<\/p>\n
All teams are doomed, but some are more doomed than others. <\/span>New York Jets fans understand that well.<\/p>\n Barring Oakland Raiders fans–who would be happy with 6 wins and a clove of garlic to drive Al Davis away–every other team in the league starts the season thinking that the Super Bowl is possible. <\/span>It is the mixed blessing of the NFL; unlike baseball fans who know that only 5 teams have a realistic shot each year, NFL fans all Believe. <\/span>As such, 31 seasons end in disappointment. <\/span>But only Jets fans truly understand how stacked the odds are against us. <\/span>Only Jets fans understand that no matter how much we Believe, we\u2019re still doomed.<\/p>\n For reasons too asinine to explain here, I became a New York Jets fan before the 1996 season. <\/span>I was 13 years old and 3,000 miles away from them, but they were my team. <\/span>They went 1 and 15 that season. <\/span>And for reasons only a therapist could love, that made me love them more. <\/span>I mention this only to let you know I have credibility when I say this: the 2010 Jets are doomed.<\/p>\n And yet despite my Dalai Lama-like understanding of life\u2019s suffering, the Jets are one of the most accomplished teams in the league. <\/span>They have the best Monday night comeback of all time (that\u2019s right Fins fans, it doesn\u2019t take us long to bring up The Midnight Miracle), they have the best Super Bowl upset of all-time (Giants fans, before you say anything–just shut it, I don\u2019t care about your \u2018we-prevented-Perfection\u2019 argument, Super Bowl 3 justified the existence of an entire league, you didn\u2019t top that), and lastly they have a Laker-caliber fanbase (Hank Azaria, Jon Favreau, and Rob Riggle just to name the 3 best to follow on Twitter). <\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s a weird phenomenon associated with Jets fans\u2014we’re like Cubs fans if they turned bitter. <\/span>We are like Philadelphia fans with better media coverage. <\/span>We are like Red Sox fans pre-2004, but less dickish (kinda). <\/span>Depending on who you ask, Jets fans have: a little-brother complex (according to Giants fans), a toxic organization (according to anyone that left NYJ for NE), or a pure understanding of the pain that all great poets have felt (according to me). <\/span>The organization has an almost Clipper-like track-record, but this offseason has been different. <\/span>This offseason anyone with two legs and something to prove signed with the Jets. <\/span>This offseason the Jets moved<\/em>. <\/span>Not just to a new stadium, they moved to Favorite-land. <\/span>If you haven\u2019t followed the Jets this may be news to you, but no matter where they move, they will still be the Jets. <\/span>No matter where they are, they are still doomed.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy?\u201d you ask\u2026<\/p>\n Because of Hard Knocks The HBO series will spend training camp with the Jets. <\/span>It will be the 6th time HBO has done this series. <\/span>Despite the Super-Bowl potential that attracted HBO, no team that Hard Knocks accompanied has ever won more than 10 games that year; in fact the average record for those previous 5 teams is 8-8. <\/span>Only the 2001 Ravens (in the show\u2019s first season)–who were trying to repeat as Super Bowl Champs–won even a single playoff game in the season HBO profiled them (they lost in Round 2). <\/span>This series isn\u2019t quite as powerful as the cover of Madden, it\u2019s more like dating Alyssa Milano: sure it may be fun but it\u2019s gonna ruin your season. <\/span>And it\u2019s pretty obvious why–HBO is a cause and an effect. <\/span>A team must have hype to qualify (red flag#1), and they spend their training camp having a video crew document a team\u2019s every move which results in inflated egos. <\/span>In fact that deserves its own paragraph\u2026<\/p>\n Because of Bad Chemistry If you put together an \u201call-overrated\u201d team during the last few years surely LaDainian Tomlinson (who\u2019s in the Pamela-Anderson-on-Dancing-with-the-Stars stage of his career), Braylon Edwards (who has the mixed blessing of not being as bad as he looks), Antonio Cromartie (who has the remarkable accomplishment of having more kids than interceptions), Santonio Holmes (who has an actual chance to have more arrests than TDs), and Mark Sanchez (who, despite the hype of his \u201cpoise\u201d, is still a guy who threw 20 ints on a run-first team). <\/span>The team got rid of their workhorse, Thomas Jones, for LT; they got rid of their explosive but injured Leon Washington for explosive but injured Joe Mcknight; they went out and got two WRs despite having a QB with a rating of 63. <\/span>And yet every one of these guys expect to be the guy. <\/span>Add to this mix that Rex Ryan believes that he, not Zach Galifianakis, is actually Fat Jesus and you have a recipe for disaster.<\/p>\n Because of let-down (high expectations) The Jets have only made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons 4 times in their history. <\/span>They\u2019ve done it just once in the past twenty years. <\/span>And they have never won a playoff game in back to back seasons. <\/span>There\u2019s a reason for this–teams like the Jets sneak up on people, they surprise teams. <\/span>It\u2019s why they were able to beat the Patriots in week 3 but got manhandled by them in week 11. <\/span>It\u2019s why they lost to Buffalo, Miami (twice), Jacksonville–these are teams that weren\u2019t overlooking the Jets because they were just as bad. <\/span>In fact, if it weren’t for the Colts and the Bengals mailing it in the final two weeks, the Jets wouldn\u2019t even have made the playoffs. <\/span>If it wasn\u2019t for Nate Keading, the Jets never would have survived San Diego. <\/span>This team had no business being in the playoffs, let alone the AFC Championship game, and now they\u2019re expected to be a Super Bowl contender? <\/span>On any given year, half the previous season\u2019s playoff teams will suck. <\/span>The Jets will be part of that doomed half. <\/span><\/p>\n Because every Jets team is doomed But because it\u2019s the Jets, it won\u2019t be as simple as merely sucking. <\/span>Instead, the team\u2019s history is full of building-your-hopes-up-only-to-crush-your-spirit seasons. <\/span>All Jets fans are taught this early. <\/span>Whether it was 2004 (missing two game-winning field goals including one that hit the cross bar to lose to the Steelers, one week after beating the Chargers because they missed two game-winning field goals); or 1998, AFC Championship game, blowing a 10-point third quarter lead to lose to the Broncos; or 1987, AFC Championship game on the line, blowing a, you-guessed-it, 10-point lead to lose in double-OT to the Browns (by the way, that season was also the one in which they went 10-1 before losing their final 5 games, but we\u2019ll save regular season heartbreaks for later). <\/span>For the older generations, it was 1981–they marched down the field, down by 4, and got to the Buffalo 1-yard line, only to throw an interception with 2 seconds left to lose to the Bills. <\/span>And of course just to boil it all together there was this past season when the Jets had an 11-point second-half lead that they blew, mixed with missing two field-goals one week after they beat the Chargers because the week before they missed three field goals. <\/span><\/p>\n This may seem blasphemous but the quintessential Jet isn\u2019t Namath, it’s Favre. <\/span>It is Brett Favre because he led the team to 8 wins in the first 11 games, and it is Favre because they then proceeded to lose 5 of the final 6. <\/span>It is Favre because in Week 17, with the playoffs on the line, against the rival Dolphins, he threw 3 ints–including a Pick-6–to crush our hopes. <\/span>Namath won the Super Bowl, does that sound like any Jets team you know? <\/span>Favre got our hopes up, and crushed them. <\/span>Now that\u2019s more like the Jets. <\/span><\/p>\n Not to wax poetic about something so recent, but following a team on the opposite coast in the late 90s was a different experience, which is to say–it was tougher. <\/span>This was pre-NFL Network, pre-everyone-and-their-mother having a blog, even pre-ESPN.com. <\/span>If you didn\u2019t get the local team\u2019s newspaper, you had to search out team news. <\/span>Every fly-over state served as a buffer between me and my team, which meant that I didn\u2019t have to live the day-to-day drama of Jets fandom\u2026but I still found a way to find the hurt. <\/span>And today, only a few years later, when I get so much info that I know how much time Rex Ryan spends in the bathroom each day, it will still hurt. <\/span>But at least I know it\u2019s coming. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leaky Pipes breaks down why the Jets are sunk this year; think he’s crazy? That’s what the Cowboys fans said\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1284"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1284"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}