When you haven’t won a Super Bowl in almost half a century, when your history is littered with Murphy’s Law moments like the Mud Bowl and the Fake Spike and The Buttfumble and everything else, one false step will earn you that cringe-worthy reminder of yesteryear that refuses to stop tormenting your franchise:
Same Old Jets.
A Same Old Jets moment is not Joe Namath waving a finger in the air on his way off the field at the Orange Bowl after shocking the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
It is the nightmare that unfolded at the end of last Sunday’s gift to the Dolphins, with Josh McCown’s dagger interception the coup de blah.
S.O.J. is an insult directed at any Jets team that at any given moment on any given Sunday reverts back to its cursed, star-crossed ways.
(Leon Hess hires Rich Kotite).
The 2017 Jets, to their credit, were able to soar unexpectedly above the preseason tanking bar high enough to crash back down to a Same Old Jets happenstance.
(Bill Belichick quits as HC of the NYJ after one day on the job).
The reality is that Same Old Jets won’t end until the Jets win that elusive second Super Bowl.
On the other end of the spectrum, when the 2009 Yankees won the World Series, it was Same Old Yankees. It helps having won 26 previous championships.
When the 2016 Patriots won Super Bowl LI, it was Same Old Patriots. It helps having won four previous championships.
Bill Parcells got to the 1998 AFC Championship game, before a Same Old Jets second half reared its ugly head.
Rex Ryan bellowed defiantly, “Same Old Jets — back in the AFC Championship game” — before the Steelers denied them a Super Bowl berth one year after Peyton Manning and the Colts had.
(IK Enemkpali KOs Geno Smith in locker room).
But in the meantime, an upset of the Super Bowl runner-up Falcons on Sunday would position the 3-4 Jets squarely in the AFC wild-card logjam and set up a compelling Thursday night showdown with the 4-2 Bills.
(Mark Gastineau leaves team to be with ailing Brigitte Nielsen).
“We don’t even worry about what people say about us,” rookie safety Jamal Adams said. “That saying doesn’t even make sense. It is what it is. We lost a game, and all of a sudden, we’re counted out. But, hey, we’re gonna put our head down and keep working.”
Adams and fellow rookie stud sidekick Marcus Maye were drafted to help Leonard Williams put an end to Same Old Jets. Maybe they can all cut down on the penalty plague and find a killer instinct in the forecasted thunderstorms.
“They had us tanking this season and stuff like that,” Maye said. “You just erase all that noise and you just go to work every day.
“We know what we have in our locker room. We know the type of ball we can play. We’ve put it out there that we can play with anybody, no matter who our opponent is.”
Todd Bowles was introduced to Same Old Jets at the end of his rookie season.
(Ryan Fitzpatrick throws three interceptions in the 2015 finale in Buffalo to cost the Jets a playoff berth).
“It’s just words,” Demario Davis said.
Words Broadway Joe never had to endure.
“When you change one person, it’s a different team,” McCown said. “I think for people outside, the logo stays the same, and so if you look at the box score, you look if something happened, you go Same Old Jets because in your world, it hasn’t been changed. But in our world, it’s a totally different group of guys.
“So for me, as a new player here, and other guys that are new players here, we weren’t a part of that. So that’s not part of our mindset. We don’t have that feeling. We know that we’re a different team, and we like what we’re doing, growing. Obviously we hate that we lost the last two games the way we did, it shouldn’t happen, but we’re excited about getting over the hump and find a way not to let it happen again.”
Oh, it will happen again. One of these years, perhaps when the Jets find themselves a franchise quarterback, they will celebrate a reprieve.
($25 Million Man Neil O’Donnell slips on Jets logo in end zone and pulls calf muscle in warm-ups).
“It can’t be the Same Old Jets for me because this is my first … so I don’t take it and run with that,” Maye said. “So I always switch it up and be like, ‘Naw, it’s the New Jets.’ It’s a new year, new team, it’s new to me, so I’m not looking to fall back into the Old Jets saying and all that kind of stuff. So I’m trying to go as best as I can to help my team become the new Jets and get ready and go up.”