By Anthony Bosco
I collapsed into a heap on the floor of my living room, exhausted, drained and completely spent. John Hall’s 53-yard field goal attempt was true, splitting the uprights at the Oakland Coliseum and simultaneously extending the New York Jets’ season for at least one more week.
As anyone who has ever bled Jets’ green can attest, Sunday was a long time coming. Week after week after week for years I have watched things go the other team’s way. But this past weekend, fate and lady luck were finally in my team’s corner.
In a game that went back and forth all day, Vinny Testeverde — of Elmont fame — finally got it right on the team’s final drive. Passes to Kevin Swayne and Laveraneus Coles got the team into field goal range with 1:04 remaining in regulation. On fourth down Hall came in and lined up his shot.
As the play clock ticked down dangerously close to zero, the snap came out of the line and landed just short of its mark. Holder Tom Tupa corralled the ball and placed it — laces out — an instant before Hall’s foot connected with a thud.
The ball ascended and began hooking left, just for a moment, before straightening out and sailing just over the crossbar.
I had no more nails to bite and cursed myself repeatedly for choosing this week of all weeks to quit smoking. God forbid anything goes easy for the Jets, like one of the other teams vying for a playoff spot actually loses a game in the final weeks, enabling my team to lock up a playoff berth. No way. These are the Jets and nothing ever comes easy for them.
Some say this wretched state of affairs — this curse the Jets have lived under — goes back to the days of the old American Football League when the team used the all-mighty dollar to lure Joe Namath away from the National Football League, something that eventually led to the Jets’ lone Super Bowl win in 1969-70 and the eventual merging of the two leagues.
Some say the curse is more recent, when the team abandoned its home in Queens at Shea Stadium and took up residence in New Jersey at the Meadowlands, also known as Giants Stadium.
I don’t know. The curse, if there is such a thing, has kept the team out of the Super Bowl during my entire life span. It has made my life miserable, watching what should be certain victory be snatched away by the football gods.
There have been moments, for sure, during my lifetime that the Jets have actually come through for me — without actually winning the Super Bowl.
In 1982 the Jets went to the AFC championship game before losing in truly Jets-like fashion on a field of mud to A.J. Duhe and the Miami Dolphins. They had Freeman McNeil, Wesley Walker, Al Toon, Ken O’Brien, Mark Gastineau, Marty Lyons, Joe Klecko and Terrence Mathis, but couldn’t win. Can you imagine that?
They fired Bruce Coslett and then Pete Carroll in favor of Rich Kotite, whose most memorable accomplishment as Jets coach was securing the team the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, a dubious distinction to say the least.
Then, finally, a breakthrough came a few years ago when the team somehow managed to land Bill Parcells, arguably the best coach in the past 30 years. The only two teams Parcells had coached made it to the Super Bowl and he had two rings to his credit. Success seemed just around the corner.
And it was, sort of. After years of mediocrity and downright dismal performances the Jets were winners again in 1997, Parcells’ first year. The following season he took the team to the AFC championship game and was leading at halftime before John Elway and the Denver Broncos came back to end the team’s season.
The next season, 1999, was supposed to be our year. But on the first play from scrimmage in the very first game, Testeverde crumbled to the ground with a season-ending Achilles injury. The season went with him. We were lucky to finish at .500.
Al Groh took over last season and, though he had some success, failed to notch a playoff berth when the team stumbled in Decembe. It needed just one win in its final three games to lock up a spot in the postseason. Oh, the humanity.
Then a whole new regime came in this season, led by head coach Herm Edwards. Parcells’ influence was gone, but the players seemed to respond. Despite some offensive struggles, the team pulled out more wins than losses, but had to have a victory on the final day of the regular season to lock up a playoff berth.
And back and forth it went. First the Jets, then the Raiders. and so on, leaving me a quivering lump praying to God and Sunday Jesus that John Hall kick an oblong-shaped pigskin through two vertical yellow pipes.
And it happened. What joy, what sweet release. Ah, paradise.
Of course I had to sweat out another minute of play with the Jets leading by just two points and the threat of a field goal ever present. But in the end the Jets survived and lived to play another day.
But that’ll be about it, I’m sure. I’m not banking on the Jets winning anything else this year. Making the playoffs, for me, is enough. If I invest myself so completely in another game, I’m sure I’ll be back to smoking inside of the first quarter.
Reach Sports Editor Anthony Bosco by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 130.
