New York Post, Saturday, November 14, 2020
nypost.com
No shame in
rooting for
Jets to lose
N
O FAN base wants to be asso-
ciated with a laughingstock
that brings it shame week
after week after week, until the un-
relenting nightmare mercifully
ends after 16 weeks.
No fan likes wearing a bag over
his or her head, especially while
watching the games on his or her
couch during a pandemic.
But there are those rare occa-
sions when there exists a transcen-
dent, genera-
tional quarter-
back waiting
tantalizingly
for your favor-
ite team at the
end of those 16
weeks.
Which
brings us, of
course, to the Jets and Trevor Law-
rence.
You have to be relatively new to
the unfathomable calamities that
have befallen the franchise not to
know that the longest-suffering Jets
fans have been waiting for a savior
for what seems like an eternity to
them.
There was no social media, no
ESPN even, on Nov. 28, 1964, when
then-Jets owner Sonny Werblin
drafted Joe Namath out of Ala-
bama, and there is universal con-
viction around the NFL that Clem-
son’s Trevor Lawrence is every bit
the can’t-miss prospect.
In other words, the kid is worth
the ignominy of 0-16.
The Jets have their bye on Sun-
day, a temporary respite for you
Jets diehards who have been
wracked with guilt whenever you
feel the urge to root for 0-16.
I’m here to tell you don’t feel
guilty.
There will be no playoff berth for
the Jets for a 10th straight season.
This is a rite of winter now.
If this isn’t a moment in time for
the Jets fan to willingly choose to
trade off the last seven games of
this season for the promise of a
decade of possibility, then when is?
Jets players and coaches made a
loud statement against the Patriots
that they will not tank, nor should
anyone expect them to, but they
have given us nine game days in
nine tries as evidence that it very
well may not be necessary on Any
Given Sunday.
Though the Jets currently have
the inside track, there is a danger-
ous opponent very much alive inthe Trevor Lawrence Sweepstakes.
Beware the 1-7 Jaguars.
They will have designs on Trevor
Lawrence, too.
Here’s the bad news:
The Jags’ eight remaining oppo-
nents have a 44-21 win-loss record.
The Jets’ seven remaining oppo-
nents have a 31-25 record.
The best-laid plans of mice and
Jets should have been a cautionary
tale for the current state of the un-
ion.
The Jets
signed Neil
O’Donnell to a
five-year,
$25M contract
and paired
him in 1996
with Rich Ko-
tite.
“I gave Pittsburgh every opportu-
nity to sign Neil O’Donnell,”
O’Donnell said at the time.
The Steelers offered $3.15M APY.
O’Donnell had lost Super Bowl
XXX when Cowboys CB Larry
Brown intercepted him twice. The
1996 Jets finished 1-15 to cap Kotite’s
record at 4-28. O’Donnell started
six games that season (four TDs,
seven INTs). In his second and last
season as a Jet for Bill Parcells,
O’Donnell improved (17 TDs, seven
INTs) but failed to reach the play-
offs.
The Sam Darnold-Adam Gase
marriage wasn’t supposed to re-
mind anyone of O’Donnell-Kotite.
But here we are. Their record to-
gether: 7-12.
If the bye week allows Darnold’s
sprained throwing shoulder to re-
turn on Nov. 22 against the Char-
gers, he could be available for more
than a second- and fifth-round pick
even were he to finish his Jets ca-
reer with an 11-28 record. He’s still
only 23, and it is clear to everyone
that a change of scenery would
benefit him greatly.
So you can understand why so
many Jets fans are at wit’s end, and
salivating over Trevor Lawrence
the way they were over Darnold
three short years ago. The way they
have been over so many others,
over too many others.
You still can love your team and
root quietly, or silently, for it to lose
at the same time. I won’t tell any-
one if you do. The lucky Jets fans
are the ones who haven’t been
waiting 56 years for another Joe Na-
math.
[email protected]Steve SerbySteve Serby
T
HE GAME would be starting
in about 30 minutes, and that
was the order of business for
the day, but the folks gathered
around the table in the Lambeau
Field press box wouldn’t let Paul
Hornung leave. He’d held court
for an hour, telling stories while
his rapt audience munched cheese
curds and guzzled hot coffee.
The Packers were playing host
to the Giants in the NFC Champi-
onship game that afternoon, Jan.
20, 2008, and the only thing on ev-
eryone’s mind was the weather,
which was supposed to dip to 10
or 20 below with the wind chill.
And so the Ice Bowl was on every-
one’s mind.
Hornung had retired a few
months before that forever game
matching the Pack and the Cow-
boys back in December 1967,
yielding both to a catalogue of in-
juries and the fact he didn’t want
to play for the Saints.
“The Old Man left me exposed
in the expansion draft,” Hornung
said, using the familiar nicknamehe always used for Vince Lom-
bardi. “He figured it was more hu-
mane than simply telling me I was
all done.”
Hornung was supposed to work
the Ice Bowl for CBS, offering
halftime commentary with Frank
Gifford. Before the game he vi-
sited his old pal and running mate
Max McGee, and stood in front of
a heater before he could escape
upstairs. But the Old Man saw
him, called him over, insisted he
stay on the sidelines instead.
“By halftime, my mouth was lit-
erally frozen,” Hornung said, roar-
ing. “Giff saw me and took mercy.
He told the TV crew, ‘Paul is stiff
— and not the kind of stiff (as in
from drinking) he usually is.’ Soinstead of humiliating myself on
TV I snuck back up to the press
box to thaw.”
More laughs, because there
were always laughs at Hornung’s
table, and then he added his signa-
ture line, one he repeated thou-
sands of times across 84 years of a
most remarkable life: “You’re
looking at a guy who lived his life
on scholarship. Full ride.”
Hornung died Friday, the fourth
member of the dynasty Packers to
pass in this most wretched of cal-
endar years, joining his old team-
mates Willie Wood, Willie Davis
and Herb Adderley. He won a He-
isman Trophy at Notre Dame
where he picked up one of sports’
forever nicknames, Golden Boy.
He won an MVP award and four
championships with the Packers.
He was inducted into the Hall of
Fame in 1986.
But he was so much more than
that.
We can appreciate the full
breadth of who Hornung was this
way: the two most glamorousMike Vaccaro