CURSES! THE JETS ARE IN FOR “HARD KNOCKS”.

Curses and sports go together like peanut butter and jelly.  For every franchise that has a long drought of losing seasons and/or a consecutive string of “just misses”, their community will tell you there is voodoo working against them.

Professional sports has its fair share of famous curses:

“The Curse of the Bambino” - lasted over 80 years before the Red Sox brought home a Championship.

“The Curse of the Goat” - the Cubs are still suffering this one, 65 years and going strong.

“The Madden Curse” - Drew Brees could be the next victim, fantasy owners beware!

A myriad of other curses exist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports-related_curses), but two lesser known curses have recently been married to potentially spell disaster for one of the already unluckiest franchises in sports… the New York Jets.

Many Jets fans (including myself) will tell you that the Jets are suffering “The Curse of ‘Broadway’ Joe”.  Over the years it has become simply referred to as “same old Jets”. 

In Super Bowl III, ‘Broadway’ Joe Namath guaranteed victory over the Baltimore Colts. At the time, the Colts were huge favorites over the pariah AFL Jets, and nobody guaranteed victories back then.  The guarantee was perceived as way too arrogant.  But Joe Willie and the Jets backed it up, won the Super Bowl, sealed the merger of the NFL/AFL, and ushered in the NFL as we know it today.  Ever since, the team has stumbled through mediocrity, dismal losing seasons and flashes of brilliance that always fall just short of glory enough to rip their fans hearts out. 

It seems that anytime the Jets are headed in the right direction, the rug always gets pulled out from under them.  Steve Sabol of NFL Films compared it to “Charlie Brown trying to kick a football from Lucy’s hold.  No matter how close he gets, Lucy always rips the ball away and all that’s left is a painful crash back to earth.”  Here are some perfect examples of this phenomenon:

1981 - After winning 10 of their last 13 regular season games, the Jets have earned their first playoff birth since 1969.  Facing the Buffalo Bills in the wild card game, the Jets storm back from a 24-0 deficit and are trailing 31-27 in the final minutes of the 4^th quarter.  The Jets QB Richard Todd is threatening a game winning drive.  But it’s not to be as Todd throws an interception deep in Bills territory sealing the win for Buffalo.

1982 – “The Mud Bowl”.  One name from this game immediately brings nausea to all Jet fans… A.J. Duhe!  After the strike-shortened season, the Jets earned a spot in the playoffs and reach the AFC Championship game against division rivals, the Miami Dolphins.  Prior to the game, Miami officials decide not to tarp the field during a heavy rainstorm in order to slow down the Jets offense and pass rush.  This proved successful as the Jets could mount nothing on offense.  Richard Todd throws five picks, three of them to Duhe.  He returns one for a TD and sets up another for the Dolphins offense.  Jets lose 14-0.  Duhe is a hero in Miami and becomes to the Jets what Bucky Dent is to the Red Sox.

1986 – The Jets earn a wild card playoff birth and easily defeat the Chiefs in the wild card game.  The Jets now face the Cleveland Browns in the divisional round.  Freeman McNeil scores a late TD to give the Jets a 20-10 lead with just over 4 minutes left in the 4^th quarter.  After the ensuing kickoff,  the Jets defense stuffs the Browns to a 3^rd and 24 on their own 18 yard line.  The Jets are poised for a return trip to the AFC Championship since the failed 1982 bid .  But it’s not to be when Mark Gastineau drills Bernie Kosar with a late hit and is flagged for roughing the passer!  This keeps the Browns drive alive, and they proceed to score 10 points in the final two minutes to tie the game at the end of regulation.  In a double OT thriller, the Jets lose on a field goal by Mark Moseley (who had missed a 23 yard chip shot in the first overtime period).  To add insult to injury, the Giants won the Super Bowl this year.

1997-99 – “The Parcells Era”.  Through the rest of the 80s and the early 90s, the Jets were just plain terrible.  They managed only one winning season (8-7-1 in 1988) and one playoff appearance (a 17-10 loss to the Houston Oilers in 1991).  At the conclusion of the 1996 season, the worst in Jets’ history (1-15), they fired the worst coach they ever had in Rich Kotite and excited the fans with the hiring of Bill Parcells.  Finally, for the fist time since Weeb Ewbank, the Jets had a proven winner for a head coach.  In only his second season, “The Tuna” had the Jets back in the AFC Championship only to lose (in heart-breaking fashon of course) to the Denver Broncos.  But the Jets Nation held its head up high and went into the 1999 season with high hopes and even higher expectations.  It took only the first game of the regular season to bring us crashing back down to reality.  Vinny Testaverde, a virtual iron-man who never got hurt, ruptured his achilles tendon on the first offensive series and is done for the season!  Enter back-ups Rick Mirer, Ray Lucas, and even the punter Tom Tupa took some snaps at QB, to guide us to another dissapointing, playoffless season.  At the end of the 1999 season, Parcells had had enough with head coaching and was passing the torch to long time assitant head coach, Bill Belichick.  “BeliCHEAT” was head coach for exactly one day before he ran to the hills of New England to take the head coaching job there, and then proceeded to build a Patriots dynasty.  Again, to add insult to injury, it was the Jets who in 2001 put a season ending hit on Patriots QB Drew Bledsoe which gave a then unknown and unproven back-up QB named Tom Brady the starting job in New England… we know the rest.   

“Same old Jets” doesn’t apply to on-the-field disasters only.  Until fairly recent, draft day was a running joke of consistently picking the worst prospects (Blair Thomas, Browning Nagle) while future Hall of Famers are shunned (Dan Marino immediately comes to mind) as being the wrong fit.       

“The Curse of ‘Broadway’ Joe” or “same old Jets” has been working against this team for 40 years.  But last season we saw a light at the end of the tunnel… possible signs that the curse may be reversed. 

Rookie QB Mark Sanchez is straight out of Hollywood, with good looks and a personality made for Madison Ave.  He had an explosive start to the season and then tapered off throwing some big interceptions that led to big losses.  But he pulled it together for a great playoff run.  He’s got knee problems and needed off-season surgery… sound like anyone we know?

Rookie head coach Rex Ryan is the son of defensive genius and creator of the “46 defense”, Buddy Ryan.  The same Buddy Ryan who was a defensive coach for the Jets from 1968-1975 and was instrumental in giving the Jets the best defense in the AFL the year they won Super Bowl III… do we see a pattern forming?

Last season, for the first time in years, the Jets actually had circumstances work in their favor.  After a crushing loss to the Atlanta Falcons, it seemed the Jets playoff hopes were gone.  At the post-game press conference, coach Ryan cried that the season was lost.  In order for the Jets to even have a chance to be back in the playoff picture, they needed a slew of wild card contending teams to lose and then pull off a win against the dominating and unbeaten Colts (hmmmm… beat a heavily favored Colts team… pattern?). 

Then, the unthinkable happened!  All of the wild card contending teams lost and the Jets were victorious in Indianapolis (aided by Colts head coach Jim Caldwell benching Peyton Manning since they had already locked up a division title and first round playoff bye) keeping their playoff dreams alive.

After beating the Bengals in the final week of the season, the Jets made the playoffs and had a spectacular run all the way to the AFC Championship.  The Colts proved to be too much for them this time, but the seeds had been planted for a promising 2010 campaign… A young QB who came up big when it counted and a new, brash head coach who orchestrated the best defense and running attack in the league.  Jet fans could honestly look forward to the 2010 season with realistic Super Bowl dreams!

Then I heard the news that brought down the high.  The news that let the “same old Jets” creep back in to infect any progress that was made…

On March 25, the official announcement was made that the New York Jets would be the subject of the HBO documentary series “Hard Knocks”.  UGH!!  It’s bad enough to have the “Curse of  ‘Broadway’ Joe” working against them, now they have to contend with the  “Curse of Hard Knocks”.

This show is nothing but a cancer to the team it chronicles.  Only two teams featured have ever made the playoffs, and only one team (the 2001 Ravens) made it past the wild card game only to lose in the divisional game.  Three teams (the 2002 & 2008 Cowboys and the 2007 Chiefs) finished their season with less than 10 wins, and the best record that was ever achieved was 10-6 (2001 Ravens & 2009 Bengals).   

It’s easy to see why HBO and NFL Films chose the Jets for the upcoming “Hard Knocks” season.  In Rex Ryan there’s a coach who likes to put his money where his mouth is.  The Jets have few second year players who have some great star potential (Mark Sanchez & Shonn Greene).  Former MVP and five time Pro-Bowler LaDanian Tomlinson is starting a new chapter with the Jets after a disappointing 2009 season.  The acquisitions of troubled but talented players Antonio Cromartie and Santonio Holmes… and Holmes has a four game suspension to serve before he can even suit up on Sundays.  The Jets had the best defense in the league anchored by all-pro CB Darelle Revis.  And the Jets were on the doorstep of going to the Super Bowl last year, and now there are all kinds of hype for them to make a 2010 run to Super Bowl XLV. 

The only other team that would make more sense to feature is the New Orleans Saints.  A team trying to repeat a championship is always a good storyline.  It wouldn’t be surprising if the Saints were offered the starring role and turned it down.  I’m sure they would’ve have turned it down because they don’t want the distractions of 24/7 camera crews and directors and producers constantly in the way.  The Jets must think they can handle these distractions… I do not.

Jet fans used to have to wait until the beginning of the season to watch Gang Green start their downward spiral into another disappointing season and another year for the community to cry “same old Jets”.  Now, thanks to HBO, we can start watching it happen a month before the season kicks off… “Hard Knocks” premieres on August 11^th. 

The saddest part about all this is, the long-suffering Jet fans (including myself) will be watching with high hopes.  And if and when the Jets crush our hopes and turn our high expectations into the familiar groans of “same old Jets”, we’ll still be looking forward to the next season… just like Charlie Brown will still try to kick that football knowing full well what’s about to happen.  Good grief!!