New York Jets By The Numbers: #18

The plain truth is that 18 is a number that very few NFL legends have worn in their careers. There were Gene Washington and Roman Gabriel in the early 70's. All it takes is a Peyton Manning to change everything, though to be honest #19 never caught on beyond Johnny Unitas, so 18 may never make it either. To me, #18 one of the great unsung numbers of sport. Can you name a #18 in any sport who's worth a plug nickel? Darryl Strawberry! And don't scoff! But that's it. It's the Hebrew number for life. Not that that mattered to Sanjay Beach who, after playing for the Jets, caught the first pass Brett Favre threw to someone to other than himself. He wore #18 for the Jets in 1989. Would that Brett Favre had been with us, too.

Before Oregon State's Kellen Clemens graced the green and white with his, uh, reasonably dedicated effort, the Beavers' Kyle Grossart took the uniform - this after, I think, he had won a Super Bowl ring for the Oakland Raiders in 1980 - doing absolutely nothing. He wore #18, and probably had #17 as a first choice because he carries the curse of the QB with that number and ended his career with the Jets in 1981.

Behold Johnny Green's write up in the Jets' 1963 yearbook: "To say that Johnny Green came out of nowhere to rank as the AFL's No. 5- passer in '62 would be putting it mildly." Well, we all have our distinctions, don't we? As a Jet in 1963, he went 3 for 6. And that, my friends, spells the end of the career of the AFL's fifth leading passer in 1962. Maybe the Jets are just rough on quarterbacks. Word to the wise, Matt Ryan.

Before there was Joe Namath, there was Pete Liske, a pick out of Penn State, where he starred at QB. Then he goes off the NFL map. So what did Pete Liske do between 1964 and 1969? Fight in Vietnam? No. How about leading the Toronto Argonauts? How about throwing 40 touchdowns for the Calgary Stampeders in 1967? What the hell did you do? Not even being born yet? And was coming back to America really worth it? He played for Denver and Philadelphia, so the answer would be no. If the records are to be believed, he wore #18 for the Jets in his single season with them. Pete Liske, ladies and gentlemen. The first once and future savior at quarterback. Browning Nagle's distant ancestor.

Al Woodall was the backup from 1970 to 1973, and he joins the catalog of hearty fellows who played behind Namath in those years. This was not the role cast for a quarterback from Duke University to play. I do not mean to malign their football program but more the decision making of one Weeb Ewbank who never seemed to have a good arm ready to replace the most explosive one in the NFL. The real tragedy of Woodall is actually the tragedy of Namath himself, a player whose image in the popular imagination could never quite enable him to equal what he did in 1969. So how could Al Woodall have been anything more than Al Woodall when the supporting cast for Namath was even too small to protect the bloated bubble of Namath's persona? So Al Woodall handed off the ball to Emerson Boozer and John Riggins, the way Bob Davis and Bill Demory would and did. No one else could approximate Namath's offensive arsenal. Not even Namath himself could after a while.

Which brings us finally to Harry Williams, Jr., who is now a Houston Texan after being a practice squad Packer, Bear and Giant. It is an unforgiving game, this American football. He was originally drafted by the Jets. Who right now, playing video games at home before eating creatinine and bench pressing in the afternoon, is the next unsuspecting draft choice who will someday become a practice squad receiver or the next Toronto Argonaut? Who?

N.Y. Jets #17 - The Curse

In the graveyard of career-ending seasons at quarterback with the New York Jets, Bob Avellini's came to close after he was traded mid-season from the Chicago Bears - where he had been spending a career handing off to Walter Payton - to his hometown of Queens, NY, where the Jets were playing their last season at Shea. He did not play a single game. It was his last season as a pro. He wore the #17.

In more recent years, Quincy Carter is in the category of backup quarterbacks who came and made the kind of impression in preseason that made people think that if Chad got injured then maybe, just maybe, we weren't entirely screwed. (We are always screwed.) Well, yes, but then Carter - say it together - finished his career with the Jets in that strange twilight season of 2004, when nothing and everything seemed possible. Quincy Carter threw in relief of Chad when #10 injured his rotator cuff (cue ominous music) and the Jets crawled to nearly negligible wins against the Cardinals and the Browns. Then Chad came back, they crawled to the playoffs and the rest is an exciting history as far as a Jets fan knows it.

Do you remember Tim Dwight running his ass off for the Falcons in Super Bowl XXXXXXIIIIII, the kickoff return against the Broncos? It was practically the only bright spot for Atlanta in a game already blemished by Eugene Robinson's solicitation of a Miami hooker on the night before the game. My goodness, that was a long time ago, wasn't it? Eliot Spitzer spent $40,000 on his escort. Robinson offered only $40! Tim Dwight wore #17 for a little while for us, but that was only the harbinger for things to come. Yes, his career ended with the Jets.

Clyde "Lee" Grosscup is unquestionably the man we have been looking for in our efforts to revive the Booth Lustig Award for Funny Name. The man's name is Grosscup. I'm sure it's pronounced "Groskip," but in the world of the New York Titans, anything remotely peculiar just seems apropos. Sort of like the way "Marv Throneberry" is for the 1962 Mets. But where Throneberry's future was found in Lite Beer ads proclaiming, "I don't know what I'm doing in this ad," Lee Grosscup actually went on to have a brief career as both a TV reporter and a columnist for Sport magazine. His 1967 article on cheating in sports puts some perspective on Belichick's nonsense last year, for better or for worse. He for threw passes for the 1962 Titans, and though he's not wearing it in this football card, he sported #17 for the ol' mustard and blue. Oh, and he ended his football career with the franchise that year.

Was Galen Hall the first New York Jets quarterback? Either him or Al Dorow. He's the first Jetskin if nothing else, having come over from DC the year before. He threw three touchdowns and nine interceptions for our side. Oh, and he ended his football career with the Jets that year. He was a star at Penn State, and he's now an assistant coach there, and he coached Florida for five seasons. Are you ready to move on now? Well, he also coached the Rhein Fire of the now defunct NFL Europe to two World Bowl championships. Isn't it ironic that something called the World Bowl doesn't exist anymore?

Albert Johnson? you ask. Isn't he the same Albert Johnson III who was the CFL Rookie of the Year, playing for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers? And did he not end his career with the Jets the year he joined them? Why yes, he did.

John Kidd punted for us in 1998. Here he is in 1994 pulling a Larry Seiple for the Miami Dolphins against Buffalo. And did he not end his career in the very season he joined the New York Jets? Why yes. Yes he did. Are we finally seeing a pattern here?

Number 17 David Norrie was a "replacement" quarterback who was himself replaced by Walter Briggs during 1987. Apparently he is an ESPN college football analyst today. And...he ended his career with the New York Jets organization in the very same replacement season in which he started, if not with with the actual New York Jets team.

Which means he at least has something in common with an actual, full-time professional football player Tommy Parks, who punted for the New York Jets in 2001. Like Norrie, he began and ended his football career with the Jets. (Now, it's just getting weird.) Unlike Norrie, Parks became a pitcher for the minor league Newark Bears in 2003.

Finally, the curse finds some exceptions, the first in Matt Robinson. For two years in the late 1970's, Matt Robinson seemed to offer the difference between an underachieving Jets club and one bound for the playoffs. I will never forget as long as I live (and isn't that pathetic?) the phrase "Robinson is No. 1 QB" blazing across the headlines of the Newsdays I delivered during the late summer months of 1979. Number 17 Matt Robinson had replaced the heir apparent Richard Todd as starting QB. It would not last for long. According to Gerald Eskanzi, Robinson would end up hiding an injury from Walt Michaels, and the coach - a man not known for a mindful response to anything - responded by benching Matt, re-promoting Todd and shipping Robinson to Denver where he languished until the end of his career. Thus while Matt Robinson did not end his career in New York, it effectively ended with the Jets.

****

Fortunately, there are exceptions to the curse, compelling us to wonder whether there was even a curse to begin with.

The former Virginia Tech Hokie David Clowney is still playing football, but he might have broken the curse for himself if only because he stopped wearing #17 on the Jets. After wearing #17 for several seasons, Clowney replaced Laverneus Coles in #87. He has been on practice squads, cut, brought back, cut again, brought back agin when Danny Woodhead was waived, and recently cut for good, and now in #87 for the Carolina Panthers as of the start of the 2011 training camp. His biggest day for the Jets featured 4 catches for 79 yards, including a 35-yard touchdown catch to add to the romp against the Raiders in 2009. But behold: David Clowney, preseason against the helpless Rams in '09 - you can be the judge as to whether or not a man has the right to do the Wu-Tang when he's absurdly wide open for a preseason pass from Erik Ainge. It's still his top highlight on YouTube.

And then there's Mike Taliaferro #17:

We begin with a book called The Long Pass by Lou Sahadi that as a lifetime Jets fan I've owned since I was eight. I believe that its reading level is about at the high school (or at the high school level of a student in the 1970's), and I read it about three times by the time I was ten. It taught me about Jet history. In it, I discovered that Mike Taliaferro began the 1965 season - Namath's first - at quarterback. There is a terrific composite of images inside unique to anything else I've ever seen where both Namath (in a Jets jacket, no shoulder pads) and John Huarte (in a suit) are chatting on the sideline phones while Mike Taliaferro is on the field. You see that Mike Taliaferro will not be quarterbacking for long. He wore 17.

Mike Taliaferro

He is a primary exception to the #17 curse because his career began with the Jets and ended with the Bills in 1972, but not before an interesting stint with the Boston Patriots. Here's a trivia question: how many TD passes did Joe Namath throw in 1969, his last playoff season? Nineteen. Who tied him for that? Boston's Mike Taliaferro. Coincidence? I think so.

NY Jets #16

I realized that this is going to get a lot harder as the numbers go up. The lower the number in football, the less likely that a player has worn it. I think. Or maybe it's just that football has more numbers for a greater number of players. I don't know. That's Math. So, to 16:

Though he set the record for touchdowns at Montclair State, Walter Briggs made only one appearance in relief of David Norrie at quarterback for the Jets, going 0-2 in an unspecified 1987 game. If neither of those names sound familiar to a Jets fan it's because Mr. Norrie and #16 Walter Briggs were replacement players during that season's strike. Scabs, basically. Of course, the replacement Jets played about as well as the regular season Jets, which was pretty poorly.

Mark Malone had a good career as a sometimes backup, sometimes starter, mostly for Pittsburgh. The 1985 Pittsburgh playoff victory at Denver is one of his big moments. Four years later, clearly on his way out, #16 Mark Malone played one game for the Jets on Oct. 22, 1989 at Buffalo where he went 2-2 for 13 yards. There he ended his career (how many quarterbacks finished their careers with us?) He was an ESPN reporter for several years, and is now broadcasting in Chicago. No doubt he often hears of how his moustache makes him look like the Brawny paper towel guy. I always like to think that sports figures of a certain generation are allowed to wear a moustache without fear of reprisal - athletes and relatively young coaches of the late 1980's: Dave Wannstedt, Bill Cowher, Mark Malone. A free pass is granted.

Brad Smith is the current holder of the #16 on the Jets, and he is depicted here playing quarterback in an exhibition game, but his life has been a lot more exciting because of some kind of "wild cat" whose attack is predictable, yet always surprising, and Smith is always there when this cat attacks. Initially, I thought, well, another Ray Lucas. But Brad Smith is no backup (neither is Kellen Clemens) and when we needed him at year's end, he created a single-game menagerie of joy and fun against the Cincinnati Bengals. Both runs came before the end of the first half. But I urge you to also consider Smith's courageous response to Patrick Willis' hit in a loss to the 49ers last year. Brad pops up like a whacked mole, only to be persuaded by what looks like the entire team to take a breather. There's a little Brad Smith in all of us, waiting to emerge and break through the front line of an overrated defense - waiting to surprise people who underestimate you at their peril.

But tonight we're here to talk about the most important #16 in New York Jets history, Vinny Testaverde. When I was a kid, rooting for Penn State against Vinny's University of Miami in the 1987 Orange Bowl, I confess that I thought Vinny haughty with his Heisman and all. Turns out that this did not at all describe the unlikely man who would someday quarterback his equally unlikely Jets team into a conference championship game in January 1999. In the end, Vinny was all heart, and though he may have been plagued by interceptions and Sam Wyche early in his career, Vinny was an intelligent, beloved quarterback in that wonderful 1998 season. His QB sneak touchdown against Seattle that year was not actually a touchdown, and it may have permanently re-inaugurated the replay era, but it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. He was that rare Jets thing - the right guy in the right place at the right time.

Then it all came crashing down when he snapped his Achilles' tendon against New England in the '99 opener. My heart broke for him as much as it did for the Jets because although he had a journeyman's career starting out in the Brucie Buccaneer outfit, Vinny is a Jet in spirit (even if he was a distant backup for New England this past year). All through his seemingly endless career, he has never won a Super Bowl ring. Vinny is so important to us that, amid all the joy that was the last Super Bowl, even I felt the smallest twinge of sadness over that sad truth. It passed.

I'm just grateful that his greatest hour was still yet to come after the '99 season, in the Monday Night Miracle at home against the Dolphins in 2000. At halftime, the score read 31-3 Miami, and I WENT TO BED. My wife didn't even tell me the results until I heard them on the radio the next morning as I was getting ready to go to work. We weren't married yet but were living together rather uneasily. I wasn't really sure where it was all going. When I heard the score - 40-37 Jets, she launched into a pillow attack on my head. She had stayed up and watched it just so she could tell me about it. She had been so excited about my hearing the score she could barely restrain herself.

"Why the hell didn't you wake me?" I asked, aghast.

She looked at me, incredulous. "Why should I have? You gave up on them. What kind of fan are you? I didn't give up!"

No, she didn't, and neither did you, Vinny. I knew that I needed to marry this woman, and I owe it all to you. Thank you.

New York Jets By The Numbers: #15

According to the Wikipedia entry for #15 Bob Davis, backup quarterback to Joe Namath in 1970 and 1971: "I was actually a much better basketball player in high school than I was a football player." If you are a Jets fan and a connoisseur of Jets history, you can recognize the humor in that. But put yourself in Weeb Ewbank's position. You have the jewel in the sport's crown as your QB. Q: Why would you need a backup who would do more than simply hand off the ball? A: Because your jewel is a fragile one? But among the names of Namath's ragtag backups, Bob Davis ranks as the best, probably. He started all the games of the 1971 season, being replaced for the famous loss to the Niners when Namath nearly brought the team back. But as 70's seasons went, the Jets went a respectable 6-8 in 1971 when Bob Davis lead them on the field, with John Riggins and Emerson Boozer splitting nearly 1400 yards between them.

Don Flynn was a defensive back for the New York Titans in 1961. He wore #15. He was responsible for asking Harry Wismer when the paychecks would be coming in.

Dick Jamieson was a backup QB who wore #15 for the Titans from 1960-61. He attended Bradley University and went on to have a coaching career in both the pros (as assistant to the Cardinals) and Head Coach at Indiana State. But most importantly, he is also inducted into the Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame.

Here are two photos of Kyle Mackey, one during his time with the Jets, one after. Kyle is Dee Mackey's boy, and both Dee and Kyle played for the East Texas State, so it was no wonder the both played for the Jets, too. Maybe I'm spending too much time looking into the lives of these guys on Wikipedia, but I couldn't resist the entry on former #15 Kyle Mackey, who backed up Ken O'Brien in 1989. It says he is now coaching high school football and "loving every minute of it!" Do you think George W. Bush updates his entry on Wikipedia? "Even though there were no nulcular weapons of mass destruction located in Iraq, it's nice to know that the fresh air of freedom is enjoyed by every Iraqi who values the United States's presence there!" Kyle Mackey also played Arena Football with the Albany Firebirds and the Fort Worth Cavalry. His photo for the latter club is the very definition of the late century mullet. Don't worry, Kyle. I had one, too.



For a brief moment in Super Bowl III, Joe Namath was shaken up and had to come off the field. In a pass effort, his throwing hand had whacked into a Colts' helmet. As he shook his hand back into use, #15 Babe Parilli came in to relieve him, yielding only an incomplete pass. Vito "Babe" Parilli had already had a good career with the Boston Patriots and was now the Sancho Panza to Namath's Quixote. In Namath's autobiography I Can't Wait 'Til Tomorrow Cause I Get Better Looking Every Day, Namath tells of sending otherwise clueless autograph seekers during the 1968 season over to Babe. "That man," Joe would say. "That man there is Joe Namath." Without blinking an eye, they would go to Babe.

Drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles out of Florida State as a wide receiver in the sixth round of the 1996 draft, Phillip Riley #15 is said to have been a part of the Chicago Bears squad that year, but is then said to have played in one game for the New York Jets in the ugliest of Jets seasons, 1996. That's it. One sentence, one pro career. There is record of little else.

But Chuck Ramsey had a long career as the New York Jets punter from 1977-1984, the meat of the Michaels-Walton era. These were the Jets' first sustained years of playing above adequacy. That being said, I remember seeing Chuck Ramsey a LOT. Of all people, it is your punter that you like to see the least. The very sight of your punter always leads to the sense of disappointment, sort of like the sensation you get when you realize that, dammit, you just knew that your husband would forget to pick up the dry cleaning again. You just knew she'd forget that today was your Mom's birthday. Punters get a lot of shit, and it's the offense's fault, not theirs. No wonder that - according to Eskanzi in Gang Green - after a 30-7 trouncing of the Jets during the 1982 season against (who else?) the Seahawks, Walt Michaels launched (sober?) into a diatribe against Chuck Ramsey - an experience that, by his own admission, drove Ramsey to a state of emotional disrepair.

And finally, there is Wallace Wright, special teams player, occasional wide receiver and current holder of jersey #15, which, as you can see, is a number with a limited historical impact on the New York Jets organization over time. According to the Times, he was a walk-on at the University of North Carolina and, naturally, a walk-on at Jets' try-outs. And now here he is. Wright caught six passes this season, two of each came in the crushingly dull season ending home win against the Chiefs. One was on a nifty flea flicker pass from Leon Washington. Every little bit helps, I suppose. Every little bit.

New York Jets By The Numbers: #14

On December 16, 1990, Troy Taylor, a backup quarterback for the New York Jets originally from the University of Oklahoma, threw a 10-yard TD pass to Rob Moore against the Indianapolis Colts. He was making that token, Rudy-like appearance in a late season effort during a lost season. But was there a "Troy" for Troy the same way there was a "Rudy" for a Rudy - the story of a ragtag walk-on so obnoxious that you couldn't help but want to squeeze his little body even while you wanted to crack his nattering skull? Actually, there is a "Troy," but it's a terrible film with Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana. In his single season with the New York Jets, Troy Taylor wore #14.

Oddly, only two other players have worn #14 for the Jets. The first we'll mention is the most famous among Jets fans who remember watching games at Shea Stadium. He is Richard Todd, the heir apparent, the once and future king. His reign was a heady mixture of insane highs and moribund, head-scratching lows, the likes of which have activated trauma-based panic attacks throughout Greendom for years. Whatever deep structure memories I have of being an alone, desolate, despondent child come mostly from watching games that Richard Todd was not able to win between the years 1977 and 1983. These, my friends, were the Todd Years.

No, not that Richard Todd. The one drafted from the University of Alabama, just like that other famous guy from Alabama. He labored under the burden of being Namath's successor. He was his own man, too, once shoving and threatening a New York Post reporter (who hasn't wanted to do that?). He had an aw shucks accent but he was also perennially insistent that New Yorkers just back the hell off until he was good and ready to accept the mantle. He was burdened with troubles from the start, too, though. He busted up his ribs so badly in 1978 that after every pass for the rest of his career he was forever adjusting the dense overnight packaging that surrounded the bones under the number 14 of his uniform. "Todd is God," the swirling banners at Shea would sometimes read.

Well, no. No, actually he was not. He was put on the cover of Sports Illustrated after two reasonably strong seasons, bringing the Jets to playoff losses that usually culminated in Todd interceptions. He was, in he end, like a lot of athletes, just part of the Jinx. The Jets went 7-9 the year he was on the cover, and that, my friends, was that. He was sent packing to New Orleans. Yet he returned to New York City and became a successful stock broker, both before and after the 1987 crash.

I could just go on and on about him. He would launch these magnificent downfield passes to the stutter-stepping Wesley Walker, his favorite target. Two game-ending moments stick in my memory, both from the 1981 season. The last comes first to mind - his pass intended for Derrick Gaffney that was intercepted by Bill Simpson in the AFC Wild Card loss to Buffalo in a downpour at Shea. He had lead the team back from a 24-0 deficit, only to come up just that short. I don't know how many times that moment has crept into my brain when I have nothing to think about. But then neither can any Jets fan my age forget his clinching drive in the 16-15 home win against Miami, and the pass he threaded to Jerome Barkum, and the way the tattered, homemade confetti flew from the shaking rafters as he made his way across the field to the locker room when it was over. NBC's Bob Trumpy - obnoxious, as always - compared the injured Todd to George Gipp. "Doesn't it remind you of Ronald Reagan, Dick?" he asked of a likely beguiled Dick Enberg, forgetting that in the movie that the Gipper died. Todd's career wasn't quite at its end just yet, either, but such things couldn't last more than another season afterwards. "In Todd We Trust."

Did we really think Neil O'Donnell could save the Kotite Jets from themselves? I don't remember. But somehow the idea of him actually coming from the Super Bowl to the Meadowlands set off all kinds of goofy possibilities. The only trouble is, I was drunk a lot of the time, and so I don't recall imagining anything other than maybe thinking that nothing could be worse than a 3-13 season. I was wrong. O'Donnell started the season at 0-6. Somewhere in the midst of the 1996 season, the Jets won a game. Who was it against? The team that plays the Globetrotters? Neil O'Donnell retired with an excellent passer's rating, and unlike Joe Namath, he threw literally twice as many touchdowns as interceptions, a dubious statistic when you consider that he was always accused of holding onto the ball too long. I would probably do the same, myself. It did not endear him to his next boss, the current general manager of the Miami Dolphins, Bill Parcells. I recall the coach yanking O'Donnell out of that fateful final game against the Lions in 1997, when Barry Sanders crossed the 2,000 yard line (and then some) and Parcells replaced Neil with Ray Lucas. Coach and QB traded barbs on the sidelines. Parcells was never really fond of the position of quarterback, so we knew right then and there that Neil O'Donnell, our savior, had spent his last game in a Jets uniform. Hardly knew ye, but knew ye enough, Neil.

When I was six, my family went to visit my uncle in Massachusetts, and Mom encouraged him to draw me some pictures of some football players. Aside from being a PhD from MIT, and an entrepreneur, he was also a fine artist. He made some pencil drawings of players running with and catching the ball. He asked me what number to give the wide receiver.

The first thing I thought of was Don Maynard. "How about 13?"

He shook his head. "That's too low for a receiver's number," said the mathematician. "How about 83?"

I nodded. George Sauer, after all. And Jerome Barkum. Both #83.

Finally, after years of patient waiting #14 has finally found renewal with Marcus Henry, wide receiver. But now I'm inclined to agree with my uncle. I'm not sure how I feel about receivers getting the low numbers. It almost makes it seem as though these guys aren't being seriously considered as permanent receivers - almost like they're ephemeral standing is only accentuated by an inappropriately low number. Yet look at the late Chris Henry, the incarcerated Plaxico Burress, the incompetent Roy Williams, Randy Moss, (on the Raiders), Deshaun Jackson, Donte Stallworth. I suppose it all started with Keyshawn Johnson insisting on the primacy of low numbers with the hope for high results. And in 2008, all Jets with numbers 14 through 17 were receivers. In 2009, though, we went back with Danny Woodhead from #23 to #83 and David Clowney from #17 to #87. Is it part of a promotion deal? Wallace Wright (15), Braylon Edwards (17), and Brad Smith (16) have yet to get the memo.

Although he started out on the practice squad, couldn't the Jets have given Marcus Henry his #86 from his playing days at Kansas? We may never know because he isn't even on the squad now. Bring back the 80's, anyway.

New York Jets By The Numbers: # 13 - Don Maynard

Don Maynard's #13 is one of three numbers that have been retired by the New York Jets organization. He is, without question, one of the very best receivers in the history of football. In that way, he is that rare thing for the Jets - a player who is a legend in the NFL and not just on his team. With maybe the exception of Joe Klecko or Curtis Martin, Maynard is one of the few players on the New York Jets who is a legend for his consistently excellent performance and not just for his eccentricity or charisma. Until the 1980's, at least a decade after they retired, he and Charley Taylor were still the top rated receivers in NFL history.

He was always my Mom's favorite Jet because he played without shirtsleeves, something she nevertheless discouraged in me when I went outside and pretended to be Don Maynard. In the old footage, one sees this strange picture of a weedy man in shirtsleeves, long legs and white shoes, scampering the sidelines or running the post for a Namath pass. His face always made him look a little older than he was, and I always felt he resembled one of the more haggard, nearly forgotten persons in a Walker Evans photograph, looking with caution into the distant horizon, hoping for a better day.

Even as a boy, Dad told me about the mythical 75 yard Namath pass Maynard caught against the Raiders in the 1968 AFL Championship. Dad was there, after all. I suppose everything that makes Maynard great can be encapsulated in that one catch. The point Dad made about Maynard is that he could catch passes that he couldn't really see, as if he could feel where they were before he caught sight of them. I believe that's supposed to be called "spatial intelligence." Don Maynard had it. I read about the catch in the Punt, Pass and Kick books from my childhood, and they described how Maynard twisted his body around to the other side after seeing that the pass was not to his left. So he maneuvered around as best he could to catch it over his right shoulder. Many people rightly believe it was one of the best catches you'll ever see, and I rewind it on my NFL Films recap of the game, imagining how my Dad must have felt when he saw it.

Had it happened in the present era, his catch would have been challenged. It came late in the game and eventually set the Jets up for a clinching touchdown that was caught by, yes, Don Maynard. Had Raiders coach John Rauch the power to do so, he would certainly have thrown the red flag. Maynard makes the catch, comes down with the ball but then drops it once he's down. Also, the hash, end zone and sideline markers are so obscured by the horrifically scarred Shea Stadium turf that it is not entirely clear at first whether Maynard came down with possession of the ball in bounds. However, cognizant of the fact that history protects all officially made decisions, I can still attest that after watching it again and again, rewinding it like a good NFL official in a warm box above the field, the pass is clearly caught in bounds with both feet in place and that, remarkably, Maynard maintains possession. The catch holds up.

Three things for #13: If you see Maynard interviewed about the 1968 season on America's Game, he still gets choked up. Secondly, on the Jets' history DVD, Maynard insists that George Sauer, not he, was the better receiver of the two. Finally, when the Jets were wallowing in the misery of a second moribund season under Ritchie Kotite 1996, Don Maynard announced that we would gladly volunteer to coach the Jets although he had absolutely no coaching experience. Pride, humility, and guileless delusion. This skinny, wiry, slightly goofy Texan is, in my books, still one of my favorite football players on any team anywhere, period.

New York Jets By The Numbers: One More 13

Were it not for Dave Jennings, the lucky #13 would have been the sole property of one player, a distinction not found with many numbers on many teams anywhere. Dave Jennings punted for the Jets for three seasons in the 80's after kicking productively for the Giants for more than ten. In fact, the Giants of the late 70's were so bad (think Pasarcik to Kotar to Herman Edwards, 1978) that some years their only Pro Bowlers were Dave Jennings or, maybe, Brad Van Pelt. Your punter is your Pro Bowler - you have had a bad season.

However, Jennings also has the unique distinction of his own, of having broadcasted more Jets games than any other person - 14 seasons' worth. And what I always liked about Jennings was his insistence on being mercilessly dry witted with reference to the extraordinary ineptitude of the team in the Kotite years. Listening to him do the play-by-play of the away win at Indianapolis in 1995 (one of three wins that year) with whomever it was with him in the booth was a not exactly the Algonquin Table, but it kept the me listening to some pretty bleak %#&*ing games. When the Jets started turning around in 1998, he sounded impressed and cautiously hopeful, but always as an outsider. He was often apostrophic - "Jets fans," he would say, addressing the imaginary listener on WFAN, "you really have to put your gripes aside and be impressed with your team today." Lucky Dave - this year, he got to broadcast Giants games.

And I know what you're thinking. Is there any significant link here to "Dave Jennings," the English professor played by Donald Sutherland in "Animal House," who smokes dope, beds Karen Allen and declares John Milton boring - even boring to Milton's wife? Well, no. No. Not at all.