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Monday, January 25, 2010

Nothing to be ashamed of
Posted by Jill | 5:11 AM
Or, if you prefer, "Nothing of which to be ashamed."

And so the Jets go home, and the Colts go to the Super Bowl. Here's what it's come to at Casa la Brilliant lately: Both of us arrived home so completely and utterly spent on Friday, between workload and despondency over the Supreme Court and the final nail in the coffin of Air America, that the ONLY thing we could think of to get excited about was the possibility that the upstart little team from the Meadowlands just might be able to pull it off and play in that awful game that's punctuated by sexist ads for beer, soda, junk food, and girls pulling off their tops for GoDaddy.

That's when things are at a truly sorry pass.

But a couple of decent nights of sleep will change your outlook, and so by the time it became clear (really by halftime, when the lead had shrunk to a miserly three points) that the Colts were starting to wake up, we realized it was not to be...and we were OK with that. This was a good thing, because once Shonn Green left the game, it was pretty well over, and I'm just glad that the game didn't go on another quarter or it might have turned into one of those laughable blowouts. But still...only four teams go to the championship games and there's no shame in being a team that was never thought to make a serious run, play a superlative first half and then succumb to Peyton Manning, and then have to go home.

It's not necessarily a bad thing for Mark Sanchez to go home from what turned out to be a surprising rookie season without a tickertape parade. Star athletes can easily turn into seriously self-destructive assholes given too much success too soon. (See also: Dwight Gooden, Tiger Woods, etc.) Because the kid will be OK. The kid can play in New York. He played a surprisingly effective first half against one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, and that's no small potatoes.

This year the Jets provided New York sports fans with a little of that scrappy-team excitement that we really haven't seen since the 1969 Mets. The Yankees are a finely-honed corporate machine, the Mets are the most loathsome organization in baseball at this point, the Giants are EXPECTED to excel with Peyton's Kid Brother at the helm, who cares about hockey, and the less said about the Knicks and Nets this year, the better.

These days we'll take what we can get. Good job, guys.

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3 Comments:
Blogger missy said...
Can't wait to see Peyton get his hat handed to him by his home town Saints. When I lived in New Orleans, you couldn't turn on the teevee without dad Archie Manning trying to sell you something. New Orleans could use a Saints win, and FSM knows the Manning family has enough to brag about already.
1/25/10, 11:35 AM  
Blogger Bob said...
When Ryan settled for the field goal, I think everyone felt, "They'll pay for that later." The same feeling I get when the Mets walk the opposing pitcher.
1/25/10, 11:48 AM  
Blogger tom said...
well, the kid will be all right, and you are also correct about the MET
(but I still love them Yankees)

oh and republicans suck

Tom in Seattle (formerly very formerly Bronx, NJ, and Virginia...)
2/1/10, 11:00 PM  
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