It began with Tim Tebow sprinting shirtless through the rain in Cortland, and it wasn’t long before the Jets were undressed in public, stripped of their swag, laughed at, ridiculed for crimes against professional humanity.
They have both saddened and maddened their long-suffering fans.
And yet, because this NFL keeps the playoff light flickering for the downtrodden and woebegotten alike, they should be thankful they find themselves tonight 60 minutes from improbable rejuvenation, if not resurrection.
Feast or famine? Which will it be?
Give your fans a season.
Give them a happy Thanksgiving night.
Don’t be turkeys.
Don’t be patsies.
Don’t let Tom Brady and Bill Belichick stand over a green and white carcass in the middle of MetLife Stadium with carving knives in their hands, sadistic smiles on their faces.
Now that Rex Coughlin, er, Rex Ryan, has adopted the Giants’ “Talk is cheap play the game” mantra, play the game, remind us what “Play like a Jet” was intended to mean.
Show the prime-time audience who loves to hate you that you are a football team and not the clown princes of Roger Goodell’s NFL.
The football gods have done you a favor by removing Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski from the equation. You know, and we all know, this isn’t a Patriots team that scares anybody, except for maybe it’s defensive coaching staff.
“The past is the past, but just looking back, we never thought it’d pan out like this,” safety LaRon Landry said. “Our vision, what we prepared for, and what we hoped to be at this point, we never thought we’d have this type of record.
“But it is what it is. It’s how we conclude it.”
That vision has been blurred.
“It’s been blurred, but not tarnished,” Landry said.
It’s now a one-game season.
“We gotta win this game,” Jets tight end Dustin Keller said, “and whatever it takes throughout the week to get it done, that’s what we’re gonna do.”
Quarterback Mark Sanchez will need to be more than a game manager against Brady. He will need to be a game-changer. A playmaker. Against a “fowl’’ secondary Belichick is hoping troubled Aqib Talib can steady.
Sanchez will need his three running backs to help him keep the ball and keep Brady on the sidelines as much as possible.
“This is a trench game,” tackle Austin Howard said.
Sanchez will need Mike Westhoff’s special teams unit to win the field-position battle. He will need coach Rex Coughlin and defensive coordinator Mike Pettine to disguise their intentions and keep Brady disoriented.
And he will need JetLife Stadium.
“I hope we have a loud crowd, that whenever their offense is on the field that it’s hard for them to communicate, and they can’t do much of it,” Keller said.
There has been no chirping about Brady’s antics from Rex Coughlin. No defiance about kissing Belichick’s rings. No bluster about him against Belichick mano a mano.
“I think we just gotta go out there and just let our pads do the talking,” Keller said.
Your pads have talked 4-6. Talk louder, or forever hold your tongues.
“We’re not looking at our record,” Howard said. “Coach Sparano made it very clear to us, which we have adopted, all we need to do is win one game.”
When did he say that?
“Last week.”
Now win one game this week.
“I don’t know who we have next week or the following week after that, all I know is right now, we have to win one game, and Mark, Nick Mangold, Brandon Moore, in terms of leading this team and adopting that mindset, they’ve been the front-runners in making sure we recognize the opportunities that we have in front of us.”
The AFC has come back to you and presented those opportunities. Don’t blow it.
You were accused of quitting against the 49ers. You let the Dolphins smack you around at home. Your Wildcat has hurt more than it’s helped. You lost Santonio Holmes and Keller was sidelined and Stephen Hill hasn’t stopped dropping the ball and your Ground & Pound was stuck in quicksand and that left your embattled quarterback stranded on Sanchez Island.
You lost Darrelle Revis. Your grumpy veteran linebacker Bart Scott made a locker room scene or two, your owner Woody Johnson revealed he was more consumed with winning than selling hot dogs, some of your anonymous Jets took shameful potshots at Tebow … and none of that matters now.
The six-game season that starts tonight is all that matters.
After all the insanity and ineptitude, after all the tumult and gnashing of teeth over Tebow, it is not too late to use this game as a launching pad for the five-game season that follows.
“We stick together, we can go far, as far as we want to go,” Landry said. “We play together, we can go as far as we want to go. It’s like a ‘Band of Brothers’ type of deal, you know? One heartbeat.”
Can you keep that heart beating?