Thoughts on Jets-Bengals

Hey everyone, happy new year.

For Jets fans tonight, the new year and the new decade is off to a very happy start. With their season on the line, the Jets defeated the Bengals 37-0 to earn a Wild Card playoff berth.

Actually, saying the Jets "defeated" the Bengals understates it. The Jets annihilated the Bengals tonight, played them completely off the field. They sent a message to the Bengals and the rest of the league that they deserved to be in the mix come playoff time.

As I watched, I couldn't help but think of the Mets. In a very literal sense, the display the Jets put on was everything we hoped the Mets would do against the Marlins on the last day of the season in 2007 and again in 2008.

There was no drama tonight, the Jets made sure of that. They never looked scared. They played the confident, dominating football that they were capable of; the kind of football the moment demanded.

It was everything the Mets failed to do those late September days in '07 and '08.

For years the Jets have been the football equivalent of the Mets. The headlines and sports talk today bore testament to that, filled with dread and predictions of doom. Surely the Jets would collapse; they're the Jets, that's what they do.

Not this time they didn't. They have a new coach and a new quarterback, and with the win today there's hope this decade might be different.

Good for them. To this Mets fan, there's a slight glimmer of hope promised in the Jets' triumph; or at least a man can dream. 

- A.F.O.M.G.