dramatization).

I wish they had signed him back sooner than Labor Day 2010. The club that keeps track of its conscession (sic) stats even in preseason should have been able to dig very, very deep much earlier and given one of its best investments exactly what he richly deserves. Yes, a contract is a contract, but as the white collar parasite CEO's of America will tell you (between taking sips of infant blood in diamond-studded carafes) there are always exceptions for people who are deemed indispensable. The Don Drapers of the world. I believe Darrelle Revis will be the last #24 in New York Jets history. That's what's important here. I don't want to have to write about another one. Call it greed or call it righteous indignation on his part. I believe Darrelle Revis is entitled to whatever he wants. If his contract made a specific demand that my Toyota Corolla to be handed over to him just so that he could bring it to his estate and light it on fire in front of his mighty entourage as a sacrificial sign of his power and glory, then that's fine. He can have it. (A talented colleague of mine has enabled you to see this conjured image for yourself). I can get up an hour early each day and take two trains to work. I just need the Jets to have a shot at the division before the 2011 lockout. As I would watch each station pass on the sunrise elevated blue line and stare out of its yellow windows, I would think to myself, "No, no. This is right. This is as it should be. This is good."

Ty Law

****

And now another modern football tale of, well, what else? - money. Salaries, the cap to supposedly contain them, the question of honor - all of these things are relative in the the angst-ridden world of pro football management. Number 24 Ty Law was a victim of franchise anxieties about the cap in New England and with the Jets. His one season with us was 2005, arguably his best as a pro. He had 10 interceptions, one of which was a stellar touchdown return against the Patriots the day after Christmas - a gift of sorts for Mr. Law because a year before, the Patriots had wanted to renegotiate with him to put themselves back under the cap. Bruised, he said that a "bridge was burned" with the Pats. Anybody who says this is fine by me. And what better way to celebrate this fissure with the Devil than with this belated Christmas gift of a touchdown pick?

But then of course the Jets made him a victim of the cap's anxieties a year later, and so Law went to play for another Jets-rejecting coach at Kansas City, Herman Edwards. Then in 2008 Law wanted back in New England. Bridge burned, bridge rebuilt.

Ray Mickens

The story becomes all the more poignant, or more likely cruel, when we consider the case of #24 Ray Mickens. As we mentioned, to cover themselves with the salary cap, the Patriots let Ty Law go in 2005, and the Jets picked him up. This made Ray Mickens, one of my personal favorite secondary players, very happy for the help he'd get in the secondary. "Unselfish one day," Karen Crouse wrote in the Times, "unemployed the next." With Law on the team just before the 2005 season, the Jets needed to fix their cap problems, and so they released Mickens and gave Law his number. After a year in Cleveland with no interceptions, the Jets resigned Mickens in 2006, ten years after Ritchie Kotite first drafted him. Then they immediately released Ray Mickens again. He was then picked up by New England to play four final games of his career with them in 2006. If these fellows did not make at least a million a year, I would almost bemoan the quandaries that the cap creates, but these guys know that it's not personal. Bridges never actually burn in the first place. That's the reality, and while the cap may theoretically encourage some parity among teams, most teams like the Jets achieve and lose that parity within a year or two partly because of these very issues.

BUT WAIT!! The rebuilt bridge got burned again!! Ty Law came back once more. He got signed by the Jets to play against the Pats the week of 11/10/08. "I know they're going to throw at me," he said to ESPN, "but I welcome the challenge -- bring it. I got the tricks for you." Ty Law seems to have retired after a year with Denver. He wore #22 while with the Jets again, and #26 with Denver.

Did you know that Darrelle Revis grew up in the same small hometown of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania as Ty Law? And that Revis also chose #24 as a tribute to the elder Law? "That's my little boy," Law said of the younger Revis. Even Darrelle Revis was somebody's little boy once. But wherever Ty Law is, wherever he goes, one thing's for sure. As soon as he's back working in anyone's lineup, for anyone, the laws of the universe will require that Ray Mickens will have to be released from something somewhere. A marriage. A prison. A demon. A job. A cobra's grip.

NY Jets #42 - Part 2

What do these two men have in common? Are they New York's most relentless crime fighters? Its trigger-happiest detectives? Anzalone and Harper?

No, but they do wear the same uniform.

Not just the same number, but the same name and number, which no one else so far in our journey can claim for himself (or for someone else) - unless he can somehow lay claim to meeting himself, maybe in Milliways, which, as the Guide points out, is fairly embarrassing if not, of course, completely impossible.

First, the man on the right. This is Bruce Harper, who wore #42 from 1977-84 and is considered a universally loved Jet. Players like Bruce Harper are permanent fixtures in the memories of longtime Jets fans because, like Wayne Chrebet, they represent something of the indispensable underdog. In a franchise that ritually backs into the playoffs, such persons are always important. Bruce Harper is best known as a return man for the Jets; his 82-yard punt return just before halftime in a 1978 home game against the Bills at Shea was one of those moments that helped us to believe in a turnaround season when we saw one. Harper blazed down the sidelines. I was visiting Jake Walsh in Sag Harbor at the time, so I didn't see it on TV (I don't think the Jets sold out that season at Shea until the Patriots game, anyway), but I saw the replay the following week on This Week in the NFL, with Harry Kallas narrating the play, with the run documented in slow motion, taken from a camera positioned atop the right field upper deck. How do I remember such details. It's sad. But Bruce Harper had arrived to my world.

And he made himself indispensable. Though he was a return man, the 1978 runback was his only career return for a touchdown. Look at his statistics, and you see that he gained more on pass receptions than from the backfield, and he scored touchdowns on more pass plays than on the run. His career is even more impressive when you consider he was all of five foot eight. And from little Kutztown University in Central Pennsylvania. And a New Jersey native and current resident, no less. You couldn't have a better formula for a Jets hero, unless you were a walk-on from Hofstra. Bruce Harper is a man who represents the team's spiritual core. A six foot player is an underdog. Bruce Harper came from beneath the underdog. We are all Bruce Harper.

This might then explain the other man in the picture above. He is Ed Anzalone, or Fireman Ed, the Jets' "superfan," official fan of sorts, and universally recognized supporter of the beloved Green. He wears Bruce Harper's jersey. Why? I don't know. I guess I want to believe he wears it for the same reason that I think Bruce Harper represents the essence of who we are as a team.

We don't have a mascot, thank Christ. Instead, we have Fireman Ed, one of many such superfans around the NFL. Each team theoretically has one. Usually this person is a fan whose excess of spirit has made him a character of some local color who becomes so empowered by the subsequent attention that he develops into a self-appointed cheerleader. Every stadium has one, and if they are like Ed, they garner a following that the team then co-opts, hoping that they are not dealing with someone who has a severe mental illness. As we know, Fireman Ed hoists himself atop a larger man and leads the now famous cheer than anyone who finds out that I'm a Jets fan offers to me as if it were a lodge greeting. According to his bio, Ed has been leading the cheer since 1986, but I remember hearing it at Shea Stadium as far back as 1980; who knows when it began. Heard in full throat by the tens of thousands, it's highly formidable, almost like what totalitarian dictators crave when they stand on a balcony in platform shoes, hands on hips. The fact that the cheer is a four-letter word repeated thrice for those who missed it the first time, makes it - in my humble opinion - that much more charming.

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a teacher, actually."

"Wow, what's that like?"

"T! E! A! C! H! E! R!" TEACHER! TEACHER! TEACHER!!"

Nope. Doesn't have the same ring to it. When last we heard of him, Fireman Ed was going to be publicly roasted by Chad Ochocinco in the Jets' season finale, which didn't happen of course because Darrelle Revis is the finest cornerback in the world. Apparently in order to compensate for making Ed a part of his ongoing Vaudeville program, Ochocinco offered to fly the superfan out to Cincinnati for the Wild Card game. The oracle of Wiki tells us of Ed that, "though he was appreciative of the offer he declined to take (sic) on the moral ground that he did not think it was right to be flown out to the game by the opposing team. He did however say that if the Jets made him an offer he would take them up on it, though no offer has been made." Only men named Barrel Man, Chief Zee, Crazy Ray, Colonel Joe, Horse Lady, Arrowman, or Sign Man can see in such a circumstance the potential absence of moral judgment. They are something more than their team. They have their own reputation to uphold.

Perhaps when a famous fan's attention to his work begins to eclipse his team itself the fans and the world at large begin to turn the worm. Under "Everyone hates Fireman Ed," there's the usual rant from a Jets hater on Deadspin; I beg to differ. A superfan is a superfan, whether he's in it for his own fame or not. I write a blog no one reads. If someone made me a superfan of the Jets, such that under the New York Giants' guy named "Big Blue" you saw a new New York Jets superfan named "Martin Roche," I'd be flattered. What am I going to say? No? Probably. Still, Fireman Ed is less convoluted than Arrowman; he's less flabby and disturbing to look at than Barrel Man. He is what he is. If he weren't the superfan, some other person would be. Someone always is.

But the Deadspin rant offers an interesting wrinkle to the uniform riddle. Apparently Ed's favorite player growing up was Paul Warfield of the Cleveland Browns and, most damningly, the Miami Dolphins. The trouble is, do you know what number Warfield wore? It's the same as the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything:

42.

You see? Like I say: I want to believe.

The Bright Side of Things, Really

Well, it's time to update, isn't it? Whatever any of our expectations were of this season, a second round appearance in the playoffs is the very outside edge of my own definition of success. I love that we "backed" into the playoffs. Let freedom ring. I love that Rex Ryan swings into bipolar moods of euphoria and ponderous disappointment. I am glad that I am forced to feel shame and self-criticism every time Shonn Greene plays to his potential and well beyond my recent criticism of him as a washout. I was wrong in every way. God Bless My Stupidity.

And while we're at it, let's take a moment to praise the New York Jets for drafting well over the past five years, something that I don't think the franchise has ever done over such a span: David Harris, D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Kerry Rhodes, Nick Mangold, Brad Smith, Leon Washington, Drew Coleman, Dustin Keller, Dwight Lowery, and of course, Darrelle Revis. Oh, and Mark Sanchez. And Shonn Greene, provided that neither man is responsible for more than two turnovers each in San Diego on Sunday evening.

Listen to me. There I go again.

And while we're at it, I want to thank everyone who made this possible. I don't think we have a chance this weekend. Our last outing here last year was disastrous. But I have to go to bed. It;s going to be a long weekend.