Jets fans really, really really need to see their team expereience a level of success soon, and not for any of the usual reasons that other long-suffering fans need to see their teams experience levels of success. It occurred to me yesterday that Jets fans have officially taken up the mantle that used to belong to Red Sox fans: so thirsty for prosperity that watching someone else fail has become almost as much fun as watching your own guys’ success.
This point was hammered home yesterday, at the long rectangular bar in a saloon inside the Cincinnati Airport. Scattered about the joint were all kinds of folks in Sanchez jerseys, in Namath jerseys, in Revis jerseys. One thing people don’t realize about Jets fans: they travel. A lot. The Jets were greeted at this very airport two days before by a group of just-arrived fans who treated the locals to an early round of J! E! T! S! when they spotted the team.
Now, many of them were gathered around the TV, and when they saw Ray Rice break that 83-yarder on the first play from scrimmage of the Ravens-Patriots game, you would have thought it was Thomas Jones doing likewise in the haunting chill of the Meadowlands. When Tom Brady was strip-sacked not long after, the noise doubled. By the time it was 21-0 I feared a few of them might pass out.
“Do you really think the Jets’ chances against the Chargers are that much greater than they are against the Colts?” I asked a guy wearing one of those blue-and-yellow throwback Titans monstrosities, with No. 6 on it.
“Hell, that doesn’t matter, I’ll worry about that later,” he said. “I just want these SOBs to go down, and to go down hard.”
See, I hate to tell you this but … that’s exactly the way Sox fans used to behave when it came to the Yankees. Mired in that 86-year title drought, having reached a point when they believed winning a championship of their own was never going to happen in their lifetimes, Sox fans used to take inordinate joy out of Yankees failure. Even the most stubborn Sox fan will cop to that now, after winning two titles of their own in the last six years. It isn’t something they’re generally proud of, either.
So, yes: for the sake of Jets fans, here’s to a season that gives them something to hold dear to, whether that’s this year or the next or at some point in the coming seasons. Sometime soon, they should be allowed to know that reveling in some other team’s misery isn’t near as much fun as basking in your own team’s glory.
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Jets Fans have to Like Mike: I admit, I was puzzled when Woody Johnson decided to keep Mike Tannenbaum around last year, figuring it made sense to usher both ends of the ertswhile Kiddie Korps out the door; as my column today points out, it turns out the Jets owner was a little smarter than me, and everyone else who bayed for a total blow-up of the Jets’ operation.
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Powder Up, Please: I mentioned those godawful Titans jerseys before? Here’s hoping the Chargers break out their powder-blues for next Sunday’s game, the best football unis of all time.
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Seriously, Folks: Get well soon, Artie Lange. Your raw brand of humor might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the world needs more people who go for the funny bone, not less.
