Jets to Wear Blue and Gold- Voodoo? Whodo? You do. Only if We Win

Last week, the day after the Jets dropped 56 points on the Cardinals, I received a text message from a fellow fan.  He had read somewhere that the Jets would be wearing the throwback Titans jerseys when the Jets come back from the bye against the Bengals and he was furious.  Jets fans, as I’ve said before, are similar to abused puppies.  This is a perfect example. One whole day had passed since Favre threw a career high 6 touchdowns as a Jet (in a Titans jersey) and people had already found something to worry about.  In my head, we had won right?  Let’s just make sure we win again.   Who cares if our Jersey’s are outdated and look like NCIA Division-2 wear? As long as we’re flaring Green and White in the Super Bowl I’m happy.

I proceeded to scour the internet for some official Jet announcement regarding the colors they would wear and came up empty handed.  What I did find was lots of people commenting about Jets pride and how we should show some and wear the green and white.  With no official announcement from the team anywhere I just dismissed it as my buddy’s long history as a Jets fan refusing to let him be happy (he was at the fake-snap game for instance).  I’m still baffled as to why every time I’ve spoken to him over the past week it’s about Favre wearing a Blue jersey instead Favre leading the league in QB rating (110.8).

Well, this week the Jets confirmed that they would indeed be wearing throwbacks against the Bengals.  From the comments I’ve been reading, it seems fans are divided as to how to feel about this.  On one hand you have fans arguing that this is disgraceful and, because the Titans as a franchise went bankrupt, ignorant.  On the other hand you have fans arguing that the Titans were a big part of Jets history and the important thing is to keep winning.

This morning I called the Jets offices to try to get to the bottom of this.  Did I expect them to come out and say, “We’re trying to sell jerseys so we keep putting Favre in diffirent colors?”   Of course not; but making $$$ off of Jerseys is certainly a big reason teams do this.  I could tell that the woman I spoke to knew where I was coming from.

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What we’re trying to do is establish a new tradition.  Every season the Jets will play two home games wearing the Titan’s jerseys.   We will continue to do this in the years ahead. - Jane from the Jet’s Offices

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Her name is not Jane but she didn’t want to give me her name so for our purposes she is now Jane.  I also spoke to the media relations department and was also given a satisfactory answer.  I asked her if she thought superstition played a part and was told, “I don’t know about that.  You should probably speak to marketing.”  Jersey sales… that angle I understand.  (Just a side note here, she also pretty much invited me to a press conference following practice next week.  Do I get to ask questions?)

People are worried that Mangini is trying to build momentum based around wearing colors that are not green and white.  My buddy actually said this: “What happens if we win again?”  That’s when I knew priorities were not right for him.  These would be good problems to have.  You know, (cue the damsel in distress voice), “We’ve been wearing these stupid Titan’s Jersey for the last 5 games and haven’t lost!  Here come the Bills!  What do we do?”   I would say that the coach understands these things better than I do and if he can get us to a 14-2 record by wearing blue uniforms then more power to him.

Professional athletes are historically superstitious.  We’ve all heard the stories:  dudes wearing the same dirty socks all season, not shaving during the playoffs, Giambi’s gold thong, Giambi’s mustache (big fan of that thing), which shoe they lace up first, Giambi lending his gold thong to Derek Jeter, not stepping on the first base line, rubbing Babe Ruth’s plaque… there really are countless examples.  In high school my soccer team went undefeated in our all green kits and that’s exactly why we kept wearing them.

Of course I would rather watch the Jets play in Green and White than Blue and Gold.  However, I’ll take the Jets winning in Blue over losing in Green any day.  As a fan I have my own superstitions when it comes to watching the Jets and I’m sure I’m not alone.  I’ll revisit those in the days ahead but let’s just say that when the Jets put up 56 points, one of my superstitions gives me a hangover.