My brother is a regular 18-year-old kid. He has a part time job. He’s going to prom in a month. He’ll be attending college next year. On the surface, there isn’t anything about him that makes him different from any other high school senior you or I know. But my brother is different.
You see, my brother is a Jets fan.
Not by birth (neither of our parents are Jets supporters) but more by association (a majority of our family is from New Jersey). It started when Mike was around four years old, and my grandmother got him a Jets sweatshirt simply because she loves the color green (isn’t that sad, sucked into rooting for such a painful franchise because of the color?). Well, because Mike didn’t grow for about three years, he kept that sweatshirt until he started watching and understanding football. From there, the laziness in his brain took over. “Ok this football thing is pretty great, now I just need someone to root for. Wait, I’m already wearing something for this Jets team, maybe I’ll just stick with them.”
From there, he was hooked.
While his classmates idolized Art Monk or Emmitt Smith, my brother rooted for Al Toon and Boomer Eisason. He endured Richie Kotite and Keyshawn Johnson. When Vinny Testaverde broke his leg in the opening game of the 1999 season, a year after the Jets had made it to the AFC Championship game; I thought Mike was through with that team. Still he persisted. He persevered through New England’s mini-dynasty in the early part of the century and through Chad Pennington’s ever so rare double torn rotator cuff injuries.
The worst though, had to have been the 2004 divisional playoffs playoff game between the Jets and the Steelers, in which the Jets lost after missing two potential game winning field goals. After that loss (the football equivalent of missing a game winner in basketball, only to have Robert Horry nail one at the other end), my brother, infuriated, chucked the remote at the T.V. and marched upstairs where he promptly slammed every door in our house. After many hours of stewing, he reemerged and asked my dad very quietly, “Did you know it was going to be like this?” My dad, unsure of what exactly to say, just nodded very slightly that he did. “Why? If you knew it was going to be like this… why did you let me do it?”
My dad had no response to him, but I’m sure he wasn’t the only father that day that couldn’t answer that question. What’s more painful than being a Jets fan? The team hangs around the bottom feeders of the league for ten years, only to finally make the playoffs and get eliminated in the most excruciating way possible. What did any one group of people do to deserve that sort of treatment?
I don’t know how to describe rooting for the Jets, and no Jets fan has ever really been able to put it into words. From what I can tell though, it’s something like this: You know how antibiotics work? How the shot is really a weakened form of the disease so your body will learn how to defeat the virus? That’s what the Jets are. The Jets are the antibiotics to depression. Watching the Jets isn’t enough to make you jump off the Empire State building, but they’re just enough to make you slam your head against a giant concrete slab.
I wrote a couple days ago that the best part of the NFL is that at some point of the year, your team is going to be in the spotlight. If you’re good, you have the playoffs. If you’re bad, you have the Draft. No matter what NFL team you root for, there is always a time in the year where your team is in the spotlight. Except if you root for the Jets.
(To understand why you have to watch this video).
Needless to say, my brother did not take off work on Draft day, despite the Jets holding the fourth overall selection. When he walked through the door, I tried to approach him with good news.
“Hey, the Jets had a pretty smart draft, they really repaired their offensive line.”
“They passed on Leinart didn’t they?”
He knew before he even looked at the results. I wondered to myself how he could take it so well. If that was my team, and we passed on a potential franchise quarterback, I’d be enraged.
Then as if he knew what I was thinking he said, “I was prepared for this. I knew we’d be in a position to take Leinart but that we would probably take D’Brickashaw. You know what that means though, that Leinart will probably become a Hall of Fame quarterback some day. Oh well, there’s always next year…”
There is, except if you’re a Jets fan.
Chris DiIonno is a regular contributor for DCMetroSports. He can be reached at .
