Disappointment, So Warmly Familiar

In the dark, final week of the 1981 season, while the Jets were playing themselves (and the Giants) into the playoffs, the Colts and the Patriots played what we called (h-huh) the Toilet Bowl. The Patriots were 2-13 going into the game, the Colts were 1-14 and were from Baltimore.

Payback is a bitch. Only in this case it's worse when the original bitch in question doesn't even remember that Toilet Bowl. Maybe the Jets are the bitch, and now our Jets are getting the bitch slapped out of them. As for the Colts and the Patriots, next week's game is a Toilet Bowl - if, by "toilet" you mean Belinda's extraordinary vanity set surrounded by sylphs and angels in "Rape of the Lock." Each team is undefeated. This is actually the Super Bowl.

The Jets lost to the Bills 13-3 in a game that ranks among the most boring games I have ever seen. I saw two unimaginative offenses unable or unwilling to throw THE !@#$%*& BALL DOWNFIELD. Chad Pennington looked incapable of throwing for more than 12 yards, and I like the guy. Add to that the Jets' strange inability to give the ball to Thomas Jones when everybody knows that this is what teams have to do when the passing game is gone... Well, I could just go on and on. I'm so sad.

The final touch was yet another late game interception, this time thrown by Kellen Clemens. Unlike in previous weeks, the game was hopeless by then. The Jets would have still been down by 3 even if they had miraculously discovered the end zone, and lately everything has come hard. In light of the Jets' remarkable run last year, even the doubtful Sports Illustrated had predicted they would come close for the Wild Card this season. Now this season's distinction is that it ranks among their most disappointing. In the shadows of the Gang Green's checkered past, that's saying something.

How far back does our disappointment go? How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky? It takes some archival work to itemize it. I'm definitely your guy. To fit the definition of a disappointing year, you must first experience the rush of expectation at the start of a season that makes you say, "This is the year," which for Jets fans mostly means you say, "Maybe we'll make the playoffs this year." There are plenty of years past where such thoughts never entered my mind - the two years of Ritchie Kotite are good examples. Although even I was surprised that the Jets won only one game in 1996. I mean, who expects that without forgoing the team altogether?

To be fair, begin with 1970. To happy fans of our brief championship years, the post-merger turned out to be an enormous letdown. If you exempt the Baltimore Colts as division rivals, the Jets actually went 4-25 against pre-merger NFL teams in the first eight seasons of the 1970's. Now that was disappointing, especially since it was the Jets who vanquished the NFL dragon in Super Bowl III. It's pathetic, actually. But welcome to the Gang Green. It set a marvelous precedent for expectation:

1970: Baltimore's revenge for SB III. Namath injured for the season against the Colts at home. 4-10

1971: Paul Naumoff smacks into Namath in preaseason, rendering Joe lame for most of the season. 6-8

1972: Familiar strains for our year. Then as now, we coexist in our division with an unbeatable team. 7-7

1973: Another revenge for SB III. Namath injured for the season in an away game against the Colts. 4-10

1974: First, the Jets play themselves out of the playoffs, losing to losing teams, but then they win the last six games of the season and raise hopes for 1975. 7-7

1975: And that was a mistake. First, Jets win all their preseason games. And preseason ain't worth a warm bucket of athletic tape. 3-11


Ah, yes - the 1980's. This is the decade where I learned what it would take to be real New York Jets fan. And yet I'm still here. So what does that say?

1980: Everyone everywhere puts the Jets in the conference championship, if not in the Super Bowl. They win four games but grant the Saints their only win, at Shea no less. 4-12

1983: The record shows that there were several close games throughout the year, but the final record was 7-9, nonetheless. Before the opener against San Diego, Richard Todd appeared on the front cover on SI. Need we say more?

1986: The Jets levitate, then look down. By definition this is a disappointing year because they won 10 of 11, then lost five in a row. Commence the nightmares. From here, recovery is very long.


Of course, in order to experience disappointment, you must have had high hopes to begin with. Through most of the 90's, that was never a problem:

1992: It's ridiculous to consider it now, isn't it? But...Browning Nagle: the Man. I mean, he played well in the Hall of Fame Game. Ah well. 4-12

1999: After Carroll, the Faked Spike, Kotite the Savior, and a couple of flirtations with greatness, Vinny Testaverde snaps his Achilles on the newly replaced turf at Giants Stadium at the start of their Super Bowl year. So, no Super Bowl. The Jets recover from a mostly losing first half of the season, then win 6 of 8. Parcells calls the second half of the year his greatest acheivement as a coach, but then quits, arrogantly assuming that Belichick will be there to take his place. The joke has been on us ever since. 8-8


And in this decade? Ebb, flow, flow, ebb, flow, ebb, flow, ebb. All kinds of fertile ground for crushed hope:

2000: Maybe when all the stars aligned against us (Parcells and Belichick gone, Keyshawn gone, Al Groh there) we thought that it meant somehow that we would win regularly. Why would we think this? Even after winning the Monday Night Miracle, we still lost the last three games of the season. 9-7

2003: Familiar injuries to Chad, free agent departures to the Redskins, inconsistency, unhappiness. 6-10

2005: A year most familiar to our own. A kick away from the AFC Championship the year before, and then....familiar injuries to Chad. Brooks Bollinger to the rescue! Herm gave up, and good riddance. 4-12

So prepare for the rebuilding years to come, my friends. The silver linings are of the domestic kind. My wife has just reminded me that as unhappy as I am now when the Jets display a TOTAL INCAPACITY TO THROW THE !@#$%*& BALL DOWNFIELD, I'm still a bigger bastard when I worry about the Jets in the playoffs.

Thrown Away

If I don't add an entry, then the swarm of information from the intraweb overwhelms what there is of A Fan's Life. Seventy-nine entries, but "what have you done for us lately?" The same could be asked of the Jets, who labor at 1-6.

I have never known a Jets season to be so perfectly consistent in one weird statistic: game-closing interceptions. In weeks 2, 4, 6, and 7, Pennington (and Clemens week 2) has thrown the game away. He gets honorary mention for week 5 when the game against the Giants still seemed within reach late in the fourth quarter, though the Giants eventually won with more than just an interception of his pass for a touchdown. The Bengals just about finished us off with one late in the game last week. It adds a new stress to the question of whether Pennington should be benched, although one cannot ignore that his numbers are largely good throughout each game. But hey - who's really paying attention, anyway? The Giants are playing well, albeit against poor teams like the Jets, but even a Giants head cold gets more attention than a Jets clean bill of health, so why should anyone care about the Jets' woes?

I do, still. Of course. How is that ever going to change? I'm going over stats of the games and wondering the way a good Jets fan does; he considers what might have been. We've been lucky to walk away from games in the past, shaking our heads mostly with contentment and wonder. Now, not so much. All we can do is reflect on how close we've been. Great teams find a way to win, and though the Jets might not even be a good team this year, you'd hardly be a good Jets fan if you didn't consider what might have been if Pennington had made it on those final drives. Seriously, look at the game breakdowns. They might right now be 4-3, still wondering what kind of season they were having.

But here, in the reality-based fandom, we recognize what kind of season this is. We've had experience with disappointing performances for decades now. We know how the Jets are doing. The offense is cumbersome, uninspired, and apparently easy to read late in the game. Jonathan Vilma is out. This all sounds familiar. We like it better in the fantasy. Just end the season.

The Lame Game

All this week I have been forced to endure a barrage of insults from the young Philadelphians with whom I work. The truth is we are, all of us, fans of a team with one win under their belt. The Eagles are playing in the shadow of three other superior teams in their Eastern Division. I had thought that the Jets were better team than the Bills, but I was wrong; they are just barely better than a pushover Dolphins club. If you want to see why both the Jets and the Eagles will be staying home in January, you need only watch the Patriots-Cowboys game at 4:15 pm this afternoon.

The Eagles fans with whom I work in Delaware County know how much I love the Jets, but that doesn't matter when it comes to heckling. But then their heckling doesn't really matter either. They do it with a kind of an overly self-conscious skepticism about their own team that undermines the effect of their pepper:

"Jets suck worse than the Eagles, man."

"Yo. Jets are going down, asshole."

"God, I hate this hoagie. Sort of like the way I hate the Jets."

"Jets won't fly like the Eagles will. Asshole."

And so on. Always with a sound to their voice that conveys a feeling of unease, sort of the kind that says, "But, you know, if the Eagles don't win, I won't be surprised." I've never been good at heckling, myself. Philadelphia fans are famous for booing Santa Claus, but they are the really best known for being able to tell you after-the-fact why they were sure their team was going to lose all along. And frankly, writing this as I am near halftime of the game, I can imagine how my pals at work were chattering to one another in front of their TV's about Brian Westbrook's dominance (especially after his called-back touchdown run) but are probably also now saying that they've always known all along how overrated a kicker David Akers is, particularly after he's badly shanked a second kick in the first half.

As for the Yets, I've seen some terrible missed tackles and the usual unimaginative offense that's fooling no one. The entire season is going to be like this. Ben Graham's decent punt late in the second half produced nothing more than opportunity for Graham to show off some of his Australian Rules tackling abilities when none of his colleagues on the down field coverage could get to little Reno Mahe. No harm done. Akers missed his kick. Ugh. And this is pro football?

It will be nice to hear what the geniuses at work have to say about the Jets' Titans uniforms. Unless the Eagles really do open up against us, my colleagues are not going to have anything to grind into me other than a Jets loss - unless they want to make noise about the mighty blue and mustard that Titans of New York are wearing today. They look like the Chuck Knox Los Angeles Rams of the 1970's. The New York Titans became extinct for a reason; they were mediocre. Their legacy lives on, though. The Jets' 2007 season certainly pays tribute to that so far.

Recurrent Ads: Berserk-Making

During the NFL season, a football fan is subject to one of the great tests to his loyalty - the numbingly recurrent advertisement for either automobiles and beer during breaks from the game. These drive me berserk.

First, the jingle. Well, actually there is no such thing as a jingle any longer - just a signature song that is pulled from the catalog of an artist whose best work is way behind him. Back in the 80's, Chevrolet took whatever tolerance listeners had for Bob Seger and reduced it down to a few bars of his song "Like a Rock" - a mullet-wearing yabo's fantasy anthem if ever I heard one. It remained in place for a good ten years. John Mellencamp traded in his credibility by offering up his song "Our Country" to the gods at General Motors. The advertisements commemorate a past where Chevrolet trucks were always there at the important moments in American history - the end of World War II, the moon landing, the election of Ronald Reagan. Good times. I like the way car companies always portray the past as if all races of people in America celebrated these things together all along, and they all bought Chevy trucks. How many times do I have to hear it? It is maddening.

Honda, on the other hand, is suggesting that you "Hold on Tight to Your Dreams" by way of ELO. Volkswagen used ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky" to good effect. MasterCard uses three schoolboys dancing like neurological patients to Funkadelic's "We Want the Funk." But auto ads are the last bastion of the non-ironic advertisement, and I suspect it is no small measure related to how ad people see football fans as the only remaining people who actually buy any kind of schlock, especially the feel-good nonsense kind about dreams coming true through purchasing an expensive car whose fuel consumption keeps us nicely imprisoned by the insane politics of the Middle East. Football fans just ain't that interested in what all that shit means, man. So, you know...fuck that.

Let's not forget Budweiser's ever-present ads for "Budweiser Select," which is as likely undrinkable as Budwesier itself. Using The Chemical Brothers' song "Galvanize," I suppose the advertiser is trying to nab the clubber who goes out after the game to galvanize the action. Blech. Enough. It's torture. I hear those reconfigured strings, and I want to take my own life.

Add to all of this the fact that the Jets lost to the Jints, giving away the early lead and turning he ball over on a potential game-winning drive, and I may never watch football ever again.

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.