Here’s the good news for New York Jets fans. Last year was worse. That’s because last year at this time, one week into the NFL season, the team was coming to terms with the reality that their new franchise quarterback Aaron Rodgers was out for the season after one offensive possession in the first game. So the fact that the Jets lost 32-19 to the San Francisco 49ers Monday night is way better, at least in relative terms. Granted, the Jets actually won their home opener last year against the Bills without Rodgers in the game, but that was pretty much the high water mark for a season best described as unwatchable. And hey, the 49ers almost won the Super Bowl last year and might win this year. So even if they were missing their all-star running back Chris McCaffrey, there’s plenty of time to right the ship. And Aaron Rodgers is back under center, so there’s plenty of hope.
That’s at least the narrative the Jets would like you to adopt. Rodgers said so himself on Pat MacAfee’s show yesterday, reminding viewers that it’s a 17-game season for a reason. To be fair, that reason is to make as much money as humanly possible. He also did something that was textbook Aaron Rodgers, when he told fans they were welcome to jump off now – but not to come back later. In other words, he doesn’t want any bandwagon fans grabbing glory when they abandoned the team when it looked rough. There’s only room for true believers.
Most Jets fans aren’t in such a forgiving mood, at least if you spend any time on twitter or talk radio. I have heard a few voices grasping for straws about how they finally had a couple of nice offensive drives, as if having a functional offense is the standard. Perhaps that’s where the bar is right now. And maybe because their stadium suitemates the Giants were equally if not more inept last week, the Jets had some reason for optimism. It’s like not getting eaten by a bear. You don’t have to be faster than the bear. Just faster than you.
Considering this is only the first game of the season and technically only the first full game of Rodgers’ career as a Jet, you’d think there would be more considerable space for mystery and intrigue. Yet this story feels as inevitable as a bad date five minutes in. The defense looks awful, the coach hasn’t shown anything approaching promise, and your messiah looks increasingly like the 40-year-old man recovering from a torn ACL that he is. And we must remember that Tom Brady is not a normal human. In other words, while I typically don’t love hyperbolic fans that prognosticate a season from a moment, in this case, I’m with the Jets fans. They stink.
Which really brings us to the crux of the story. Which is that a) being a sports fan isn’t so much a leisure activity as it is an exercise in pain tolerance. And b) miracles are just that. Pretty much since Joe Namath, Jets fans have been waiting for their day in the sun. And when they picked up Aaron Rodgers from Green Bay at exorbitant cost, they thought that moment had arrived. So after the debacle of last season, die-hard fans were left with two choices. Either admit you’ve wasted years of your life in pursuit of something that’s never going to happen, or believe that it would all work out when Rodgers got healthy and tried again in year two. And when it became clear that wasn’t happening against the 49ers, the true anguish of fandom got real. So when Rodgers challenges fans on their loyalty without recognizing their sacrifice while he collects upwards of $40 million a year, he’s either ignorant or a jerk. I’ll let you decide.
And just remember, Jets fans weren’t entirely rational in their preseason hopes and dreams, which often included the phrase Super Bowl. They weren’t hoping that Rodgers would take a highly competitive team over the top. They were hoping he was a messiah sent to make MetLife the promised land. That’s the way sports fans are. They don’t want answers. They want miracles.
The bad news for Jets fans, for all sports fans, is that miracles aren’t all that common in sports, despite what Olympic hockey fans might think. Perhaps the only good news for Jets fans is that last year was actually worse.
Keith Strudler is the Dean of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler
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