http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/sports/football/20rhoden.html We all have our dreams. The challenge comes when dreams are shattered. Related Two weeks ago, the Jets’ visions of winning the A.F.C. East and barreling into the Super Bowl were blotted out when they were routed by New England, 45-3. The only way to begin to recover is to pull off the improbable. The Jets did it on Sunday. They did what hardly anybody thought they could do: they won in Pittsburgh, 22-17, for the first time in franchise history. The Jets won after going 0-7 in Pittsburgh since the 1970 N.F.L. merger. They are now 10-4, still two games behind the New England Patriots in the A.F.C. East. Here’s what else the Jets did on Sunday: they snapped their two-game losing streak. The victory was the first regular-season or postseason win by the Jets in the state of Pennsylvania. Before Sunday’s victory, the Jets had gone 0-11 in the state, including 0-4 in Philadelphia against the Eagles. More than any numerical gain, the Jets salvaged their season Sunday and resurrected flagging hope. They recovered a measure of lost pride and confidence. After the Jets were lambasted — as they should have been — for their strength coach’s shameful tripping episode against Miami last Sunday, Brad Smith ran back the opening kick for a touchdown. Trip that. The Jets won on a day when Rex Ryan’s defense, humbled two weeks ago by the Patriots, was efficient and effective, not bodacious and suffocating. In the aftermath of the New England rout, Ryan criticized his defensive coaches for not using Jason Taylor more. On Sunday, in a crucial play, Taylor broke through Pittsburgh’s offensive line to tackle Mewelde Moore for a safety. The Steelers’ offensive line has struggled this season. Even so, Ben Roethlisberger led Pittsburgh from its 8 to the Jets’ 10 on the final drive. With nine seconds left, Roethlisberger had two chances to score from there. The Jets held. They stopped Pittsburgh when it mattered. This was a singular moment in Sunday’s game. But where the Steelers failed, the Jets must have known, in their heart of hearts, that New England would have found a way to score. How would Mark Sanchez rebound from a malaise that seems to have set in three to four games ago? During the past week, Ryan, ever protective of Sanchez, predicted that he would play well on Sunday. “It’s just eye of the tiger,” Ryan said. “He wants it. This game can’t get here soon enough for him. He’s ready to go.” All the Jets needed on Sunday was for Sanchez to be good. Not great. Good. They needed him to put out of his head all of the talk about being the franchise, having to make all the plays, living up to some Broadway Joe fantasy. Sanchez scored the Jets’ touchdown in the third quarter, the first offensive touchdown in 12 quarters. He fooled the Steelers’ defense on a beautifully executed bootleg and strolled untouched into the end zone for a 7-yard touchdown that tied the game. Sanchez followed that on the Jets’ next possession with a clutch pass to Braylon Edwards for 16 yards on third-and-9. The completion led to Nick Folk’s go-ahead 34-yard field goal. Before the New England game on Dec. 6, Rex Ryan’s Jets would have used an effort like Sunday’s as confirmation of their greatness. A 42-point shellacking helps keep everything in perspective, though Ryan used the occasion of his postgame comments Sunday to talk a little trash. In the days after the Jets’ consecutive losses, there was talk — and chants — of Same Old Jets. “Same Old Jets,” Ryan said in closing. “Come down to Pittsburgh and get a win.” The haunting reverberation of the loss to New England will stay with the Jets until that defeat is avenged, this season, the next or the next. For the Jets, next week in Chicago, they play a Bears team that was humbled by New England nearly as badly as the Jets were. Meanwhile, the Jets picked up the pieces of shattered dreams on Sunday. In the process they resurrected a season.
The NYT has the most overwrought sports writing ever. They write about sports like it's some sort of quixotic moral battle ground. Fuck all of their writers I hope their children end up potheads who spend 8 years in community college
that isnt the worst thing that could happen. i would consider that a nice vacation die in a hailstorm
