Recovering from New York Football Hell

Considering the majority of my subscribers are Jets and Giants fans, I want to apologize in advance for this article, as I’m about to resurface the recent Jets-Giants game. 

Even though it’s Saturday, last Sunday’s game still gives me nightmares. Perhaps writing about it will be therapeutic. 

As a reminder, this newsletter isn’t about recapping games, at least not in the traditional sense. Each article is a brushstroke on a mural displaying the psyche of sports fans and why we torture ourselves.  

For this article, I’ll discuss the damaged psyche of New York football fans. 

As an avid Jets fan, I’m satisfied that we won Sunday’s game against the Giants; But out of respect for this beautiful sport, I would have been better served scooping out my eyes than watch 3.5 hours of that repulsive, dismal, uncoordinated brand of football. 

The on-field play between the Jets and Giants conjured Benny Hill and Entry of the Gladiators, yet lacked amusement or humor. If “tragedy + time = comedy”,  six days is not enough time. 

I’ve attended dozens of rainy and snowy football games, but I’ve never needed a post-game shower quite like this. 

As the gameshow host alluded in Billy Madison, I’m now a dumber person for having witnessed that New York showdown.

Now having said all this from an invested fan’s perspective, I think I would have appreciated this game from a psychologists or sociologist’s perspective. 

I enjoy observing fans going through a barrage of emotions and would have gained great material from being at the stadium within a mass of New York football allegiances split evenly and interchangeably throughout. 

I would have loved the hot-potato-like transfer of joy and sorrow among Jets and Giants fans; To witness every angry yin standing adjacent to their cheerful yang; To feel the palpable fickle nature of football as one play transforms a fan from loving life to loathing it. 

Even though I’m a Jets fan, I would like to take a crack at deciphering the raw emotions of a Giants fan. 

To all Giants fans who watched last Sunday’s mess, I can imagine the collective consciousness of how you all felt. 

To watch your team only run the ball, feeling like you’ve been baited-and-switched into a Bergen County junior high game. Then to have your team take the lead, whereby a run-only game plan suddenly was acceptable.  

Once you were winning 10-7 in the third quarter, could you clearly see Brian Daboll’s point of view. After all, why take risks when today you’ve received the Jekyll-version of  Zach Wilson! If you Giants fans accepted that Daboll’s sole goal was to win the game by any means necessary, I’ll bet he was looking like a genius.

But then when you needed to pass the ball in overtime, your confidence in Daboll was probably shaken.

Throughout the second half, here are the thoughts I imagine going through your head:

Daboll’s an idiot for running the ball. 

He’s a genius for running the ball. 

Why won’t he let his QB throw the ball? 

Never mind, in this weather “run-only” was the game plan. 

Why isn’t he going for it on 4th and 1?

Why didn’t he go for it on 4th and 1?

Why play a quarterback if he can’t throw the ball?

He’s a fucking idiot. 

Ben McAdoo all over again. 

An NFL game consists of around 150-170 plays, yet when it comes to the binary of win-loss, fans love to hone in on one play. The fan analysis of that single play not only changes whether they think they should have won or lost the game, but also changes their assessment of a coach’s acumen. 

And although the execution of the play call is out of his control, the coach’s reputation is based on the result of the execution. 

Think back to Russell Wilson Super Bowl interception at the 1 yard line. If he doesn’t throw the interception and the ball harmlessly falls incomplete, we’re would never about Pete Carroll’s decision to throw rather than hand it off to Marshawn Lynch. 

It’s a tough racket when play call and execution go hand-in-hand. In the Giants case, if Graham Gano converts the chip shot, Giants fans aren’t talking about Daboll’s decision NOT to go for the guaranteed win by picking up 1 yard. 

With minutes to go in the game, the Giants run-only scheme while conjoined with their likelihood of victory gave running and winning a causal, rather than correlative, connection. By maintaining this unconventional game plan to come out victorious, Daboll would have been hailed a genius. But because of the missed FG, the Jets were able to tie the game and in the ensuing overtime where Tommy Devito needed to pass, Daboll was exposed as an idiot for rostering a QB he doesn’t trust to throw the ball. 

In a game that would have saved the Giants postseason hopes, the Giants at one point had a 99.9% win probability - same percentage as the Miracle at the Meadowlands. 

As for all Giants fans, I hope you feel better knowing that this was the precursor to tanking for USC quarterback Caleb Williams. Considering the Giants had -9 passing yards, I can think of a better way to start the tank. 

Honestly….. what the f@%k was the point of this game? 

Was it puppeteered by football gods -  affably laughing at New Yorkers’ pain? Or was it conjured from demonic entities reminding us collectively that despite a recent playoff berth and an Aaron Rodgers signing, we’re still deep into football hell. 

Did this matchup - which only occurs every four years - need to feature a torrential downpour? And for that downpour to expose the dangerous wet turf of MetLife leading to a medley of injuries worthy of Gone With the Wind. For the Giants to send their QB to the hospital and replace him with a guy who shouldn’t be in the NFL…. no one deserves that, not even Patriots fans. 

For a city featuring teams with the two worst records since 2016, whose combined best QB since Eli Manning was Mike White, we should have been spared this abomination - this reminder of how the mighty have fallen. 

God only knows how I’d feel if the Jets lost. But now that I’ve processed this is in writing, I never want to speak of that game again.