Hard Work Hardly Works  - Jets  "Consistent"  Though

Trent Edwards -next Superman	Kenny Watson - current Superman

(Photos courtesy of Yahoo Sports, AP, David Duprey and Al Behrman)

by Jimmy Russotto                                                                        

10/23/07

The New York Jets sure know how to ruin a party.  There I was having a good time, watching all the games on my brothers' Direct TV NFL Ticket, and even the Jets were winning.  Before too long, however, the Jets were up to their old tricks.  The Bengals just ran right through them.  At will.  Kenny Watson, the Bengals backup running back, who had scored just three touchdowns in his entire career before Sunday, equaled his career total against the over-matched Jets.  No finesse from the Bengals, not necessary.  Carson Palmer?  The Bengals hardly needed him when the Jets were being so accommodating on the ground. 

What can we call a bunch that plays so ineptly ?  I think if we can apply descriptive monikers to great defensive lines and teams, Purple Gang, Sack Pack, and the like, we can certainly have fun with a bunch of guys just collecting their checks.  How about Green Weenies?  It's got a nice ring to it....

Buffalo will be visiting the Jets on Sunday, with their fine rookie running back Marshawn Lynch likely licking his chops contemplating some nice, long runs against a team that just moves backwards.  It was nice to hear the Mangenius is going to keep the same approach.  And that Jonathan Vilma, a fearsome middle linebacker before Mangini began using that particular approach, whatever that may be, was playing hurt.  Nice to know that the Jets lines of communications are that open, that the players get graded on just about every play, every practice, that they hate this coaching staff and especially Mangini.  They're certainly playing like a team that's not having fun.

These Green Weenies could be the poster boys for the No Fun League.  Mangini nearly exploded when someone suggested a day off, repeating twice the same answer, that they would NOT get a day off.  I don't think it really matters that much, Coach (and I use that term loosely).

I guess the owner, Woody Johnson, isn't that concerned.  He was pictured happily inaugurating the Jets new practice facility in my own neighborhood, good old Florham Park, NJ.  Just what the Jets need, a new practice facility in what had heretofore been pretty much a Corporate Park.  It's good to know that I can just travel ten minutes to see some big fat guys not having fun.

Trent Edwards, the new Buffalo quarterback, will undoubtedly be the benefactor of the changes Mangini's making in the secondary.  (Thank God he's changing something though).  He'll become John Elway on Sunday.  Aaahh, enough about the Weenies.  Let me turn my attention to a real feel-good story, the New York Geeeeeeeeee-MEN.

The Giants made it look easy on Sunday, easily vanquishing a hapless-looking San Francisco 49er team.  The Giants obviously DID make some big changes after the first two weeks of lousy football, two weeks in which they nearly gave up 100 points.  They were horrible in every sense of the word.  Their defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnuolo, made some changes.  He did NOT maintain a consistent approach.  He got his four great defensive ends all playing together at the same time.  No Giant opponent has been the same since.

Without re-capping the entire game still again, the Giants have been great to watch, a team obviously having fun.  They made the changes they had to make.  Tom Coughlin is being less of an ogre.  And it shows.  Now the G-Men are off to London to play a pretty unsuccessful Miami Dolphins bunch, and if they don’t totally implode, they’ll be looking at a 6-2 record before going into a bye week.

It hasn’t been lost on most pundits that the Giants have begun the last three or four seasons under Coughlin with the same 5-2 record, only to slide down towards mediocrity for the rest of the season.  They’re quite rightly, I think, concerned that the maniac Coughlin will tire his team out once again, if not physically, then mentally with his stupid rules and kindergarten mentality.

I don’t think so, not THIS year.  Coughlin seems to be learning, finally, that more work is just what is NOT needed during the second half of a long, grueling and physically-tough football season.  Nearing the end of his present contract, Coughlin has no doubt been put on notice that his behavior will no longer be tolerated, and he needs to start treating men like men.

It was former Giants coach Jim Fassell, whose penchant for supposedly being too easy on his players, brought about the Giants hiring of a strict disciplinarian like Coughlin.  And although his methods did seem at first to be bearing some fruit, it later became obvious with each year’s successive team swoon that perhaps MORE work was not exactly the right approach.

In a league that has become increasingly hard on end-zone celebrations, team celebrations, in fact, just about ANY manifestation of a players inner feelings, speaking as a fan of the game, it becomes almost intolerable to watch a team that isn’t successful AND isn’t having fun.  The entire league is taking itself much too seriously.  Instant replays six times a game or more, I suppose, hardly leaves time for any celebrating or, God forbid, any spiking of the ball.  (It surely does allow for more commercials though).

The unfortunate recent passing of former Packers tight end Max McGee reminded me of more innocent times in the NFL, when players could and did have a drink more than once in a while, and a player, even one playing for the first Super Bowl (although it was not called that at the time), could stay out half the night and still be a star the next day.  It reminded me that football is a game, and used to be treated that way, even by the great Lombardi, if only nominally.

So I’m REALLY hoping that the Jets will get better, but I’m pretty sure it won’t happen by grading them a little more, practicing a little more, or sticking with a defensive concept that just isn’t working.  Well, at least the Mangenius is being “consistent”.