I'd Rather Get Beat Up In An Alley

Well this is certainly getting to be fun.  I’ve spent the last two Sundays watching our Jets blitz the winning column from my very own seats way up in Section 303.  I mean waaaaaaaay up there.  Whereas last week we still had a little of the abused puppy syndrome running throughout the Jet Faithful at half time, this week there was nothing but soaking wet raucousness at the Meadowlands.  The rain sucked, sure, but Giant Stadium still held 76,000 lunatics in green yelling ’til we all went hoarse.  My ears were ringing when I got home.  Seriously – no lie.  AC/DC’s got nothing on us.

Sanchez wasn’t perfect.  Actually, sometimes he looked like Inspector Clouseau trying to find the Pink Panther in the shotgun formation.  He had no idea where the ball was nor did he know how to hold onto it.  This is what happens when you grow up playing football in SoCal.  There’s a learning curve going on here -  I’m just happy we’re winning with on the job training.  Butterfingers are okay as long as you manage to put up more points than your opponents.

I noticed the beginnings of what is sure to be phenomenon throughout Jet Nation.  The crowd at Giant Stadium wore a light sprinkling of Sombreros.  Speaking as a Tex-Patriot, watching the folks in New Jersey embracing Sanchez’s Mexican roots is priceless.  Jets fans don’t have the best reputation around the league but there’s no denying our football smarts nor our loyalty. Mark my words: if Sanchez can keep up his winning ways there’s going to be a Sombrero shortage in New Jersey the likes of which haven’t been seen since… I dunno… where do you buy sombreros in Jersey anyway? Next game I’m bringing a Pinata loaded with PBR and airplane bottles.  If you’re tailgating and can bring a nerf bat please email me so we can hook up.  I’ll be working on my paper mâché skills ’til Buffalo comes to town.

Kerry Rhodes promised embarrassment.   Rex Ryan left me a voicemail.  Patriots fans everywhere talked landfills of trash.  Even though we’re only in week two, this matchup came as loaded as any game could be.  If it were a potato it would be one of those chopped beef, cheese, chives, butter, sour cream, salt, pepper, and barbecue sauce “bakers” that I’ve only seen in Texas.  Damn…  victory is delicious.

So everyone in the media keeps talking about the fans.  Our intensity.  Our decibel level.  What about our nervous stomachs during a very ugly 1st quarter?  The stadium was uneasy after watching Sanchez fumble his first snap of the game but when Leon Washington turned it over on the next excuse for a drive, the fear was visually perceptible.  What I mean is you could actually see it.  Our nervous energy took the shape of a big white helicopter which circled the stadium pretty much the entire game.  It’s not like it flew high above us- it hovered just above the top row.  Anybody else see that thing?  If you were at the game it was hard to miss.  I thought helicopter blades were about to scrape the side of the Meadowlands.  Yikes.  Maybe the CIA had money on the Jets…

Seriously, that 1st half was one of the hardest to watch I’ve ever sat through.  Our offense’s only constant was terrible field position.  The Jets looked inept.  We kept giving Tom “I’m perfect” Brady the ball in Jets territory.  I’ve seen this movie many times before.  It ends in tragedy- like a car accident inside a bullet commuter train during rush hour.  All the Pats had to do was move the ball forward and they could sniff the endzone.  Except, well, they couldn’t really move the ball forward.  And the only thing Brady was sniffing was the turf.  He threw 47 passes and not a single one resulted in a touchdown.  His longest pass went about 40 yards to Darrelle Revis and while it was a tight spiral I think he could have led our star corner a little better.   How’s he supposed to get a pick six when he can’t get separation from Randy Moss.  This is about when the “same old Jets” comments ceased and fans dug in with our rookie quarterback.  Mark Sanchez might be the new kid but once he settles down you can almost see the wheels turning in his head.  It’s only a matter of time before he figures out who is left open when the opposing team blitzes.

Revis was fantastic.  Even when it comes to describing his own performance on Moss.

“I just covered him.  If he went to the bathroom, I went, too. I covered him any way I could. When he went to the sidelines, when our offense was on the field and he sat down, I sat right across from him wherever he was sitting on the bench.”

I feel like not enough is being made out of the handshake(s) at the end of the game.  I gotta say I love Rex Ryan.  The dude left me a message, gave me a game ball, and blitzed Belichick all the way through the good sportsmanship handshake.  Belicheat almost dodged D-Rex only to run into a grinning Mark Sanchez lurking with a handshake of his own.  Kill the grinch with kindness…. what a thing of beauty.