Two weekends ago, I was watching a Giants game, which for a fan of the G-Men is not far off from stabbing yourself repeatedly in the eye with a needle. In this particular case, they were facing the Buffalo Bills, an upstart team from the AFC East. When Fred Jackson broke an 80-yard touchdown run just 14 seconds after the Giants had taken the lead, I received a text from a Jets fan friend of mine taking joy in the Bills' success and the Giants' failure.
Now, I'm all for banter between fans of opposing squads, but seriously? The Bills' run of success is currently the reason the Jets are on the outside looking in for the postseason. Why? Because the two teams play in the same division. Meanwhile, the Giants play in a completely different conference, have little bearing on the Jets this season and actually did them a favor by beating the Bills 27-24. (Thankfully, I was running low on needles.)
I've grown tired of people fabricating rivalries that just don't exist; it's time to lay down the law. Here you have it: the rules of what constitutes a true sports rivalry.
1. Annual Competition
I'm sorry, but if two teams don't play each other every year, they just can't be rivals. European soccer gets it, when a team — such as Manchester City — falls out of the same tier as its rival, the rivalry loses its luster. College football understands it too. If a team's main rival is out of conference, they make sure they are still on the annual schedule. Clemson currently has National Championship aspirations that could be diminished by a season-ending matchup with South Carolina, but they play the game because of its importance.
But the Giants and the Jets? They play once every four years. Once! How do you build up a rivalry with a team that you only meet on the field two or three times per decade?
2. Postseason Implications
Two teams can face each other all the time, but when the Patriots had won 15 straight games against the Bills before this season, you aren't looking at much of a rivalry. Not only should rival teams want to beat each other, but they should need to. I'm talking about divisional races and playoff series. The Lakers and Celtics play in opposite conferences on opposite ends of the country, but they have faced off 12 times in the NBA finals, nearly 20 percent of all finals in the sport. The Steelers and Ravens don't have much geographical similarity but consistently clash in defensive slugfests to decide the AFC North.
The Yankees and Mets — another one of those "New York" rivalries — don't have any postseason history. They have played in exactly one World Series, and that was more of a massacre than a baseball series. Don't give me any of that Giants/Patriots rivalry crap either; one game does not create a rivalry.
3. Historic Moments
Bucky F'ing Dent. Spygate. Punting to DeSean Jackson. It is moments like these that are passed down from generation to generation, separating fan bases by margins that cannot be repaired. The image of Pedro and Don Zimmer going to blows will forever live on in the minds of Yankees and Red Sox fans. Sometimes, what happens off the field is just as important as what happens on it, fueling the fire more than any X's and O's ever could.
There you have it, my scientific theory on rivalries. I chose to leave out geographical proximity and player rivalries, as they can both be relevant, but don't exist across the board.
So now the next time you want to make a comment about a rivalry to me, give this a look first. If it doesn't fit, don't bother me. I've got far too much bad football to watch.
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Ethan Sturm is a junior majoring in biopsychology. He can be reached at Ethan.Sturm@tufts.edu.
