And That's A Wrap! (Jets Get Demolished At Home....Again)

Over the years, the Jets have found themselves humiliated numerous times, and quite often, it has been in front of their tortured fans right at home.

This season, they have been blown out and humiliated before their fans three times now, but none of those games was worse than the one on national television last night. The 49ers games came close, where the Jets were shut out, 34-0 (a game that I took my son to see). Then, a few weeks ago, the Jets got bounced by their division rival Miami Dolphins, 30-9, in a game that was not as close as the score would indicate.

But what happened last night was simply unbelievable. The Patriots and Jets were deadlocked in a scoreless affair after the first quarter, and the Jets at least appeared to be holding their own. But you know the Patriots are going to score, and so it was no surprise when the Pats scored a touchdown by the arm of Tom Brady mere seconds into the second quarter, to go up 7-0.

Still, the Jets could answer, right? I mean, rumor has it, this is a professional football team. But the Jets did not answer, and inevitably, Tom Brady struck again for a 14-0 lead. As it turned out, that was the first of three touchdowns in a span of 52 seconds. Unfortunately for the Jets, all of those touchdowns were scored by New England, to turn this into a route, and a snoozer to watch. Less than a minute of playing time in the second quarter, and the Patriots were suddenly up, 28-0. They managed to get another touchdown late in the fourth to make it 35-0, although the Jets were able to get some points on the board just before the half, with a field goal that earned the home crowd's resounding boos.

New York's Green Machine produced five turnovers yesterday overall, and the game grew to become a bad joke, Or, perhaps, it was a repeat of an episode that you have seen before and don't want to watch again, yet are somehow powerless to turn off. To say that the Jets were humiliated is an understatement. The 49ers game was bad, true. But the Jets were able to keep that relatively competitive well into the second half.

Here, the game was over well before the halftime, and this was against their most hated division rivals, and before a national television audience. Yup, this was bad. Also, they made one mistake after another in a terrible second quarter that could not have gone any worse for New York. In effect, they handed the Pats an early Christmas gift, and in the process, eliminated themselves from the playoff race, in essence. They now stand at 4-7, two and a half games behind the Colts for that final AFC playoff spot.

But even mentioning the playoffs with this Jets team sounds like a mockery. This team has been all about distractions, about infighting, and about talk. They have the coach with the loudest mouth in the league, making Super Bowl predictions. But when it comes to proving their worth on the field, one thing rings true as ever: same old Jets. Same old mistakes, same old embarrassments, same old results. Another disappointing season, in which the Jets might as well not play the final month of December, since they have absolutely no chance to turn the thing around.

Despite his big mouth to discredit him, Rex Ryan did seem to be the man that could finally turn the Jets around, as New York qualified for two consecutive AFC Championship games in a row, holding an advantage well into the game against the Colts in the 2010 game, and seemingly having a great chance at their first Super Bowl berth in more than four decades, before it all unraveled in the second half. Then, after falling behind badly against Pittsburgh in the 2011 game, the Jets fought back diligently, and seemed to hold all the momentum. They clawed their way back, but fell just short of finishing the deal, when the Super Bowl was just minutes away.

It all looked promising, and any fan was hoping that Ryan could be believed when he talked the big talk. But the 2011 Jets were inconsistent. Still, they had a winning record, going into a big showdown with the Giants, in the closest thing to a playoff game that these two teams have ever played. In effect, the winner would control their own destiny, while the loser would,  for all intents and purposes, be eliminated. Rex Ryan predictably talked big, but it was the Giants who won that game convincingly, the first of six consecutive games that the Giants won while facing elimination (I'm pretty sure that's a record for the NFL), and instead, eliminated all of their opponents instead. The first of those six were the Jets. It seems like the Jets have never recovered. They got blown out by the Dolphins in the season finale, and prepared for this season.

This season has been a disaster. It was said that the Jets made much more noise than the Giants in the offseason, made far more headlines. But the results speak for themselves, and whatever headlines these Jets are still making are surely all negative by now. Despite Ryan's talk, the Jets are a terrible team, having allowed 49 points against their biggest rivals, and that in a home game that New York absolutely needed to win.

Same old Jets.