Where have you gone, heroes of yore?
L.T., Eli, Joe Willie — and Tuna as well,
Because the guys who replaced you,
Have been playing football from hell.
Gone are the cheers that Giants fans shouted,
And the Namath guarantee all of us doubted.
— Wail of the angry football fans
It had been the preseason summer of ubiquitous hope. From the Jets practice facility in Florham Park to the Giants summer home in East Rutherford, it was the time of promised resurrection. Daniel Jones, the once and future quarterback, had returned with two good legs. The Jets front line of defense was already good, and it was anticipated it would be even better
And Aaron Rodgers, the brilliant Green Bay Packers quarterback for 18 years who signed with the Jets last season — then ruptured an Achilles’ tendon in the first game and was out for the rest of that year — claimed he was ready to go.
When he first arrived, Rodgers’ clarion call brought hope to a franchise whose only Super Bowl appearance was 55 years ago:
“I know it has been a long time since the Jets have been in the playoffs — even longer time since we’ve been in the Super Bowl — but I promise I’m as hungry as you are. I’m excited to be a part of something special again.”
His last outing, for no fault of his own, he lost. A week earlier when the Cardinals beat the Jets, 31-6, he said, “Obviously, you are not going to beat anybody when you score just six points.”
The Jets and the Giants haven’t just underperformed this year. The truth is that neither team even got on stage.
At the start of the season, the Giants were reeling under a horrible financial burden. They had to choose between the recovery of Jone, their wounded, astronomically salaried and rarely tested quarterback, and Saquon Barkley, possibly the best combination running back and receiver in their 75-year history.
They chose the quarterback and Barkley left as a free agent, only to sign with their most bitter rival.
“The idea that Saquon would sign with the Eagles gave me nightmares,” confessed John Mara, the CEO and co-owner.
But the Giants made the wrong choice. Eight seconds after Barkley arrived in Philly, all the four-leaf clovers in County Cork couldn’t have mended the Giants’ offense.
The tsunami of optimism over how Jones’ leg had healed was a terrible exercise in self-delusion. No quarterback ever threw the ball with his leg. That decision formed the guts of what clearly has been Mara Tech’s 2004 nightmare.
After Sunday’s vespers, the idle Giants and the losing Jets have a combined record of 5-16. It could have been worse if the Giants didn’t have a bye.
Earlier, the Giants proved that while winning in the United States is hard enough for them, their ineptitude knows no borders. In their last appearance, they sank to the occasion, losing in overtime to the Carolina Panthers in Frankfurt, Germany.
At that point, any 100-yard coroner would have declared their season pretty much over or as “death by suicide.”
The Giants now have two whole entire victories — their conference’s worst record. In the words of the old Mississippi honky-tonk blues: They “are so far down, down looks like up to them.”
Choosing roster slots is, in so many cases, a crapshoot, but lately the serenade of the boo birds has become their national anthem. I am reminded of a candid conversation I once had with the late Wellington Mara, John’s father, during a particularly tough times for the Giants.
It was the 1970s, the time when Giants were stuck with quarterbacks like Gary Hall (Cornell) and Bubba Marriot (Troy) and even drafted one from Michigan named Bob Timberlake whose only duty was reduced to kicking off.
The Giants were terrible and the fans frustration was boiling over. In a corner of the parking lot, Giants fans were venting their anger by burning their game tickets. And in that moment, a single-engine plane buzzed the stadium trailing a banner that read: “15 years of lousy football.”
Wellington and John were walking across the parking lot, and according to the father, John looked up and said: “There ought to be a way to take away their season tickets.”
Wellington told me the story, laughed, and repeated his response on that day with great logic: “John, they are just fans and we need every one of them. The way we are playing right now, if I were one of them, I’d probably be flying the plane,”
Wellington understood the passion of fans of any team with New York written on its jerseys. It’s football.
Tim Mara, the founder, bought the original franchise for $500. The neophyte NFL had almost no track record, but he bought in because, he said, “Hell, an empty store in Manhattan is worth $500.”
Conversely, the Jets were founded by Harry Wismer, a radio announcer turned entrepreneur. He was so inept that the American Football League kicked him out and sold the club to a syndicate headed by Sonny Werblin. They had a taste of success when they won Super Bowl III. Since then, they have too often replicated the Giants’ current disaster.
But this week the Jets cannot lose: They have a bye.
This week, the Giants play the Tampa Bay Bucs. They most definitely could lose.
The best of playbooks — as delineated in the Bible’s Book of Lamentations — asks the question: “How doth the city sleep?” In other words, why is a once-bustling city now a ghost town?
If you’ve been watching our NFL teams, you know the answer.
Jerry Izenberg is Columnist Emeritus for The Star-Ledger. He can be reached at [email protected].
