OAKLAND – The Jets have no choice but to Bring It Home today. They are out of excuses if they do not bring home a playoff berth, and Bring It Home the right way, by barging in instead of backing in with help from the Chiefs.
There are no excuses because you either have what it takes in your heart to be a champion or you do not. You either break through with a vengeance and get over the hump that chumps cannot get over, or you do not.
There are no excuses because there is no excuse for choking on the final Sunday of the regular season two damn years in a row and three times in five years.
Just Don’t Choke, Baby!
There are no excuses because you either know how to win or you don’t. You either know how to finish or you don’t. You either like the white-hot spotlight on this kind of stage or you do not. You are either a money player or you are not. You either spit the bit or you do not.
For the Jets, the light at the end of this tunnel will be either Heaven or Hell.
Heaven means Joy in Jetville.
Hell means it is time for Herm Edwards to start backing up the Same Old Truck and dumping some of those Same Old Jets.
Because this one is on these players.
They are the ones who will have to look in the mirror if they shrink to the occasion again, because the specter of Al Groh will not be in the background this time.
For many, this is the biggest game of their lives, because these are the three hours that will either change, or end, careers.
If Paul Hackett switches to the wishbone, Vinny Testaverde will simply have to get his team in the end zone somehow, some way, anyway, and Bring It Home. At the end of a week he would undoubtedly like to have back, this is no time for Testaverde to throw interceptions. Not on No Excuse Sunday. Not at his age. Not at his cap number. If he comes out of this again as the almost-playoff quarterback of the almost-playoff team, you can more than almost take it to the bank that he will not live to tell Chad Pennington about it.
This is the defining test of his moxie, of his resiliency, of his leadership, and it is Vin Or Else for his Namath dream to survive.
Testaverde could use Keyshawn Johnson as an excuse, because the Jets never did find him a big, physical target, and he could use Hackett as an excuse, because the operation both handcuffed and frustrated him, but no one wants to hear any of it today.
There are no excuses because if you play with pride and poise, with passion and nerve, you can beat these Raiders. There are no excuses because that isn’t Snake Stabler behind center. That isn’t Ben Davidson trying to break some quarterback’s leg. That isn’t Jack Tatum playing assassin in the secondary.
There are no excuses because Testaverde and the Jets have Curtis Martin, and the Raiders do not, and the Raiders do not have Otis Sistrunk to stop him.
There are no excuses because these players, who could not beat a 2-12 team at home, are the ones who made this bed they’re sleeping in.
Edwards knows what it will take to function in the eye of this storm. “Confidence and calmness,” he said. He thought back to his Tampa Bay teams and said, “They never play with the idea that, ‘I don’t want to screw it up.’ “
Big players – Testaverde, Martin, Wayne Chrebet, Kevin Mawae, John Abraham, Mo Lewis, Marvin Jones, Aaron Glenn – have to play big today.
These players have been telling us about their mental toughness and character for two years now. They have been knocked down, first by Testaverde’s season-ending Achilles injury in the 1999 opener, then by Bill Parcells’ leaving, then by Bill Belichick bolting after one day, then by Groh bolting after one year. It is time to get up, and stay up.
They have spent the entire season staring at the Super Bowl III trophy that sits in their locker room. You want to make your own history? Here’s your chance. Your last chance to leave footprints.
No excuses.
