New York Jets: My Annual End of the Year Rant

At the end of my last post I mentioned that I felt the need to vent and I would let everyone know why later. Well, later is now and after what happened on Sunday night, I am feeling a little angry.

Most everyone who knows me knows that I am a New York Jets fan. And I apologize if you came here strictly for baseball, but every now and then I do write about other teams I root for. Today, I have a couple of thoughts on the Jets.

First, I should probably correct myself and say I am not angry, but disappointed. There’s a big difference. I am disappointed because this was the first Jets team since the 1998 version that I thought had a legit chance to win the Super Bowl and to come out and play the first half the way they did was extremely disappointing.

Of course, as a fan you rehash in your mind all the “what if’s.” What if they were able to stop the run in the first half? What if the Jets scored a TD instead of getting stopped on fourth and one at the one? What if Brian Schottenheimer had a better game plan in the first half? What if the Jets got the ball back with a couple of minutes to go in the fourth?

These are the things as fans we think about. These are the things and the what if’s that kept me up most of the night on Sunday. These are the things that happen when you are emotionally invested in your favorite team no matter the sport.

Only two other times in my life was I as emotionally vested in a team as I was with the Jets this season. I was emotionally vested in the 1995-1996 UMass Basketball team that went to the Final Four and the 2003 Boston Red Sox.

Those teams for me had the “it” factor. That “it” makes you believe that this team is special and they are going to do special things. Once you believe your favorite team has something going, then they have you hooked.

Jets fans had the right to be angry on Monday morning and be angry for a couple of days after. This was a winnable game against a beatable team. But we will all eventually have to move on.

And when Jets fans move on, we will realize that we had a tremendous season and the future looks bright. Yes, the Jets have an ungodly amount of free agents. David Harris, Santonio Holmes, Braylon Edwards, Eric Smith, Brad Smith are just a few of the free agents the Jets have.

But the Jets have a franchise quarterback in Mark Sanchez and a franchise head coach in Rex Ryan. Say what you want about Ryan, but the No. 1 job of any manager or coach in any profession is to get the most out of the people that you manage or coach and Ryan without a doubt does that.

I do think one of the things the Jets need to do a better job of doing is finding diamonds in the rough. If you look up and down the Jets’ roster, it’s a combination of high draft picks and free agents. While that is great, those players get expensive after a while and are hard to keep.

The Jets need to find guys like Cameron Wake or a James Harrison. I know those guys are hard to find, but every team seems to have one of those guys, except the Jets. The last diamond in the rough the Jets had was Wayne Chrebet.

Finding cheap talent like that allows a football team to improve in other areas. With a salary cap and that many players on a roster, a team needs guys like that to maintain success over a long period of time.

Once Jets fans move on from Sunday, they will also realize that if you look at the current landscape of the AFC, there aren’t that many good teams.

The Steelers, Colts, and Patriots will still be very good. The Jets, Ravens, and the Chargers are the next tier of teams. Then after those teams, you have a hodgepodge of teams that are either a mess like the Broncos, Dolphins, Bills, Browns, and Titans or nobody takes seriously like the Chiefs, Raiders, Bengals, and Jaguars.

Sunday’s Jets loss hurts like all the other famous Jets’ losses that I have experienced—The Gastineau Game against the Browns in 86, the 1998 AFC Championship Game, The Doug Brien Game, and last year’s second half debacle against the Colts in the AFC Championship game.

Like all those other losses, we as Jets fans have moved on. And once we move on from this loss, we will realize that the future is pretty bright and being a Jets fan isn’t the worst thing in the world these days.

It’s actually a pretty good thing.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg