Do you know where you were the last time Laveranues Coles caught three touchdowns in one quarter? I was on my couch, in Lower Manhattan, freshly sprung from the police station underneath the old Giants Stadium, sent home and asked to never return again, for, well, we’ll get to that.
The fifteen-year anniversary of this game, a high-scoring Cardinals at Jets matchup from 2008, is fast-approaching. Four games into Brett Favre’s only season in New York. A rare moment when cynical Jets fans warily allowed themselves to become vulnerable. Tantalized by the idea of a future HOFer arriving and leading them to glory.
“When the Jets traded for Brett Favre, the team website crashed. When New York started selling his no. 4 jersey, it broke the NFL’s single-day sales record. Some 10,000 people showed up to see Favre’s first training camp practice, and Favre emerged onto the field to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Glory Days’ blaring from the speakers. — The Ringer
Jesus Balls, Jets. “Glory Days” is not about creating NEW awesome moments, and certainly not with a contemporary NFL QB. It’s about the kind of life inertia, told from the POV of a local loser creeping on a single mom (get those kids to bed!), that really makes a person itch to reminisce about shared, mediocre high school memories over booze. (See also.)
Anyway, by Week 4, tension crept into the Favre-Jets honeymoon. The team’s slow start had fans wondering WTF they’d wished for. A washed-up flake, maybe? Just 1-2 after beating the Dolphins, losing their home opener to a Patriots team led by Matt Friggin’ Cassell and ex-Jet Lamont Jordan, and giving up 48 points to the Chargers at Qualcomm Stadium (most cellphone holsters per capita in the known universe), highlights included a classic Favre pick 6 by future Jet Antonio Cromartie.
In terms of initial enthusiasm, though, I was right there with Jets fans. I’d entered a strange new season in my life. I was agitating for Favre. Stanning for Favre. I’d never cared that much about him when he was on the Packers. But I’d obviously been entertained by the way he played. He had the mobility and attitude of a rowdy, drunk guy repeatedly asked to leave the cheering section at a seniors racquetball tournament at a humid YMCA — who refuses to go. Arm and guts-wise? Favre was a world-class athlete, who for over a decade, had few problems convincing Packer fans that playbooks were for nerds. Just go out there, throw that shit, and then maybe pop a few pain pills and belly flop onto an Ashwaubenon pool table.
That was good enough for me. Respect, from afar. But a weird Frederick Exley thing came alive within me at the end of his run with the Packers. I’d felt cheated by the result of their NFC Championship game against the Giants the previous winter. Offended. Not mad at Favre, who’d thrown an interception in OT to set the Giants up for a winning field goal in zero degree weather. No way. I simply recognized that this was probably the end of it. Favre was getting old. He’d already pretended to retire every year for half a decade. And sure enough, within weeks of this loss, he officially announced his retirement. The Packers had grown tired of this shit. Called his bluff.
"Brett Favre's not going to be our quarterback anymore,” Packers general manager Ted Thompson told ESPN, though apparently Teddy boy had been ready to welcome Favre back during a momentary retirement relapse that followed.
By July, Favre waffled yet again, and said he REALLY wanted to play. Naturally, Greta Van Susteren got involved. Beyond the housing collapse, this was NEWS in 2008. The Packers had moved on. Relationship coaches tell you that you can’t be with someone who can’t or won’t define what you are to them. So the Packers finally gave the ball to Aaron Rodgers who’d been drafted in 2005, and had dutifully waited for the starting job.
Somehow I sided with Favre. After all, hadn’t he made Green Bay relevant again? Relevant. What an obnoxious word. He’d made Green Bay fun again. Sure, he was a flake, but a flake who’d gotten them a Super Bowl win. And he’d just taken them to another NFC Championship game. What the fuck did they want? (A QB who didn’t throw game-losing INTs?) The Packers had sucked for ages before Favre arrived. Why not tolerate the insanity for another year or two? Think of how it might pay off!
There’d be plenty of time for Rodgers, who seemed sorta … anti-social? A bit Kelly Leak-ish. With his 1310 SAT score and a chip on his shoulder, Rodgers had wanted to go to Florida State, but wound up at Butte Community College, before playing for Cal. As we got to know him, there were moments that gave us a peek at the rugged individualist who feuded with family. On some mysterious unknowable principle(s)!
Beyond that Rodgers was normal (but we might imagine him carrying a self-whittled slingshot, deriving his own erroneous meanings of Tom Petty lyrics, or proffering arbitrary rules like “No sausage pizza while the Deftones play,” without further explanation) and he was the Packers QB. Deal with it. There was no tangible evidence to suggest that he’d be more likely to step out from behind a Galaga machine with a grainy PDF about estrogen levels in Dunkin Donuts, than to host Jeopardy or buddy up to a State Farm spokesperson on national TV. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. This is still the Favre part of the story. So…
I was enraged at Ted Thompson (was, past tense. RIP. Sorry. Ted did bring many great players to Green Bay including Dr. Samkon Gado). Thompson looked like David Byrne if the Talking Heads had promised their fans they’d never do drugs.
He was a traitor! And the Packers would be sorry for crushing Favre’s mercurial dreams. And any Packers fans clamoring for Rodgers? Fuck them, too. Had they no memory? Did they not know what the SHOT was? Without Favre at QB, I figured there was no way the Packers would beat, say, the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25, in a Super Bowl less than three years later. Never!
So by the time 2008 Training Camp rolled around Favre got his wish. He got to keep playing. Elsewhere. Traded to the Jets. For me, this was good news. Now, I’d get to see him play LIVE whenever I wanted, and the Packers would regret everything. I’d become a strident, Q-Anon level Favre apologist.
***
I’ve always hunted for bootleg shirts outside stadiums. Why buy officially licensed stuff when you can get something unavailable anywhere else? Something you’d never see on Fanatics. Something with the word FUCK on it. Or a crude drawing or a wildly creative misappropriation of a logo. Sold by a creep. Someone whose obvious and malignant desperation matched my own.
Outside of Wrigley Field, before a Mets game, I’d once spent $5 on a “Fuck New York” shirt w/ a simple baseball graphic and a boring typeface. It was a stiff Gildan that still felt like industrial sandpaper after 322 washes. During the Bulls first bunch of championships, I’d scored a buttery soft Air Simpson shirt with an African-American Bart Simpson dunking while wearing Michael Jordan’s uniform. Virgil Abloh, a Simpsons’ fan, was given this exact shirt 24 years later when The Ten dropped…
and within a year, he designed a bunch of Off-White Simpsons stuff. (I’m casually taking credit for that when it’s obviously not the case.)
Anyway, like the rest of the world, I’d decided the Jets were now Favre’s team. And I’d be the bootleg shirt guy. Easy money. I came up with a simple, yet iconic helmet graphic, and had a friend print them on leftover t-shirts. Fans would eat this shit up. I bagged ‘em up in a jumbo IKEA tote and headed to that Cardinals vs. Jets game.
But after a few steps in the parking lot, my optimism waned. With their 1-2 record, the SAME OLD JETS mindset had begun to reanimate itself amongst their most fervent tailgaters. Doubt crept in. A Charlie Brown-esque collective self-pity hung in the parking lot air like a post-breakfast fart in a subway car. A Lincoln Center-worthy production unfolded.
Guys tentatively tossed footballs to one another, as if their captors were somewhere just out of sight, rifles drawn. People everywhere made faces and gestures like they were describing migraines. Replays of Howard Stern broadcasts emanated soothingly from the open doors of RVs — Howard’s velvety baritone taunting dwarves and sex workers, offering the comfort that fans were sure to be robbed of in just a couple of hours.
The shirts remained in the bag. Smoke wafted from open-air tents, where meats were joylessly grilled then stoically consumed. Sauces and soups bubbled lazily on burners, while men and women frowned silently at them. A few random nephews foolishly grinned and sprinted, weaving in and out of huddles of men with Amboy Dukes neck tattoos who seemed certain they were being cuckolded by Richie Sambora.
Fuck it. The bag was getting heavy. 78,000 fans were either there or arriving, and if even one tenth of one percent of them were in a buying mood, I’d be thriving. I pulled out a shirt, and raised it towards some fans. From a distance, it looked like a very generic Jets T-shirt. They were dumbfounded. Not impressed.
“Already got one, thanks,” they’d respond, grimly, as if to conserve energy. Then they’d look at each other like they felt sorry for me, a clearly developmentally disabled dude hawking a sack of sorry Jets T-shirts, most likely to pay for some medicine I’d been neglecting to take. If I stepped closer to show them the difference, they’d recoil, exaggeratedly. They had shit to protect. Burgers. Kids. Booze. I was a stranger who’d already been told no.
My confidence plummeted. There are vibes in NFL parking lots. Unwritten rules. Bro stuff. To even initiate a non-anxious response, I’d have to be embedded with my own dudes, masculine, but non-threatening, offering our own beers up to strangers in order to get them to lower their guards enough to even engage in a conversation.
I was the opposite. A man walking around solo — friendless — wearing neither any recognizable Jets nor Cardinals gear. I was a problem. Unwanted. Perhaps even a defrocked priest, sullied by his uncontrollable zest to molest, ambling through the parking lot, making his journey on foot to a new parish for a fresh start. Waves of “NOs” washed over me. People mumbled “This guy?” to each other and shrugged aggressively. I was an interloper, trying to sell their enthusiasm back to them. They weren’t interested. In fact, I was ruining their day.
“How much?” a guy my age asked.
“Ten bucks.”
“Ten bucks? Do I get a free kick in the nuts along with that?”
I got a few more NOs. Then I put one on. People softened. They’d staked a lot of emotion on Favre. $10 wasn’t much to lose. I sold a few. Then more. I started asking for small bills. Fans called out to other fans. Waved them over. Things were looking up. I’d be in the stadium by game time with a ticket and beer money after all.
It all stopped as quickly as it started. Six yellow-security-jacket-wearing humps converged. Instead of being ignored or dismissed, I was now the entertainment. Some of the more negative fans enjoyed seeing this weird turd getting punished. “I should run,” I thought briefly, then realized that would make it all worse.
“Can’t be doing that here,” one of the cops belched. I acted cordial, but surprised. Polite cluelessness seemed like the move. “I’ll take my shirts and leave.” Apparently, not. Walkie Talkies squelched and chirped. Authorities out of range were now taking an interest. I wasn’t going anywhere. I started worrying about needing bail money. Who would I call?
I was instructed to board a little utility vehicle with my shirts. We drove inside the stadium, heads turned, the green field visible briefly from a tunnel. Beneath the field, inside a room with a distinct precinct/circuit court vibe, they copied my driver’s license, and took my shirts, but I think I got to keep what little money I’d made? I can’t remember. I was released and I got in a cab to leave the game. It really puzzled the driver, who’d just dropped some folks off. I was home in time to watch most of the game.
(The cop shop at Met Life. I was there for a totally UNRELATED, legal reason)
After that, the Jets and Favre went on a bit of a roll, before dropping four of their last five games, ensuring they’d miss the playoffs.
The season unraveled in the final month, as the Jets lost four of their last five games, costing coach Eric Mangini his job. Favre played hurt (a torn biceps tendon), but the organization covered it up, resulting in $125,000 in fines for failing to disclose an injury. — ESPN
Same Old Jets. And that concluded Favre’s only season in New York. Players enjoyed their interactions with him, mostly.
"He changed the atmosphere in the building," [Jets guard Damien] Woody said. "Favre made it fun to come to work." — ESPN
But not everyone in the organization shared that sentiment. While I was dreaming something amazing would happen with the Jets, Favre was busy allegedly (lol) sending Nokia-grade dick pics to a team staffer. And texting team masseuses that he was “lonely” and did they wanna meet up?
Meanwhile, in Green Bay, Rodgers remained marginally eccentric, but approachable. He even bonded with Bon Iver.
While Favre retired and busied himself with commercials for Copper Fit, endorsing sketchy concussion drugs, and really fucking wanting to use government funds to build a volleyball facility — at any cost — Rodgers affably and effortlessly dove deeper into pop culture.
On the field, Rodgers was the rare QB who follows a HOF QB and succeeds. (Who else is there? Steve Young? I’m done looking shit up.) Rodgers won a Super Bowl. Became a trusted leader of his team. Made fans mostly forget about Favre. But somewhere along the way it all fell apart. Rodgers’ desire for attention for having mindblowing contrarian/conspiracy-laden opinions about being vaccinated for covid, 9/11, and “woke” culture in general mushroomed. It felt like a prank. It made me do this, hours before his injury!
I’ve been trying to find out if Rodgers is ever quoted using the term “sheeple.” I’m still looking. Mainly he became fixated on championing discredited ideas. And just kinda being a killjoy. For every playful weed-pantomime handshake …
Stuff like this happens:
Like Favre, Rodgers’ relationship with the Packers became frayed. Like Favre, Rodgers went to the Jets. (Speaking of which, w/r/t Favre, it’s not hard to believe that a guy who could not retire for years, but hinted at it, holding his entire team hostage, endlessly — would feel entitled to women on the Jets staff. Like what else were they there for?) Like Favre, Rodgers energized his new teammates, and even seemed to earnestly embrace being a mentor. NYC or rather New Jersey seemed to disarm Rodgers. Take his focus off “woke” rage. He and Liev Schreiber seemed to fall in love.
Then, within the span of one possession, Rodgers’ Jets season, and maybe entire tenure, ended. Lol. No it didn’t. We’ll all be monitoring his recovery for twelve more months. We won’t know if he’ll be back next year. And maybe that’s what we deserve.
Packers fans (and maybe Liev Schreiber), appear to have won.
Jets fans, and the rest of us? Not so much.