SUNDAY afternoon. Giants Stadium. Jets against the Cardinals at 1 o’clock.
Mark it down. It very well might represent Rick Mirer’s last stand. As a Jet. As an NFL quarterback.
Call us overdramatic. Accuse us of being too seduced by the big picture. But this is the way it is: Mirer has been a quarterback of great potential mired in mediocrity or worse his entire career and there are only so many chances you get – even in the quarterback-starved league that the NFL is these days – before your time runs out.
In the case of Mirer, when you consider the following facts surrounding his tenuous career as a Jet you realize that if he’s unable to produce a win over Arizona Sunday it’s over for him. Consider:
*Sunday will mark Mirer’s sixth start this season. Through the first five, he has helped produce one victory, thrown just 4 TD passes to go along with 9 INTs. He has, too, in some times of pressure fallen into a shell of conservativism.
*Mirer has at his fingertips essentially a full complement of the same offensive talent that Vinny Testaverde had in 1998 when Testaverde was throwing 29 TD passes and only 7 INTs in 13 regular-season starts.
*Mirer is being coached by the same coaching staff that’s regarded by most in the league as among the best in the NFL.
*In Curtis Martin, Mirer has one of the NFL’s top rushing attacks behind him.
*The 2-5 Cardinals, with their starting quarterback injured, an offensive line in constant flux and a defense ravaged by injury, are the worst team the Jets will face in their final nine games. Sunday’s game likely represents the last game this season in which the Jets will be favored to win.
*Ray Lucas, a Parcells favorite, is nipping at the heels of Mirer, having whet the coaches’ appetite with a decent performance in his first NFL start, a 16-13 loss to the Colts on Oct. 17. Lucas, whom Parcells has publicly said he wants to see more of, is almost completely recovered from the sprained left ankle he hurt in that game. Yesterday, he was removed from the injury report altogether.
All of these factors point to Mirer’s last stand – certainly in New York, if not in the NFL. Failure to seize opportunity by the jugular on Sunday will almost certainly mark the end of the line for him.
Yesterday, Mirer was asked point-blank if he felt like this game might be his last stand as a Jet.
“I don’t like to think of it like that, because it’s not real healthy,” Mirer said. “I would have loved to have gotten comfortable [with the system] before playing, but that wasn’t the way it worked out, so you’ve got to make adjustments and go. That’s the nature of this business.
“I’ve got a lot of life left,” Mirer said. “It’s just that the quarterback is usually the beneficiary of a good system and a good team effort around him. When certain things break down here or there or the ball bounces the wrong way people are hard on the quarterback, but it’s more than one guy out there.”
When Mirer first arrived to New York, thrust into a backup role in mid-August via a trade when Parcells realized he’d made a mistake signing Scott Zolak, Mirer’s message was clear regarding his checkered NFL past.
“I feel like I’ve been dealt some bad hands,” Mirer said, referring to his time with a directionless Seattle organization that selected him with the No. 2 overall pick in the 1993 draft and also to his year in Chicago, where the Bears’ faithful never took to him because of their outrage over the franchise giving up a No. 1 draft pick to acquire him.
The chance to help the talented Jets was as good as it’s gotten for Mirer. Fact is, he’s never been dealt a better hand than he’s holding now.
He’s got Parcells, Charlie Weis and Dan Henning coaching him. He’s got Keyshawn Johnson and Wayne Chrebet to throw it to. He’s got Martin gaining almost 100 yards per game of late. He’s got a solid, dependable offensive line protecting him. He’s got a better than average defense for support on the other side of the ball.
What else does Mirer need?
When Parcells was asked yesterday about the bad hands Mirer said he’s been dealt before coming here, he said, “Listen, they’re dealing cards all over the place in this league. You can either play them or you get out of the game. It’s the same way in coaching. You either deal with it and try to get your team to win or you can sack up your bats and go home.”
Parcells also said yesterday that Mirer and the entire Jets’ offense has looked sharp in practice this week.
“After what I’ve seen the last couple days, I’m expecting him to play well Sunday,” Parcells said. “But I’m still learning about him. I’m still trying to create plus situations where he can succeed. This isn’t Texaco. You can’t go down there and say, ‘Change the plugs and grease it up.’ You have to learn the player. Sometimes it takes years to learn the player.”
Parcells didn’t say it but certainly he knows it as well as Mirer does: The Jets don’t have years to figure this out. In the case of Mirer, it’s win today or be gone tomorrow.
