The Jester’s Quart: Herm on Wry

Columnist Greg Wyshynski is a long-suffering New York Jets fan (as if there’s any other kind). This season, his team is a mess, coach Herman Edwards might leave, and the Jets could be facing a major rebuilding project. Or, in true Jets fashion, they might still make the playoffs. That, plus rants about the NFL teasing Kansas City with the Super Bowl and more NHL shootout madness…all in the latest ‘JQ’.

Greg Wyshynski
Columnist, SportsFanMagazine.com

It’s become a nonchalant, mechanical question the morning after a football Sunday.

“So, how’d your team do yesterday?”

Typically, you get this question when you’re a stranger in a strange land — a fan of an out-of-town team. Everyone knows how the home team did. Here in Washington, the fate of the Redskins every Sunday has a ripple effect on everything from the local news cycle to the price of Papa John’s pizza the following day.

It’s well known within my circle of friends, as well as in my office, that I’m a New York Jets fan. And it’s equally as well known throughout the same factions that the Jets completely suck this year.

Each Monday morning offers the same ritualistic query from an acquaintance:

“So, how’d the Jets do yesterday?”

I can only answer honestly:

“I’m sorry. I don’t follow football.”

But of course I do. You can’t shake your pigskin loyalties, no matter how many geographic or psychological complexities enter your fanaticism. When I was a kid, I used to think I would drop the Jets if I moved to a city with a huge football tradition, like Chicago for example. But it doesn’t work like that. I haven’t lived in New Jersey for over a decade, but I still live and die with that stupid franchise every weekend during the fall and winter.

OK, stupid isn’t the right word. Inept? Maybe inept. I had a roommate in college named Shirtless Joe. He was called Shirtless Joe because (shocker) he hardly ever wore a shirt. (It was those frat parties in which he’d become Pants-less Joe that really irked us.)

He was a big Steelers fan (“Stillers” to Joe, a native of the Steel City) and he never understood what was so debilitating about being a Jets fan. I guess, in his eyes, we were the team that was always just “there.” And, unlike some other franchises, we did have The Ring, courtesy of Joe “I juss wanna kizz you” Namath.

One night, I decided to give Joe a Gang Green education. He was in his bed across the room in our dorm, and I was in mine. The lights were out for a few minutes before I broke the silence.

“Know what sucks about being a Jets fan?”

At that point I regaled him with gruesome tales of New York football history. Having Richard Todd at quarterback. Drafting Ken O’Brien ahead of Dan Marino in 1983. Chanting “Joe Must Go” while Walton bumbled his way on the sidelines for seven (!) years. Watching Al Toon suffer more concussions than the Lindros brothers combined. Being stunned when Gastineau retired without warning. Dennis Byrd’s paralysis. Taking Blair Thomas ahead of Junior Seau, and then watching that idiot run horizontally between the tackles for four long years. Drafting Browning Nagle after the Falcons traded up to draft Brett Favre with the previous selection. Using two No. 1 picks in four years on tight ends; one of them being Johnny Mitchell and the other being Kyle Brady, who was taken three spots ahead of Warren Sapp. Hiring Rich Kotite and going 1-15 in 1996. And I went on and on and on…

Joe didn’t make a sound during this history lesson. I think a little piece of him died that night — bringing him closer to being a Jets fan than he ever wanted to be, I’m sure.

So this nightmare season unfolding right now for the Jets isn’t anything new, nor were the positive expectations I had coming into the season that have now been crushed like a child stomping on a helpless insect.

Because the Jets aren’t stupid and they’re not inept; they’re simply the biggest C-teases in the history of sports.

It’s one thing to suck. It’s another thing to offer a glimmer of greatness and then wallow in suckatude. The Mets are usually masters of this domain, but the Jets have a certain knack for it, too. What other team could pull off what the Jets pulled off against Pittsburgh last season in the playoffs: missing TWO potentially game-winning field goals with less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter? And then, in true Jets’ tradition, using their first pick on a PLACE KICKER the following off-season — because, you know, you can never find a veteran kicker who needs a job, right?

The 2005 season began as they all begin: with hope. A healthy Pennington in back of the best offensive line in the AFC East, with his favorite target (Coles) back on the wing and a Hall of Fame running back (Martin) behind him.

Now, the Jets are 2-7. Pennington is done for the season. The anchor of that offensive line, center Kevin Mawae, is done, as is tackle Jason Fabini. Coles has as many receiving touchdowns as fullback Jerald Sowell, while the player he was traded for — Santana Moss — could be headed to the Pro Bowl with the Redskins. And Martin has finally looked his age, while his former understudy LaMont Jordan had blossomed into a featured back for the Raiders.

Right now, the Jets’ quarterbacks are Brooks Bollinger, Vinny Testaverde and Kliff Kingsbury.

Right now, I’m looking around my office for the closest thing to a noose.

This week, the Jets got even more stellar news: Coach Herman Edwards tap-danced around reporters’ questions regarding his leaving the team after the season to succeed Dick Vermeil as Kansas City head coach.

Edwards has several strong ties to the Chiefs. He’s also grown increasing tired of the slings and arrows from the New York media, believing that three playoff appearances (and two playoff wins) in four years as Jets coach should have earned him some slack. (Perhaps he hasn’t noticed that even Joe Torre gets slammed by the NY press, and he’s one World Series away from sainthood in many Bronx churches.)

"At the end, if I'm not holding up my (end of the) bargain or they feel they need to go in another direction, they've got to do that," Edwards said. "They have to do whatever is best for the team. I'm okay with that, I really am.”

Herm softened his stance in further conversations, hinting that he wanted to remain coach. But why? I think all Jets fans assumed that this team needed to win in the next two years — basically Martin’s shelf-life — before facing some major upheaval. Now it appears the time table has moved up. Pennington’s days as a porcelain quarterback could be numbered in New York; and while the defense remains strong, the offense could be rebuilding for years. In one sweeping off-season, the Jets might need a new running back, quarterback and head coach.

That’s why a part of me wants this team to go completely in the tank and hopefully land a Top 2 pick — meaning either USC’s Reggie Bush or Matt Lienart could be wearing the green and white in 2006. At least then you’d have something to build around, rather than giving it one last shot with a glass-jawed QB and a running back with an AARP card.

But these are the Jets, C-teases to the end. A team that could end up atop the draft…or in the postseason.

They’re 2-7 overall, but just 1-1 in the AFC East. They have four games left in the division: sweep them, and New York’s in the playoffs, as unbelievably crazy as that sounds.

Is that hope I just felt while writing that, or is it false hope?

It’s neither. It’s being a Jets fan.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Is there anything more pathetic than the NFL’s recent “rewarding” of the Super Bowl to Kansas City?

First of all, what’s with the NFL wielding the Bowl like it’s some political tool? It was used that way in the New York stadium tussle with the Jets, and now it’s a carrot to get the county to help fund a massive stadium project for the Chiefs.

It’s not good for football when the NFL starts to look like the USOC.

Second, when is the NFL going to stop dropping to its knees for TV executives and its corporate whores and finally give the Super Bowl back to the fans? Kansas City needs a dome before it gets a Bowl game? Bullshit. Chiefs fans, Steelers fans, Giants fans, Eagles fans, Bears fans…all of these people deserve to see a Super Bowl in their town 100 times before the damn Jaguars and Falcons fans do. But they get screwed because it might be chilly willy during the game. Poor P. Diddy might need to throw on an extra fur coat.

The games that decide who plays in the Super Bowl can be held in a fracking blizzard, but God forbid the Bowl isn’t played in a vacuum. What a joke…

Two little tidbits I came across this week about the NHL shootout: did you know that shootout goals can’t be reviewed? And that teams aren’t allowed to measure opponents’ sticks during the shootout for legality?

Why are the rules different in the shootout than they are in the rest of the game?

Oh, that’s right: BECAUSE A SHOOTOUT ISN’T HOCKEY!

Finally, I wanted to note that the column takes a Turkey Break next week. I, for one, am supremely thankful that all of you continue to read this nonsense on a weekly basis. May your biscuits be buttered, and your yams forever remain candied…

Published on the web and www.SportsFanMagazine.com since 1997, "The Jester's Quart" is a weekly satirical look at sports, pop culture and why NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is a jackass. Columnist Greg Wyshynski is the Senior Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book “Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History” will be published in Spring 2006. Email Wyshynski at jestersquart@hotmail. com.

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