My friend from High School, Scott D. texted me that when the football season ended, since I’m a “hopeless, incurable, chronic, Jets fan”, I should write a blog dedicated to another lost Jets season. He said I could title it “A Loser Laments”. But what I didn’t have the faith to tell him at the time was that a Jets fan’s season doesn’t really end until the Patriots’ season has also come to its conclusion. For reasons that have now been well-documented, the Patriots’ season typically lasts significantly longer than the Jets’ season. In fact, this has been going on ever since Tom Brady came into a game against the very same Jets, (To replace a quarterback who the Jets unfortunately knocked out of the game…any guesses who that quarterback was? Give up, it was Drew Bledsoe) and went on to win the first of his three Super Bowls. In fact, while Brady as of this coming Super Bowl Sunday will have been to six Super Bowls, the Jets have been to none since January of 1969.
Brady swears he had nothing to do with “deflate-gate”, and that somebody else must have handled his balls. (Times Union)
For frustrated Jets fans, Tom Brady represents everything the Jets are not:
- He’s smart on the field and off…the Jets are always one of the stupidest teams in the league.
- He has class…the Jets are buffoons.
- He’s a winner who is almost unbeatable in the clutch..the Jets are lucky to be close in a big game before figuring out a creative and painful way to lose.
- He’s married to a “Super-Model”…the Jets have restraining orders against most “Super-Models”. (I may have made that one up)
But it is the Super Bowl, the biggest sporting event in our culture that reinforces the Jets’ status as un-lovable losers, and the Patriots with Belichick and Brady as ruthless competitors who will spy on the opposition, deflate footballs, draft and coddle alleged murderers, and do anything they need to do in order bring home the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Belichick, with his stony expression, his “hoodie”, and the fact that he spurned the Jets’ head coaching job that he had for one day, has become a villain to Jets fans on a level with any number of modern-day despots, including Idi Amin and Francois “Papa-Doc Duvalier”.
“Ah, I’m so bitter, there must be a puppy I can kick to make me forget about that last call!” (Times Union)
For Jets fans, the Super Bowl is a party without an invitation. We are always on the outside looking in. This is made all the more painful due to the fact that the Super Bowl is the biggest cultural event in the country. However, it may come as a surprise to younger football fans that there was a time before the Super Bowl.
The first Super Bowl was held back in 1967. It was a match-up of the two league champions. The NFL champions, the Green Bay Packers were led by their legendary coach Vince Lombardi. The AFL was represented by the Kansas City Chiefs. The AFL had only been around since 1960, and nobody expected much out of the game, which wasn’t even a sell-out. The Packers won going away and won the next Super Bowl as well. Lombardi, who would die of cancer in 1970 was cemented as such a coaching legend, that they named the Super Bowl trophy after him. To me, Lombardi always looked like a 1960s FBI agent or a semi-psychotic Phys Ed. teacher.
If you listen carefully you can hear him saying, “Mr. Hoffman, those ropes aren’t going to climb themselves.” (Associated Press)
Lombardi, like Belichick was not exactly known as “Mr. Warmth”. He basically excelled at being prickly. Here’s Lombardi voicing his “displeasure”:
The Jets one fleeting moment of organizational glory came in 1969 when they upset the powerful Baltimore Colts led by one of the greatest quarterbacks in history, the great Johnny Unitas. The Jets were led by the flamboyant, long-haired, dimple “chinned”, strong chested, (whoa, sorry, got a little carried away there) white shoes, Joe Willie Namath. Nameth, ”Broadway Joe”! ”Mr. Pantyhose”! (He did a commercial for pantyhose) The Colts represented the old guard. The Colts were Nixon, cocktails, crew cuts, high top black cleats, Frank Sinatra, and bombing those “reds” in Vietnam back to the stone age. The Jets were all about long hair, rock ‘n’ roll, smoking grass, tuning in, turning off, dropping out, and loooooong sideburns. A generational battle of values!
Joe Willie Namath, throwing touchdowns for the “Woodstock Nation”…..Man! (TImes Union)
The immortal Johnny “U”, lecturing his teammates regarding the dangers of loud rock music as played by bands such as “The Four Seasons” and “The Osmonds”. (Getty Images)
The Jets victory established the AFL as a legitimate football league. When the Chiefs won in 1970 over the Minnesota Vikings, the modern NFL was born, and so was the glory that was…the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, for the Jets and their fans, that glory has remained elusive. Namath, who looked like he would take the Jets to numerous Super Bowl victories suffered several season ending injuries, mostly to his knees and was reduced to using a walker on the field his last couple of years. Both the Jets and their hero, Joe Willie saw their fortunes forever cast into a downward spiral, finally bottoming out in this bile inducing exchange:
Which all brings me back to rooting against the Patriots. As a Jets fan I’ve been forced twice in the last eight years to root for the Giants to beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl. I am not one of those Jets fans who hates the Giants. I’m a New Yorker, those are my roots. I am always going to pick the New York Team over the Boston team. Yankees over Red Sox, Knicks over Celtics, Rangers over Bruins, Alexander Hamilton over John Adams. (They were vicious competitors in strip poker. On more than one occasion, Adams was sent back to Abagail in nothing but his breeches and his wig) I know some Jets fans despise the Giants and actually pulled for the Patriots in both of those Super Bowls. I say, a pox upon them! I have never enjoyed a more satisfying moment in sports viewing than seeing Brady and Belichick leave the field in the 2007 Super Bowl, unsuccessful in their quest to go undefeated for an entire season. Knowing all of their hard work, their sacrifice, the glory for all time that would be their’s, how close they came, how improbable the Giants’ victory was, knowing the bitter sting they must have felt…oh god it was great. (You’ll have to excuse me, I’m literally drooling)
The fact that I have to cheer for Richard Sherman and Marshawn Lynch, two of the all-time jerks, as well as seeing Pete Carroll win perhaps his second straight Super Bowl, (Knowing that the Jets fired him back in the 1990s) should tell you how much I hate the Patriots. It harkens back to World War Two when the Nazis were fighting the Commies. In such a contest, whom does one cheer for? Usually in a situation like this, I’ll root for injuries. Here we go Achilles tear, here we go Whomp, Whomp!
Does this make me a poor sport? A bad role model? A bitter and petty man? Uh, yeah! I’ve tried to be a better man, but numerous reruns of the “butt-fumble” has tainted me. So do your worst Tom Brady, I’ll be directing the negative “ju-ju” towards you something fierce come Sunday!
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