JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — It is probably well that the Jets are 950 miles away from MetLife Stadium today, because another week of self-slaughter would have been counter-productive both for the team and for the people who still care about the team. And there are still a lot of them.
The relationship between team and fanatic is always a fascinating one, an ever-shifting dynamic that usually can be captured easily, with one especially meaningful adjective. For instance:
Giants = Expectant.
Jets = Appalled.
Knicks = Exultant.
Nets = Buoyant.
Yankees = Enabled.
Mets = Exhausted.
Rangers/Islanders/Devils = Disillusioned.
Of course, it wasn’t that long ago you could shuffle the teams and the words around and you would have an entirely different lineup. Every team takes its turn where the Jets are right now — appalling their fans, galling them, every move they make feeling like a dagger to the soul of their paying customers.
Hell, the Knicks and the Rangers nearly copyrighted “appalled” not long ago. We tend to think of Mets fans as being permanently trapped in a scowl, but it was just six years ago that the 2006 version of the team inspired chatter of a National League takeover of the town.
The Yankees?
Do you remember a certain George M. Steinbrenner III in his prime?
So if anything, it’s the Jets’ turn. Maybe this seemed impossible to fathom 23 months ago, when the Jets were cruising to an 11-5 record (second-best win total in franchise history) and a second-straight AFC Championship game, when Mike Tannenbaum was the smartest kid in the class and Rex Ryan the coolest kid in the cafeteria and Mark Sanchez the consensus pick as Most Likely to Succeed, and for the first time since 1969 New York City smelled like it might be turning green over blue.
Twenty-three months. Goodness. It feels like it should take longer than that for a revolution to take place, doesn’t it?
But it has. Over the course of 10 days, the Jets went from disappointing to desultory, the catastrophe of Thanksgiving night backed up by the calamity of last Sunday’s unwatchable 7-6 win over the Cardinals. They have run the gamut: easy punchlines thanks to the buttfumble; easy targets thanks to Sanchez’s largesse with interceptions; easy villains thanks to Bart Scott’s clever assessments of the fans; easy numbskulls, in some eyes, for bringing Sanchez back from mothballs this week.
Oh, man. If this were the Meadowlands …
But this isn’t the Meadowlands, it isn’t MetLife Stadium, it’s the yard formerly known as the Gator Bowl and an opponent, the Jaguars, for whom winning is now considered an inconvenience, an impediment toward securing the top pick in the draft.
These are Jets fans who would be grouchy to begin with, but many of the folks who bought tickets did so with the idea that they would be seeing Tim Tebow, akin to Paul McCartney playing a supper club in Liverpool.
So the Jets don’t only disappoint their own fans anymore.
The good news?
This stuff changes. It’s ever-evolving. Hey, even Giants fans are starting to consider a trade-in on their adjective, a couple of losses conspiring to allow amnesia to affect some of the populace. And if the Jets win today … and win at dreadful Tennessee next week … and have the chaotic Chargers the next week …
As we always say, “fan” is short for “fanatic.” Which is short for “fanatical.” Which is really the second adjective that applies no matter which one applies as the first.
Whack Back at Vac
Mike Gijanto: Just thinking that if Brian Cash-Register does somehow manage to cobble together a team for a miserly $189 million, he’ll be supremely qualified to run for Congress. Those poor folks are doing the same … on $3 trillion!
Vac: If Washington ever does go to a hard cap, the perfect man to sort it all out is Lou Lamoriello. And, hey, it isn’t as if he doesn’t have time on his hands right now.
Chris Freeman: If we’re going to rename a Louisiana franchise, I say call them the New Orleans Rising Sun. Not only does it connote a rebirth, but it allows them to play, at the end of every home victory, one of the greatest songs of all time.
Vac: Any idea that keeps the Animals alive in our memory is a good idea in my book.
@ChiefOfVFamily: Jason Kidd is a Hall of Famer, but imagine if he had his current perimeter game his whole career?
@MikeVacc: Maybe that would’ve put him over the top for the 2001-02 MVP, still the worst miscarriage of justice I’ve ever seen among awards.
Joel Benoit: I’m curious about your Hall of Fame ballot. What about Mike Piazza?
Vac: I will write about this more the closer I come to submitting my ballot, but I have voted twice for Jeff Bagwell because whatever whispers surrounded him, nothing credible has ever stuck to him. I almost will certainly apply the same standard to Piazza, which means yes.
Vac’s Whacks
Maybe the Mets are just planning on going the same route Eddie Feigner did all those years with the King and his Court, and play without an outfield.
* If you like TV as much as I do, you must get your hands on a copy of “The Revolution Was Televised” by the great Alan Sepinwall, who daily writes what for my money is the subject’s most indispensable blog and who has written a book that is, quite literally, impossible to put down.
* He probably would have had a hard time getting minutes for Norman Dale at Hickory High, but every game J.R. Smith is his own story unto itself for the good, for the bad, and for the zany — and ask Steve Novak who has ever set him up better, in his life, than J.R.
* I’m not sure it’s possible to work any harder on a basketball floor — or anywhere else, for that matter — than what we see out of Reggie Evans every single game.