Sunday Morning Coffee — October 13, 2024 — Letter From London
https://royberger.com/sunday-morning-coffee-october-13-2024-letter-from-london/
Good morning Aaron:
Oh my goodness, even by Jets lowly standards, that’s the best I can say about our London trip. Hopefully, you’ll have a pleasant day today before the Bills pound the beejeezus out of you Monday night just like the Vikings did last Sunday. I have to admit that I drank the potion. Like every other longtime, oppressed Jets fan I expected this year to be the year like the last time we had our year, all the way back in 1969. Looks like the wait, now for the 55th straight on the calendar, marches on. We do seem to thrive in mediocrity.
I was in the U.K. last weekend because you were. Everything was going to be different this time around, right? Because of you, playing football in late January was a given; into February a real probability. So with my son Scott and daughter-in-law Cayla, now living in London, why not go for the weekend? Can I get another pour of that green love potion?
How bad were we last Sunday? Did we really only rush for 36 yards on 14 carries? Thirty-six? How did we even have a chance to win on the last drive before you threw your career high third interception of the game? Other than being inept at the run, the offensive line did you no big favors either. You were sacked three times and hit fifteen more; your face eventually turning purple. Purple. You get it? The old Vikings Purple People Eaters came back for one European afternoon. Yet, because of the defense we were only down 23-17 when you were on our final drive. Not for nothing Aaron but the total on the game was 40.5. I could have really benefited from another score to offset some of my airfare. Adding insult, we got beat by a former number one draft choice of ours at quarterback. Four years ago Sam Darnold was another one of our quarterbacks of the future. But that always lasts a year before they became our quarterback of the past. We gave up on him last season. Now he’s Minny’s star and he punished us the same way he punished us when he was ours. I also assume you didn’t know Minnesota has never lost in London. They were 5-0. The night before the game at legendary Duke’s martini bar we ran into Vikings co-owner Lenny Wilf who Scott knows. Wilf told us that you had broken his heart for 15 years and payback was overdue. Said and done. The Vikings are now 6-0 in London.
Aaron, I’m not sure if you noticed or not but the British are wild about American football.
[caption id="attachment_8749" align="alignleft" width="300"] A packed London soccer stadium celebrates the pageantry of international American football.[/caption]
The NFL has been playing the London games since 2007, 36 in all, and if you think you can’t get a ticket when Travis Kelsey’s girlfriend sings, try grabbing an NFL London Game ducat. Good luck. The general sale sold out quicker than our Super Bowl season, this season, is on the verge of crumbling. Today there is another game at five-year-old Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in a shoddy area of North London. Jacksonville hosts Chicago. The Jags will hang around jolly ole England and play New England next week. In trying to sell American football in Europe the NFL, for some reason, selected Jacksonville to be showcased with multiple overseas games a year. Bottles of Opus One must have been flowing when Roger Goodell and the boys stamped that decision.
The Jags withstanding, the NFL product is wildly popular in the U.K. Over 62,000 packed the soccer stadium in Tottenham; I’m told only about 20% were Americans. Minnesota was designated as the home team, so they had a majority of the tickets available to offer to their season ticket holders. It worked. The stadium felt like a Vikings home game, and if you didn’t know you were in England, the NFL’s flawless presentation of the game had a very NFL feel to it. That’s a very good look for the brand.
Hey, did you see all the #8 green jerseys in the stands? As a matter of fact in our suite (thanks Scott!) 11 of the 15 wore Rodgers’ shirts. As it turned out every one of them threw less interceptions than you did. In fact, while naturally there was an overabundance of purple in the Hotspurs stadium, people wore the colors of every team in the league. Even the Carolina Panthers. The locals grab on to a team and buy the gear. An incredibly fun atmosphere. We sat next to two fine Brits who wanted to learn, and we were the source of the answers. I’m still not sure if they understood the difference between running into and roughing the kicker. But who really does? They called the day the most exciting sports event they’ve ever attended. I told them they need to get out of the house more often.
As for you old friend, since you wisely turned down the invite to be RFK Jr’s running mate, it might be time to audition for Jeopardy! again. At 40 you came into the season as the oldest player in the league. We all believed from our green potion cocktails you still had it. Jets owner Woody Johnson did too, which is why he’s paying you over $112 million for three years. However, you looked old, slow and eventually got beaten up. I did chuckle however every time you handed the ball off to running back Braylon Allen who at 20 is the youngest player in the league. As we say in synagogue- l’dor v’dor— from generation to generation. In fairness the rest of the offense did you no favors either. Thirty-two completions in 54 attempts? And that’s the rub. No run game so you had to throw. No offensive line to protect you. Fifty-four throws and only 17 points. You were assaulted in the pocket. When you did have time to throw you weren’t the guy we remembered from Green Bay. You sadly looked like Joe Namath; no, not Joe Namath the Jets star, but the one who painfully finished his career with the Rams in 1977, old and broken.
[caption id="attachment_8750" align="alignright" width="268"] The New York Post always tells it like it is.[/caption]
Last Sunday also turned out to be the bloodiest day for a team of men on English soil since the 1461 Battle of Towson during the War of the Roses. As a residual of the day’s carnage head coach Robert Saleh is no longer a head coach. After giving him a ride back to New York on the charter, Woody dismissed him. In three plus seasons Saleh’s record was 20-36 with two bad losses in back to back weekends this month. Our championship season is going in the wrong direction. Woody was the ambassador to the U.K. during the Trump presidency and probably didn’t take too kindly to showing off this team among his cronies after bragging about you over pints at the pub the night before the game. Saleh not only becomes the first NFL head coach fired this season but the only Lebanese American head coach to ever get canned. An insider tells me the Lebanese flag Saleh wore on his shirt during the Vikings game had social media in a tizzy and that didn’t help his cause. Who knows? There’s even word you had something to do with the it. Whatever. Now we move on with an interim.
So we are 2-3 going into the Buffalo game Monday night. ESPN Analytics surprisingly say we still have a 58% chance of making the playoffs. Playoffs? Did you know we have the longest lapse of a playoff appearance of any team in the league? We haven’t been there since 2010. We are the Buffalo Sabres of the NFL. In 2010, our last time, Rex was the coach; Mark Sanchez the rookie phenom QB who would flame out a year later like every Jets quarterback does and Obama was a year into his first term. If you really want to get nauseous consider Washington, Jacksonville, Atlanta, Carolina, Denver and even the dastardly Giants have been in the postseason since then. Beating the Bills isn’t a luxury anymore but becomes mandatory if we want to break that dismal 14-year go-home-early streak.
Okay old-timer, now’s the time. A win Monday night and we move into first place in a division that is now so weak it’s winnable. We need to leave the London Jets-lag (literally) behind us. You are in command of this Jet airplane. There are still a dozen games left. Do we just continue New York Jets mediocrity or get excited that another 1969 just might be in the offing? Jets fans are conditioned to not expect much. Does J-E-T-S mean Jets-Jets-Jets or Just-End-The-Season?
As Jets fans we have grown incredibly impatient and cynical over the last half century. Other than that one day, January 12, 1969, against the Colts, we have nothing else to show for a franchise that’s 65 years old. The hype of your arrival gave us long awaited hope. But, after London, we’re still not sure. Find a tailwind and surprise us. Please.
Roy Berger, OJF ‘63 Oppressed Jets Fan Since 1963