rom an early age, my passion was football… and Gushers. Those things are delicious. My dad and his dad before him have owned season tickets to the Jets since the '70s, when the Jets played in Shea Stadium. That's right: There was a time when America's worst baseball stadium was also America's worst football arena. I would accompany my dad and my grandpa to every home game, back in the good ol' days when you could carry a tin of homemade cookies and a metal thermos of hot chocolate into a stadium without security concluding you had a bomb.
I remember straining to see Jets favorites like VinnyTestaverde, Curtis Martin and Mo Lewis exit the locker rooms through a tunnel to raucous fanfare, their deep exhalations visibly piercing the crisp, wintry air. I watched, and still watch, Fireman Ed (the Jets' fiercest supporter) silence tens of thousands of people by simply propping himself up on a fat guy's shoulders and outstretching his arms like a silhouetted scarecrow, then pumping pure adrenaline into my boyhood heroes before kickoff by leading an invigorating chant of "J-E-T-S! JETS! JETS! JETS!"
Yet, until recently, most of my memories have been bittersweet, since the Jets haven't been a true contender for 40 years. Not since "Broadway" Joe Namath, a baby-faced quarterback known for his lavish lifestyle and diesel-powered throwing arm, who followed through on a seemingly outlandish guarantee, have the Jets even been back to the Super Bowl. Since then, the Jets have seen more than 20 starting quarterbacks come and go without success.
I know some wistful Jets fans out there are asking, "What about Chad Pennington? He led us to three playoff berths and a 41-0 romp of Peyton Manning in 2002! " Hey, I love Chad as much as the next Jet fan. More even. He brought humility and Southern charm to a game plagued by loudmouths and showoffs and even backed it up with the NFL's best-ever career completion percentage — a whopping 66.0 percent.
But the guy had a bum rotator cuff and the arm strength of a T-Rex. (Cue the image of Marlon Brando saying, "I coulda been a contendah!") You can't win two Comeback Player of the Year Awards without having two pretty dismal seasons in between. Those same nostalgic Jets fans are now meekly nodding in agreement. Sorry, Chad. We'll remember you as a Jet idol forever, but we'll never forget that you never led us to the Promised Land.
Now, we have Mark Sanchez, a young gun with the potential to be a champion. He has a cannon arm, exceptional mobility that gives him the ability to extend plays — a quality that has never really been seen in a Jets QB — and playoff experience with six postseason starts, the most by any QB in Jets history. See, I told you the Jets were bad! Plus, Sanchez is a lifelong student of the game who buries his nose in the playbook as if he were in an organic chemistry class.
Football, however, is not just about playing by the book but also performing on intuition and raw talent. So, with Sanchez at his current level, the Jets team resembles an ex-girlfriend of mine who shall remain nameless: Both tease with empty hope — the Jets slogan last season was "Opportunity has never knocked this hard!" — and false promises (read: Rex Ryan's "We will win the Super Bowl!" and my ex's "First it's my turn, then it's your turn") but the fan/the boyfriend always falls short of the Holy Grail because the team/the girlfriend really only knows how to defend. Also of note, my ex had a nice pair of feet.
