Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Another Jet crash and burn

Being a Jet fan is like that famous quote from Godfather 3: "Just when I think I am out, they pull me right back in!" That describes it in a nutshell. Just when I think the Jets can't disappoint me anymore, they find yet a new way to do it all over again.

This year was supposed to be different. A year removed from last year's giddy and improbable run to the AFC Conference championship game, they were now supposed to be one year better and more experienced. Mark Sanchez was now a second year quarterback, the team added standout wide receiver Santonio Holmes, to go along with Braylen Edwards and Jericho Cotchery, not to mention a re-invigorated Ladanian Tomlinson, and the defense was supposedly as tough as ever.

The team did great for the first three months of the season, then backslid over the last five games, which included a blow-out loss to the Patriots and an inexplicable loss to the Dolphins. The Patriots won the division going away, but the Jets made into the playoffs as a wild card. That earned them a road game against Peyton Manning and the Colts. The Jets came through with an epic win on the road, Sanchez leading them down the field in the final minute of play for a last second winning field goal. It looked like this might indeed be a different Jets team with a different destiny.

Things only got better the following weekend at New England. The Jets were decided underdogs, but ended up handing it to the Patriots big time. Tom Brady was knocked around, hurried, and sacked all day long, and the Jets came out with one of their most inspiring playoff victories in their history. Up next was a rematch with the Steelers (the Jets had beaten them in Pittsburgh five weeks before) with the winner going to the Super Bowl.

All week long, the Jets were their normal, confident, brazen selves. They had triumphed over Manning and Brady on the road in consecutive weeks, and they were not afraid of Ben Roethlisberger. It was hard for me, as a lifelong Jets fan, not to get excited and anticipate what would be only the second Jet appearance in a Super Bowl.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Super Bowl. The Jets forgot to show up in the first half of the Conference championship game. The defense couldn't stop anything on the first Pittsburgh drive of the game, which lasted 15 plays and ten minutes, resulting in a touchdown. On the next Pittsburgh drive, Big Ben tossed a 50-yard bomb, which Jet cornerback extraordinaire Darrelle Revis jumped in the air for and had in his arms for an interception. Except, the ball bounced off his hands, off his chest, and onto the ground. The Steelers then marched downfield for their second touchdown. Later in the first half, the defense finally stopped the Steelers, who were forced to punt. Oops! One of the Jets rushed in trying to block the punt, got no part of the football, but ran into the punter, giving the ball back to the Steelers. And let's not forget the brilliant fumble by Sanchez and run back for touchdown late in the half by Pittsburgh. If not for a last second field goal, the Jets would have been shut out in the half.

The Jets did manage to show up for the second half, and made a stirring attempt to come back. It might have even been successful if not for a ridiculous 8-minute drive which culminated with a first and goal from the 2, and the Jets foolishly calling two terrible pass plays, and ultimately failing to score. That really was the game right there. Final score, Steelers 24, Jets 19. The fourth consecutive time the Jets have lost a Conference Championship game, with only one win in their history.

Frankly, I don't want to hear that I should be proud of the team, they came so far, they got to the AFC Conference championship game two years in a row, blah, blah, blah. The unmistakeable truth is they should have beaten Pittsburgh and won that damn game, but for whatever reason they just did not show up in the first half. The offensive play-calling was terrible, and there were way too many stupid plays and foolish penalties. They beat themselves, yet again, and disappointed their long-time fans. Yet again.

I really like this team. Sanchez, Revis, Holmes, Edwards, D'Brickeshaw Ferguson, Calvin Pace. There are some truly talented football players on this team. And they love Rex Ryan and are very loyal to him. And I have to admit that I love Ryan's confidence and bluster. No Jet coach has ever taken the team this far in back-to-back seasons. It's really inexplicable why they performed so poorly last Sunday. Oh, wait a minute, there is an explanation. It's on the front of their uniforms. It's spelled J-E-T-S.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

The Politics of Hate

Like most of the nation, I am still stunned a day after the horrific shooting in Tucson of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 18 other people. Six of those people died, including Federal Court Judge John Roll and the 9 year-old granddaughter of former Major League Baseball manager Dallas Green.

The truth is, I'm probably a little more stunned than most people. Tucson was my home for 25 years, from the day after I graduated from Law School in 1982 to the day I moved to Phoenix in 2007. It is still home to my mother, my brother, my sister, and my daughter and her mother. I passed the Bar exam there and began a legal career that is still going strong. I married my first wife there and had a beautiful daughter, and married my second wife there and helped to raise my two stepchildren. I met Ms. Giffords once, back when she was campaigning in what would be her first election to the U.S. House of Representatives. And I appeared in front of Judge Roll many times in Federal District Court in Tucson. I've been to that shopping center many, many times. These things are not supposed to happen in a place that you call, or have called, home.

The first reaction was one of total numbness and disbelief. That's always the case with senseless tragedies like this, but especially so when you know the place or the people whose lives have been taken for the ridiculous reason of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Judge Roll was a good man and a good judge. We weren't what you would call friends, but I appeared in his courtroom many times over the years, and I respected and admired him. The shopping center where the Safeway is located has a Chinese restaurant that I have gone to many times over the years. I don't know that I can ever bring myself to go there again.

The numbness and disbelief passes and what is left is shock and anger. Anger that some lone lunatic, obviously disturbed and deranged, is allowed to possess firearms and stalk an honorable public servant. Anger that the political discourse in this country, and especially this state, has grown so vitriolic and divisive that threats and violence are real dangers. And absolute fury that Sarah Palin can create a website that depicted certain Congressional districts on a map with crosshairs. Gabrielle Giffords was one of those members of Congress depicted by Palin as in the crosshairs of her movement. And how totally ironic and infuriating that Giffords herself pointed out the danger of being treated in such a manner. As far as I'm concerned, Sarah Palin, the Tea Party candidate who ran against Giffords, and the entire bigoted, racist, anti-Semitic movement has blood on their hands.

How did we get to this point? The political debate in this country has always been seriously divided among ideological grounds, but I don't remember it ever being this angry and divisive. There's nothing wrong with targeting certain Congressional races for a political party or movement to concentrate on, but to depict them with the crosshairs of a telescopic rifle? Not to mention the Tea Party candidate campaigning with a loaded rifle, aiming it symbolically at the incumbent. Don't these people realize that there are dangerously disturbed individuals out there who will believe that those messages are subliminal instructions to commit murder in the name of political zeal? How in God's name do these people justify their hatred and vitriol? How does Sarah Palin live with herself? Or is she such an ego-centric psychopath that she just doesn't care?

Palin actually had the nerve to state her condolences to the victims, and of course, deny that her actions had anything to do with the demented gunman in Tucson. The campaign manager of the Tea Party candidate who opposed Giffords (I refuse to use his name---my own personal decision to not humanize the cowardly s.o.b.!!) has said that there is no connection between the candidate and the nutjob gunman. They deny any responsibility whatsoever, the cowards. They make me sick.

Also dead in Tucson yesterday was Christina Taylor Green, a nine year-old girl who ironically was born on September 11, 2001, another day forever linked to senseless insanity and the horrific deaths of innocents. She was recently elected to her student council and wanted to meet her Congresswoman. And, not that it matters, but she had a famous grandfather who made a name as a Major League Baseball manager back in the 80's and 90's. She was apparently smart, loquacious, and a talented athlete. And now she is gone forever.

I mourn for my country, and my state, and the city where I lived for a quarter of a century. I don't understand why this has happened, how it can continue to happen time and time again. What is wrong with us that we have allowed our society to become like this? When will it ever stop?