Die Draft Schadenfreude

Football's a funny game. Whereas baseball seems to produce surprises among teams, especially in terms of individual growth and performance (those naturally enhanced, mind you), football really is a game that is about a player's proscribed role in a given position, with a given team. Actually that's not that funny. It speaks to how limited the game is, I suppose. Nowhere is this more true than when one watches the draft, where it seems choosing the absolutely the right player is essential. Vernon Gholston is a good choice because he fits with the 3-4 system. Dustin Keller is a surprising tight end who can fit into the Jets' need to pay someone other than Chris Baker for the job. As many Jets fans know, Bubba Franks is getting paid more than Baker for being his backup. Ah, Mangini. He is ruthless about money, isn't he?

There are other fits. The secondary. Wide receiver (over 6'0", please). And quarterback. I'm glad all the commentators and writers are in less denial than the organization itself. We still need a quarterback. And of course, right on cue, Mel Kiper of ESPN said that Gholston is grossly overrated. Sigh. So let the funny game begin. I'm getting very, very ready.

NY Jets #20 - Part 1

Number 20 has sixteen entries. For the sake of sanity, I cannot possibly mention something brilliant, pithy, erudite, droll, witty, and prescient about them all. I have limits, and the number 20 has shown me how deep mine go. I will try, though. I will try.

First, let's begin with Leon Washington's precursor, Richie Anderson, who delighted us in #20. In truth, Richie was wildly versatile and likable, although occasionally susceptible to fumbles. He had more receptions than Wayne Chrebet in 2000, and spent ten seasons with the Jets, which is saying something, considering he endured seasons with Coslet, Kotite, Parcells, Groh, and Edwards. He is one of those fellows that Parcells himself pulled from team to team. However, a recent job as receivers coach with the Arizona Cardinals ended when he was caught soliciting a prostitute, a criminal violation to which football players seem particularly susceptible.

Michael Bates was #81 and #82 with Seattle, Cleveland, Carolina, the Redskins and the Cowboys, but when he came to the New York Jets he became #20 for one (his last) season. It could happen to anybody. But neither you nor I was selected to the NFL's All-1990's team, and Michael Bates was. I don't mean to offend you. Don't be sad. He also won the bronze in the 200 metres in Barcelona in 1992. Now I know that didn't happen to you. How do I know? I know because I was sitting in a horrible apartment, paying more than I was originally assigned for campus housing in graduate school, wondering what in hell I was doing in North Philadelphia, sharing space with a morbidly depressed roommate who punched holes in the walls of our place every time there was a wrong number, all the while ignoring the scurrying rodents and roaches by watching - God help me - the Summer Olympics. I remember. Now why can't I forget?

With an excellent afro and, later, a juicy fu manchu, Delles Howell played cornerback in #20 for the Jets from 1973 to 1975. Delles Howell was a part of a famous trade that brought Richard Neal to the Jets in lieu of several key draft prospects. This did not prove to be a good idea; however, as the Jets' yearbook pointed out, he was certainly one of the tallest cornerbacks of his time at six foot two.

The Jets' All-Time Roster lists Don Herndon as the first #20 in the organization's history. Nothing beside remains, except for the fact that he played in only one season for the Titans (somebody had to be a halfback) and he was originally drafted by the Giants. That was his career. Damn.
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"Leander" is one of the lovers in Midsummer Night's Dream, and Leander Knight played 13 games in 1989 for the Jets at cornerback in #20. He wins the Booth Lustig Award for Funny Name, but is it fair to call someone's name funny just because it doesn't sound like a football name? You're free to disagree as you please.

Obviously we are mostly in the secondary with #20. Does the constant grind of the game ever get to these guys? A few punt returns, some kickoffs, one interception in one year. Three interceptions the next, maybe. Then, no more. Other than that, there is the constant repetition of coverage, play after play, where the ball doesn't even really get thrown in your direction. You constantly feel out of the play's control. You're not a mind reader. Davlin Mullen played four seasons in the NFL, all in #20 with the Jets, drafted as he was in the fateful year of 1983, finishing his career in 1986. He had three interceptions - his season-high - in 1985.

There are very few things that I knew by the time I was a third grader on Long Island, but it's interesting to think about the range of my limited knowledge. I knew that the statue of Christ outside our local church signaled a touchdown, I knew that Richard Nixon ate cereal without milk (or so my mother said), and I knew that Steve O'Neal held the record for the longest punt in NFL history at 98 yards. He played from 1969-73 at punter for the Jets and wore #20.

This record still stands. It happened in 1969, and one wonders if it will ever be broken. In the thin air of Denver's Mile High, on the same day that the Denver front line reduced Joe Namath to a quivering mass in a 21-19 loss, Steve O'Neal's punt was estimated to have gone at least 70 yards through the air and then took an endless Jet bounce, culminating in a slow roll. A generous bounce is a nice surprise but not that extraordinary of an event on a punt, so the kick itself must have beyond category. There are no films of the event, no remaining evidence other than the awe that Denver's returner Billy Thompsen says he felt when he saw it sail way, way over his head and eventually stop at Denver's own 1. To this date, no one knows where Steve O'Neal actually is, if in fact he still is. One senses that if a record-holder does not even try to cash in on his moment of glory, then he must not have come to a good end. I dunno. Via cum dios, Steve O'Neal.

Gholston Schmolsten

And yet now the Jets are giving Arkansas' RB Darren McFadden the tour of the city, which could take at least a week if you include trips to the Cloisters and Grant's Tomb. There are a number of neglected sites in Queens, of course. May I recommend its highly underrated Museum of Art? Would he benefit from a walking tour around Park Slope in Brooklyn? According to a Los Angeles Times article, his mother does not like New York for its sheer size, so maybe we should just show him Hofstra.

I'm still hoping the Jets will choose Vernon Gholston. If you are to believe Newsday, the Jets have more needs than a set of draft picks can solve. The Times seemed to think the Jets have done nearly enough in the free agent market. Sounds like Jets coverage to me. As I recall, the Jets already have two fairly able running backs. I'm going to also suggest drafting, getting, training or creating from insubstantial elements a quarterback. Am I wrong for refusing to pretend that Kellen Clemens is the answer?

Two Teams, Both Alike in Quality...Kind of...

Two teams will occupy one space at the Meadowlands in the future, just as they do now. Jets fans feel mixed about this, but just imagine how great it is imagining the area's supposedly elite team having to come back home to move back in with their metaphorically wayward, mulleted blue collar cousin in green? "Hey. Welcome back, Blue. Mr. Hot Shot. I saved ya a Schlitz. Oh, wait. No I didn't." And, the deed isn't in Blue's name alone because it isn't his neighborhood anymore.

However, both Big Blue and Gang Green are doing something that generations of intermingling New York-based teams have done in the past - fight, hate, play on the same fields as each other and co-exist. Here we go:

Originally, the New York Giants used to originally play in the Polo Grounds, just as the baseball Giants used to. But then the football Giants moved to Yankee Stadium in the late 50's, just about the time that the baseball Giants moved to San Francisco; there are, in fact, two Yankee Stadiums today - one in use, one being built next door. Professional football is not played at Yankee Stadium any more because in 1976 the Giants moved to Giants Stadium, which is right next door to the newly carved foundation of the New Meadowlands Stadium. However, a year before they moved to the Meadowlands, the Giants played at Shea Stadium (image taken from www.stadiumsofnfl.com) for one season in 1975 while Yankee Stadium was going through refurbishment (the Yankees played at Shea during 1975, too). A few years after the Giants moved from the Polo Grounds, the New York Titans began playing there; they then became the New York Jets, who moved in 1964 to Shea Stadium, along with the New York Mets, who still play at Shea, unlike the Jets, who moved from Shea in 1985 to Giants Stadium, which they currently share - just as they will with the New Meadowlands - with the current Super Bowl Champion New York Giants. Although Giants Stadium is busy throughout all sixteen plus weeks of the football season with both teams alternating home games, the Stadium remains the titular property of the Giants. Coincidentally, the New Meadowlands Stadium is being built at the same time the New York Mets are also building a new stadium, a quarter of a century after they forced the Jets out of Shea. This will be called called Citi Field (the final "i" in the field's name indicating its corporate name), a park that is designed to look like Ebbets Field, the park where the Brooklyn Dodgers played until they moved to Los Angeles in 1957, the same year the Giants (baseball) moved to San Francisco. By the way, competing with the football Giants back in the 1930's and 40's were an NFL Brooklyn Dodgers football team who also played at Ebbets Field. So did Biff Loman.

As for the Jets, well, they nearly abandoned the dubious distinction of being a part-Empire State, part-Garden State club but were unable to get approval from Manhattan's politicos for a West Side Stadium of their own. This was a blow to the Jets organization, our fans, our team, and we can't help but wonder if the Giants would have gotten it had they asked for it.

So there we are. A regular Wagnerian Ring Cycle, huh?

NY Jets By The Numbers: #19 (Rated R)

If the Gods of Wiki are to be believed, when the Baltimore Orioles offered Chris Farasopoulos a baseball contract, they asked that he shorten his name. He refused. So he chose football. Can you imagine a team trying to pull that today? Ask Troy Polamalu. While he hasn't been asked to change his (uncharacteristically short) South Pacific name, the NFL has only just tabled a rule on whether or not a player's name on a uniform should be permitted to be covered by a mane of hair that flows from his helmet. This was a smart rule given that the league might have been seen as racist in doing so, a concern not so profound when Chris Farasopoulos was a defensive back from 1971-1973. Luckily, the New York Jets were a team that welcomed eccentrics and individualists, as they already had one for a quarterback. Chris wore #19 for the Jets.

Once while riding Amtrak from Philadelphia to NYC in the spring of 2000, a man of Caribbean origin was in the seat directly behind me, insisting to the person on the other end of his cell phone that "Dat bitch has tayken all ma fahkin money, mon. All of eet. Shit, mon. What da fuck am ah ganna do?" The whole way. He was upset. The bitch took his money.

As he and I egressed at Pennsylvania Station, he caught sight of my Jets t-shirt and addressed me in the same distressed tone, as if it were part of his ongoing troubles:

"Oh mon! Ha could dey let Key-shahn go like dat, mon! What da fuck day gonna do now, mon?!?"

Well, we know what Keyshawn Johnson did. He won a Super Bowl that the Eagles should have been in. I still resent him for it the way that I resented John Riggins for leaving the Jets for more money, more respect, more chances at a ring (and got all of them). And then #19 Keyshawn went and got kicked off the Bucs. He was the first player of this era to whom I had ever heard of that happening. But then Keyshawn was always special. First, he was tall as hell, and the Jets have not had a receiver of his caliber and height since then, so indeed, my friend on the train was not off the mark with his rhetorical question. He also made a mark by being a petulantly difficult author/rookie on a 1-15 team. That takes something special. The only thing he really did wrong was to slam Wayne Chrebet in his book, which was both a tasteless and a poor call. But then no one will retire his #19 anywhere because he played in too many different places.

Bobby Riley was a replacement wide receiver with the #19 for the scab New York Jets of 1987. I wonder if the squad has reunions.

Well, if we are going to be profane, then what better way than to celebrate the legacy of the Jets' first regularly starting quarterback, #19 Malcolm "Dick" Wood. Yes, among Dicks he may be a lesser figure, maybe a little less important than Dick Trickle, though certainly only in stock car racing. Then there was Dick Pole of the Red Sox and Mariners in the 1970's. Interestingly, after quarterbacking throughout the AFL, Wood coached his way back to the Jets, where he was running backs coach. Sadly for him, this was in the Kotite era. Sort of like being the Education Secretary in the Bush Administration.

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.

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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.