There is no reason I should be a fan of the New York Jets, but I am, and have no one to blame but myself.
For the past few days, howls of laughter and scorn have emanated from social media and sports radio yak shows around the country, after the Jets' nominal starting quarterback, Geno Smith, fell victim to a broken jaw, courtesy of a locker room "sucker-punch" from teammate IK Enemkpali. Smith will be out of action for six to 10 weeks, and Enemkpali was immediately released from the team.
An incident like this appears to be without precedent. Sure, scuffles happen between teammates in training camp, but a possible career-ending fist fight involving the quarterback? This could only happen here. Same old Jets, as the saying has gone since before I was even aware of Joe Namath's oversized legend.
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Apparently, the fight was over $600 in travel expenses Smith owed Enemkpali after he no-showed a charity event. Smith not only stiffed the hot-headed linebacker, he was belligerent about it, which is why Jets coach Todd Bowles and star cornerback Darrelle Revis indicated both men bore some responsibility for the fiasco.
Smith has been, frankly, a terrible quarterback in his two seasons in the NFL, but because he was replacing the perennially disappointing Mark Sanchez (most famous for the 2012 Thanksgiving night butt-fumble), Jets fans were willing to ignore the statistical data that showed Smith to be every bit the overmatched, interception-prone field general as his predecessor. Given the lukewarm support from his coach and his teammates, it seems the men who work with Smith believe they're better off without him, making this incident a greater humiliation to the endlessly suffering and frequently mortified Jets fan base than to the team itself.
Sports fandom is traditionally passed from one generation to another, but though my father has always followed football, he has no allegiance to any NFL team. If you don't inherit your team allegiance from a parent, you may choose a nationally prominent team like the Dallas Cowboys or Green Bay Packers, or one with a winning tradition, like the Pittsburgh Steelers or San Francisco 49ers. Unlike the other major American sports leagues, the NFL has always been the easiest to follow from afar. Games are only once a week, and even before the era of NFL Red Zone (which allows bars and couch potatoes alike the ability to watch any game, free from the tyranny of local TV contracts), it was relatively easy to catch your favorite team play in a few nationally televised games even if you lived on the other side of the country.
As a mid-1980s grade school kid in the suburbs of New York City, I didn't even know it was an option to root for an out-of-town team. I just knew that our sprawling metroplex had two teams to choose from. Though my father didn't curse me with Jets fandom, his candor about his experience with New York's other, more successful football team is what cemented my fate as a devotee of Gang Green.
"When I bartended in Westchester, near the Giants practice facility, those guys used to come in all the time. They were terrible tippers."
That's why my Dad didn't like the Giants, and that was good enough for me.
So onto my wall went an Al Toon poster, and nearly 30 years of angst, frustration, disappointment, and humiliation have followed.
Unlike some other terrible franchises that can lose quietly year in and year out, the Jets flail and scream and make their presence known. The Jacksonville Jaguars have no fan base, no one cares that they lose. The Cleveland Browns have a die-hard fan base, but rarely make the playoffs or have lofty expectations. The Jets, on the other hand, demand to be noticed.
Everyone loves to see a bully humbled, which is why most of America delighted at the humiliating defeat of the then-undefeated New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. But the sports world also loves to laugh at the Jets' misfortunes, because even though they are rarely favorites to win, they sometimes get close enough to respectability that when the crash comes, it's so spectacular and dramatic that it can't be ignored.
Ever since Joe Namath swaggered into Super Bowl III, guaranteeing (and delivering) a victory over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts, the image of Namath jogging off the field wagging his index finger is literally the only moment of glory Jets fans can point to. It's so ubiquitous in Jets fan lore I really hope I never have to see it again.
It's worth noting that while Namath was a transformative figure in pop culture, he was a slightly better than mediocre quarterback who could never beat a team with a winning record following his Super Bowl victory, and slid into the Hall of Fame based on the reputation he earned in that one game.
For fans under the age of 50, the only moment that comes close to Namath's finger-wag is the Jets' upset victory over the Patriots in the Divisional Round of the 2010 playoffs. That's it. A second round victory is my greatest living memory as a Jets fan. To love the Jets is to love spectacular and ignominious failure.
The Jets have been legendary at squandering draft picks, passing on future Hall of Famers Emmitt Smith and Dan Marino for the undistinguished Blair Thomas and Ken O'Brien. They've finished with four wins or less seven times in the past 25 years. They had epic meltdowns in the 1986 and 2005 playoffs. In 1996, they signed Neil O'Donnell to a monster contract, based on his performance in the Super Bowl, where as quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers he threw two interceptions that were nowhere near his teammates. In 2008, the Jets acquired future Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre, whose most noteworthy contribution to the team was sending unwanted photos of his anatomy to a female team employee.
When Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells shocked the football world in 1997 by bolting the New England Patriots, the team he took to the Super Bowl the previous season, to coach the Jets, he brought a winning pedigree and the same supporting staff that helped him win two Super Bowls as coach of the Giants. In his second season with the team, Parcells took the Jets to the AFC Championship game, where they held a 10-point lead at halftime, only to lose to the Denver Broncos, most likely because John Elway realized that he was about to lose the last home game of his legendary career to the Jets, and he couldn't have that on his resume.
Parcells stepped down as coach following the 1999 season and his lead assistant, Bill Belichick, was promoted to head coach per longstanding contractual arrangement. Belichick resigned a day later, scribbling "I resign as HC of the NYJ" on a napkin, delivering a bizarre and rambling press conference, then heading up to coach New England, where he would win four Super Bowls and torment the Jets for a decade and a half (and counting).
The Jets have had five head coaches since then, and the most recently departed, Rex Ryan, was known for making Super Bowl predictions every year, antagonizing rival coaches, posting foot fetish videos with his wife to the internet, and maintaining zero discipline in the locker room. It should come as little surprise that Ryan, now the coach of the Buffalo Bills, scooped up the quarterback maimer, IK Enemkpali, off the waiver wire less than 24 hours after his release from the Jets.
Being a sports fan is a silly endeavor. As Jerry Seinfeld once put it, you "root for laundry." The players have no loyalty to you, they're mercenaries. The owners aren't pillars of the community, they're hustlers and gangsters and charlatans.
Still, experiencing "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" in a communal atmosphere is intoxicating. Especially for those whose brains are still rooted to the caveman mentality, sports fandom can be the tie that binds generations who would otherwise have nothing to say to each other.
But whenever the Jets leave me sulking in embarrassment, I can't even find a sympathetic ear from my father, because he has no emotional attachment to the immoral meat-grinder that is the National Football League, much less its most exasperating franchise.
After news of Geno Smith's maiming broke, I got a text from my father:
"See? The Jets don't need Rex! They never disappoint! Beyond classic!"
I replied, "Same old Jets."
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