Great read about Jet fans this season

I couldn't agree more.


Though it seems hard to believe now, just a short while ago there was great hope surrounding the New York Jets' season. With a new running back and a pair of blue chip rookies joining the defense, the Jets entered the year as a legitimate challenge to the Patriots in the AFC East. Back in August, everyone had the Jets as a playoff contender.

And why not? Eric Mangini's guys were fresh off a solid 10-6 season, a wild-card berth and Chad Pennington winning the NFL's Comeback Player of the Year.
All you can eat

For the rest of Peter Schrager's Weekly Buffet, check out the the Loose Ends, Weekly Temperature and The Mailbag.


However, three months into the season and coming off last Thursday's nationally televised 34-3 undressing in Dallas, New York is 2-9 and reeling. Only a few more losses away from locking up their second top five draft pick in three years, it's been one wretched performance after another for Gang Green.

And the in-the-stands element at Jets games hasn't exactly been Grade-A quality, either. To say the least, it's been a troubled season for the squad's fan base.

First it was the cheering of a Chad Pennington ankle injury in Week 1, an act that was criticized by media outlets far and wide. In the New York papers, the fans' reaction to a hobbling Pennington was almost more of a story than the Belichick-SpyGate circus that occurred that same week.

Nationally, it was a story with legs. Keith Olbermann, in just his second appearance on the NBC studio show, proclaimed the Jets faithful as the "Worst Person in the NFL" that Sunday evening. The talking heads on the "scream as loud as you can over sports" cable TV shows lambasted Jets fans the following day. Everyone agreed -- it was classless and in poor taste.

That was just the start.

Two weeks ago, the Steelers came to East Rutherford for a Week 11 showdown. The Jets would be honoring Curtis Martin, the franchise's all-time leading rusher and one of the great men to ever wear the uniform, at halftime. He'd do a speech, run the ball into the end zone and have his number retired.

Yet, on an afternoon where the team and fans would be showing their eternal respect for one of the squad's all-time greats, Giants Stadium was packed with Terrible Towels. On this special day, Jets season ticket holders sold their seats to Pittsburgh fans in droves.

The CBS on-air crew noted the black and gold crowd throughout the game's broadcast, the Associated Press mentioned the overwhelming amount of Steelers fans in its recap and the New York sports talk radio hosts spent the entire week leading up to the Dallas fiasco griping about it.

Then the "Gate D" story hit.

On Nov. 20, the New York Times posted a story presenting "Gate D" of Giants stadium to the world. Hundreds of drunken men shouting at women, women flashing their breasts in front of 10-year-old kids, security guards looking the other way -- the rest of the country was introduced to the whole sordid scene.

The article spread like wildfire, showing up on blogs and in office inboxes across the country before the markets even opened. The fan-made YouTube clips capturing it all -- since removed by the site -- recorded over 10,000 hits. Less than 24 hours after the article was printed, New Jersey Senate President Dick Codey responded to the piece, demanding answers and an immediate stop to such lawlessness. Codey told reporters that Gate D "apparently stands for drunk and disgusting."

Oh, to be a Jet fan this year. It's not enough that your team is the pits. Now you're the bad guy, too.

Of course, being written off and dismissed is nothing new for the Gang Green faithful. Their tortured existence is one checkered with disappointment and public outrage. That ban on alcohol sales during Monday night games in most NFL cities? Blame the Jets fans. The need for extra security in the Giants Stadium parking lot during pregame tailgates? Blame the Jets fans.

But are the Jets fans really the ones to blame for their laundry list of dirty deeds and foul-ups this season? Partially, of course. Yelling at young women to take their shirts off is obviously unacceptable, regardless of the setting. It's gross behavior.

But where are the cops during all this? Why is security not regulating the situation? To be certain, such a scene is nothing new at Giants Stadium. "Gate D" didn't just emerge as a hotbed for sin and filth two weeks ago.

For years, "Da Money" has been a mainstay during halftime of Jets games. Fans drop dollar bills from the upper seats, baiting innocent passerbys to pick up the wayward singles. When some unfortunate person does lunge for the money, he or she is pelted with everything from beer to garbage.

Gerald Ezkenazi explains it all in great detail in his 1998 book, "Gang Green: An Irrelevant Look Behind the Scenes at Thirty-Eight Seasons of New York Jets Football Futility". Stadium security has to be aware of "games" like this. Yet, each week, they're a part of the gameday experience; just like a Jonathan Vilma sack or a Thomas Jones run.

It's not exactly easy being green this year, either. Getting to and from Jets game these days is about as enjoyable as going to the dentist.

Parking at Giants Stadium is a nightmare, while navigating through traffic in and out of the complex can take up to an hour both ways. It's always been bad, but never like this. The construction, the poor on-the-field product, the parking, the traffic, the frigid weather -- it's really the perfect storm. Just the stuff that can keep even the most die-hard fan away on a Sunday.

Hey, there's no excuse for the "Gate D" madness and any other bad behavior. But watching the game from the couch -- as opposed to going on some Jersey Turnpike version of The Odyssey only to be subjected to a scene from "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" -- is pretty understandable.

As some Jets fans will tell you, the media's partially to blame, too. To be certain, Jets fans aren't exactly always viewed as distinguished gentlemen by the sporting world's newsmen. Often times dismissed as a group capable of only screaming four letter words (including J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets), they're not held in the highest regard. And compared to the Giants' faithful? Well, you'd think the two fan bases came from completely different worlds.

Brian Bassett is a longtime Jets supporter. The site manager and editor for the popular site www.thejetsblog.com, Bassett explains, "The media likes to paint broad brushstrokes. The Giants are the area's darlings and the Jets play second fiddle, that's clear enough, but Jets fans are often branded as blue collar types while Giants fans are known as white collar guys. Jets fans are perennially disappointed, while Giants fans are prone to delusions of grandeur year in and out. People are conditioned to think that all Jets fans are people who hold no hope, people who look for the worst in good things and are conspiracists who hear bumps in the night. Yes, that's part of the package, but my experience on my blog has been vastly different. Sure there's always doom and gloomers, but there are many young, educated and optimistic Jets fans as well."

In the end, blue collar or white collar; Gate D or luxury box -- it's been a year all Jets fans would love to forget.

The product on the field's been miserable, while everything off of it's been even worse.

The bright side to all of this? The silver lining for Jets fans in 2007?

There's only five weeks left.

And there's that top five draft pick right around the corner.