Dec
22
Same old Jets. Same old (and better) Giants
December 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Greg at Faith and Fear in Flushing encapsulates how I feel right about now. It sounds like I’m more of a Jets fan than Greg, but I’m eternally grateful that I also root for the other New York football team, because I’d be despondent right now if I only could fall back on the Jets.
The Jets are a perpetual heartache. Or is it heartbreak? Probably a bit of both. They have an uncanny ability to just fuck it all up in the end somehow.
I’m not sure if this is the worst of the many, many ignominious endings. Even though they dropped five straight at the end of 1986, they still were two minutes away from the AFC Championship game, they would have made it were it not for one stupid, bonheaded act of aggression by Mark Gastineau. And of course there were all those missed field goals four years ago against Pittsburgh which also prevented a championship game appearance. And then there was the one time the Jets did actually manage to make the championship game, up 10-0 in the third quarter in Denver, and then . . . At least I didn’t cut my foot on the beer bottle I kicked after that game.
But at least in those frustrating seasons the Jets got to the post-season. If the Jets somehow manage to miss the playoffs entirely after that kind of buildup, then this might be the most brutal sting of all. And that’s saying a lot.
And then there are the Giants, the glorious, beautiful Giants, the gallant to the big green’s goofus. A couple of weeks of lackluster action had us all worried, but they got back to the basics last night, and I think we’re all ready to come back off of that cliff. And we had to know that they would get better because, well, they’re the Giants. And saying “same old Giants” has an entirely different tenor to it.