I was once a huge Jets fan. In the early years of this century, they were probably the team that I cared about the most. Of all the professional teams that I like, only two of them are in New York. I wasn’t watching the Celtics regularly until I had access to NBA League Pass in 2004. I wasn’t watching the Dodgers regularly until I had access to MLB Extra Innings in 2008. My other two favorite professional teams were the Jets and Rangers. I wasn’t much of a college sports fan until I went to Notre Dame in 2005. And I was a bigger football fan than hockey fan. So I was a huge Jets fan. And now I care very little about them.
My Jets fandom started to wane when I went to Notre Dame, but it definitely didn’t go away. I remember watching the Jets in the playoffs against the Chargers the night before I moved into my dorm at Notre Dame and against the Steelers after my first week as a Notre Dame student. But a lot has changed. Unlike the other sports, I care more about college football than professional football. Even if the Jets were really good, I would care about Notre Dame football more. Notre Dame basketball can get close to the Celtics for me, but even when Notre Dame is good, it’s still only 30ish games as opposed to 82 games plus the playoffs for the Celtics. After a pretty good run by Jets’ standards from 1997-2010 (120-104 in the regular season, seven playoff appearances in 14 years), they’ve been terrible since then (85-156, no playoff appearances in 15 years). Only the Browns have a worse record during that time and the Jets have scored the fewest points during that time. They were the only team in the four major sports to not make the playoffs while Pope Francis was the pope.
Even before they became terrible, there were reasons why I struggled to be as excited about the Jets as I once was. Rex Ryan got the Jets to two AFC Championship Games. I didn’t like the way he conducted himself at all. The other problem with those Jets teams was that Mark Sanchez was the quarterback. I was still a pretty big fan during those years, but I did not like rooting for a USC quarterback. Later they drafted another USC quarterback (Sam Darnold) and I just couldn’t do it again. I used to watch every Jets game. You could probably count on one hand the amount of Jets games I’ve watched from start to finish this decade. Another factor was how the Patriots got caught cheating multiple times and they just kept winning. I would love to get back to caring about the Jets, but I don’t think I will ever care about the Jets as much as I once did. If they had a star player from Notre Dame (like Jeremiyah Love or CJ Carr), that would help.
And while the Jets have been terrible, the two professional teams that I care most about have been great. The Dodgers have the best winning percentage in baseball for the last 15 years and they’ve won three championships and made it to the World Series five times. The Celtics have the third best winning percentage in the NBA for the last 15 years (they have the best winning percentage in the last 10 years) and they’ve won a championship and made it to the Finals one other time. It’s fun watching them. It’s not fun watching the Jets.
Anyway, I went to see the Jets take on the Dolphins last weekend. Vin has season tickets and he invited me. I took the train. It was my third game at MetLife Stadium, but my first time taking the train. My NJ Transit train from Penn Station was delayed, but it’s not a bad way to get there. Vin lives in New Jersey so I was meeting him there and I didn’t want to drive to the Meadowlands by myself. I was hoping to get there around noon. With the delay, it was more like 12:30. On my way, I kept checking Twitter to see the college football playoff matchups. They were not out by the time I got to the Meadowlands. I was walking through the parking lot to find Vin and I heard somebody say that it was Alabama-Oklahoma and Miami-Texas A&M. That meant that inexplicably, there was no spot for Notre Dame. Then the texts started coming from various people. So it was a bad start to the day. As I continued walking through the parking lot, I heard somebody say hello to me. I saw three former students who were also going to the game. They are all in their early-mid 20s now. It’s weird to randomly run into former students in another state. But with the small crowd, I guess if somebody I knew was going to be at the game, the probability that I would run into them there was higher than you would expect. Anyway, I finally found Vin and we had a Sam Adams Winter Lager in the parking lot before heading into the stadium.
We went into the stadium just after kickoff. The game went terribly. At one point in the first quarter, the Dolphins had run 15 plays and scored 21 points while the Jets had run six plays and scored no points. When the Jets finally forced the Dolphins to punt, Isaiah Williams returned it 78 yards for a touchdown. That was exciting. But that was the only touchdown the Jets scored. Tyrod Taylor and Brady Cook combined to go 15/34 passing with 142 yards, no touchdowns, and three interceptions. Jet quarterbacks had more turnovers in this game than the Jet defense has forced all year (they have two fumble recoveries and no interceptions in 13 games). As a team, the Jets rushed for 65 yards on 17 carries. We left at halftime with the Dolphins leading 24-7. Vin grabbed spicy chicken sandwiches for us on the way out so we enjoyed those and drank Guinness in the parking lot. The Dolphins ended up scoring 34 points despite Tua Tagovailoa only passing for 127 yards (they had 239 rushing yards on 41 carries). The final score was 34-10. Vin is not renewing his season tickets. On the bright side, at least the Jets were wearing some stupid uniforms that Nike and the NFL were forcing them to wear. Attendance was listed at 68,625 and it was 41°. I assume that they did sell 68,625 tickets. Wikipedia lists the capacity at 82,500. I would guess that there were maybe 30,000 people there. It had to be the smallest crowd of any NFL/college game that I’ve been to. When I went to Notre Dame-Navy at FedEx Field in 2014, attendance was 36,807. That was a bigger crowd. For this game, the lower level was pretty full. We were on the second level, which was probably less than half full. And the upper level had to be at least 90% empty.
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| There were lots and lots of empty seats. |
This was only my second NFL game in person. The first was Jets-Panthers in 1998 (here’s the box score). My uncle got a bunch of tickets somehow so it was my dad, at least one of my uncles, some of my cousins, and me. I don’t want this blog post to be all negative, so I’ll talk about that game. That was the Jets’ second best season of all time. They went 12-4 in the regular season, got a bye, beat the Jaguars in the playoffs, and lost to the Broncos in the AFC Championship Game. So they ended up 13-5. When they won Super Bowl III, their record including the playoffs was 13-3. Anyway, Jets-Panthers the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 1998 was fun. The Panthers took a 7-3 lead in the first quarter, but the Jets took the lead on a 60 yard run by Curtis Martin later in the quarter and never trailed for the rest of the game. Vinny Testaverde was 16/21 passing for 255 yards and two touchdown passes to Wayne Chrebet (seven catches for 107 yards). Curtis Martin ran 21 times for 110 yards and two touchdowns. Keyshawn Johnson caught three passes for 77 yards and scored a touchdown on an end around that went for 35 yards (that’s the one thing about the game that I remember well). Aaron Glenn had an interception and Anthony Pleasant had two sacks. Bryan Cox had a sack for a safety. John Hall made four extra points (the Jets had an unsuccessful two-point conversion attempt on their other touchdown) and four field goals. John Kidd was the punter for the Jets. I don’t remember him (apparently he played eight games for the Jets in 1998, the final season of his 15 year NFL career). The starting quarterback for the Panthers was a Notre Dame quarterback, Steve Beuerlein (if I knew that he went to Notre Dame at the time, I didn’t care). He was 13/23 passing for 169 yards with a touchdown and an interception. The Jets won 48-21. Attendance was 71,501 (much more accurate than 68,625 for this Dolphins game) and it was 53°.
I think Vin described MetLife Stadium as Soviet-style architecture. It’s bad. It has such a sterile feel. Part of that is having two teams that play there, but that’s not the only reason. The stadium has no personality. My previous trips there were for Notre Dame-Navy in 2010 (a miserable game before the blog) and Notre Dame-Syracuse in 2014 (maybe the least enjoyable experience I’ve had attending a Notre Dame win). Notre Dame played Syracuse there again in 2016 and Navy in 2024 and I never even considered going to either game. Maybe I would have considered going to the Navy game if we weren’t also playing Army at Yankee Stadium last year. I don’t know if Notre Dame has any future games scheduled there. The only reason I would consider going is because it is fairly easy to get to with the train and it would be a game I could go to and not have to get a hotel room. I do hope to get to another Jet game at some point in the future when they’re not so terrible. Maybe it will be in a new stadium that isn’t so terrible.
So anyway, it was a rough day for me. Notre Dame’s football season came to an end in the most ridiculous way possible and I watched the Jets play a terrible half of football. But it was good to see Vin. I hope for him, my brother Sean, and some other people who still care about the Jets a lot more than I do that the Jets will finally win a Super Bowl someday during our lifetimes.
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