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As the Jets-Pats rivalry goes, there’s never been a bigger one than this

By TheDarkHorse

(Ed. note: This article was originally posted last week, but with the impending Monday night match-up on everyone’s mind today, we thought it deserved another look)

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The word “rivalry” is tossed around a lot in the NFL. You hear announcers, desperate for market share, describe a pedestrian Seahawks-Chiefs tilt as a rivalry. Who’s buying that? Most “rivalries” unfold without so much as a breadcrumb on the line.

The history between the New York Jets and New England Patriots is a messy, entangled war by contrast. With both franchises notched at 9-2 atop the AFC East, you have to go back to the 1990 Monday-night meeting between the 10-1 49ers vs. the 10-1 New York Giants to find a late-season prime-time bout with equal appeal.

The lifetime record between these two teams stands at 51-50-1 in New York’s favor. Records aside, the Patriots are the Goliath, having dominated the last decade with three Super Bowl wins under the leadership of a once-per-generation quarterback talent in Tom Brady.

The Jets, after years of struggle, are at the threshold — but the long-time Jets fanatic is still haunted by ghosts: “When will the other shoe drop? When will the S.O.J.s appear from behind the Wizard’s curtain?”

A season sweep over the Patriots would send a statement league-wide: These Jets are for real.

Two long-suffering teams emerge to control the East

“My favorite thing is the drunk Jets fans,” NFL.com’s Adam Rank told us on Tuesday. “And that they couldn’t schedule this Monday night game at the new Meadowlands Stadium because they wouldn’t be allowed to sell beer. Seriously, you can buy a mixed cocktail at a UNLV basketball game, but if you go to a late-night Jets game — no booze. Which, of course, does not stop them from drinking in the parking lot. Or sneaking it in. … My only wish is that the Patriots wear those glorious, glorious red throwback uniforms.”

There was chatter of the Patriots’ demise earlier this season, especially after the Jets took care of the Pats 28-14 in Week 2. That talk was premature. In the course of a few months — in the middle of an NFL season — Bill Belichick has transformed this team, parting ways with Randy Moss and going with youth — nurturing younger role players to emerge around Brady. The defense is young and beginning to gel into a play-making unit.

“The Patriots are for real. That young defense is growing before our eyes,” Rank said. “But I’m reminded of something that Michael Irvin told me: That the Patriots look like they can be exposed by running right at them. We’ll certainly see that this week. And it’s the one thing that I’m looking for. If the Jets can run the ball and get the ground game going, then we have the proverbial blueprint of how to attack the Patriots going forward. That said, I really like where this team is headed.”

Along with the Patriots, the Jets have evolved since that Week 2 meeting. They have grown up before our eyes.

Mark Sanchez and his boys are not a dominating club — the league has no such thing this season — but the Jets know how to win, and they keep finding new ways to do it, new ways to overcome harsh obstacles, new ways to inch closer to the AFC Championship, which they lost last season to a Colts team they have fully outgrown in the 11 months since.

“I think it is pretty clear that if the Jets win this, they are going to win the division,” R&R’s C-O-U-R-T-N-E-Y told us, from his Boston law office. “So, in that sense, this game is bigger for the Patriots. More importantly: America needs the Patriots to win. If not, we are going to have to brace ourselves for 88 retrospectives on Rex Ryan and his ‘irreverent’ coaching style.”

The Patriots are being tested by the Jets in a way that few division opponents have been able to do on Belichick’s watch. Ryan went right at the Pats in 2009, leaving a recorded message for Jets fans to come out in droves for the Week 2 game against New England, making it clear that Ryan’s Jets weren’t satisfied playing doormat to Brady and the Pats. New York won that game 16-9. Sanchez threw for 163 yards and a touchdown in his second start, while Ryan’s defense befuddled the Patriots, holding them to three field goals. The Patriots won the second meeting 31-14, but it was the Jets who went on to play Cinderella in the postseason.

“I’ll be honest about Rex Ryan, I thought he was going to be the failure his dad was in Arizona,” Rank said. “I remember Buddy Ryan taking over in Phoenix and proclaiming that there was a new sheriff in town. I was in Anaheim Stadium that day when our Rams ushered in the Buddy Ryan era with a 14-12 win. And this was the 1994 we-know-we-are-moving Rams, for the record. However, I’m growing fond of Rex Ryan’s antics. We all know that super-serious guy who will never lighten up about anything — and it’s fun as hell trying to get under his skin. Belichick is like that guy in college who wants to study on Wednesday night, but Ryan’s trying to drag him out to $1 shooter night at Baxter’s. It’s hilarious. You almost want to see the Jets win because of it.”

Ryan’s Jets, emblazoned with his cocksure attitude and having cast away their second-fiddle, doomsday mentality, appear to infuriate Belichick and Brady. The normally affable Patriots quarterback, talking with Boston radio station WEEI in September, stated: “I hate the Jets.”

This is one of the Jets’ magical powers: Getting under the skin, annoying established rivals, upsetting the balance. On some level, setting their own pace week to week. In a league that respects its elders, the Jets aren’t afraid of anyone. They flat-out disregard everything in their way — and that makes them the most dangerous team in football, even if the Patriots are still its best.

VIDEO: Earlier days of the Jets-Pats rivalry

Asked if Ryan has thrown Belichick off balance, C-O-U-R-T-N-E-Y disagreed: “Your question assumes Belichick has skin. Do robots have skin? Belichick has been secretly taping Ryan for years: nothing Rex does or says irritates Bill at this point.”

Brady told WEEI this week: “Playing them (a) fourth time (under Ryan), I have a lot more confidence than the first time we played them. It’s going to be a hell of a game. I’m excited for it.”

Two wearied fighters, now revived

The two teams first met just over 50 years ago, in September 1960, when they were known about town as the Boston Patriots and New York Titans. Boston won that first game 28-24 at the old Polo Grounds.

The Titans were renamed the Jets in ’63, and generally handled the Patriots with ease, going 11-2-1 over the next decade against Boston — largely due to the presence of Joe Namath and a roster that won Super Bowl III.

In ’71, the Patriots topped the Jets 20-0 in their first encounter after the Patriots adopted the “New England” moniker. The two have been at each other twice a season ever since, going punch for punch like two wearied fighters.

It’s often the personalities involved that create genuine rivalry, and that’s true today with these two teams. While they went head-to-head twice a season because the schedule ordained it, it was an act of betrayal that created blood-feud between the fanbases.

“The rivalry has existed since Bill Parcells left New England for the Meadowlands after the Pats’ Super Bowl berth in ’96,” said NFL.com news editor Dan Hanzus, a lifelong Jets fan. “There have been several layers to it over the years (Curtis Martin, Belichick, and Eric Mangini switching sides; the ’06 playoffs; and SpyGate), but I don’t think the rivalry has really mattered until now. This is the first year the two teams are squaring off as true Super Bowl favorites at the same time. It’s taken 10 years into the Brady era for the Jets to put together a legitimate contender, and for the first time you don’t feel that big brother-little brother vibe. This is two heavyweights standing toe-to-toe.”

VIDEO: A female Pats fan gets the treatment from Jets fans

When Belichick stunned the Jets with his resignation in 2000, in order to replace Pete Carroll as the Patriots head coach, the Jets never could have imagined how it would change the AFC East, and pro football. Few predicted Belichick’s success, but it’s only added to the disdain between these two teams. Since Belichick’s arrival, the Patriots lead the series 14-8, including a 37-16 playoff win in January 2007 (Belichick’s first postseason head coaching victory since his Cleveland Browns beat Parcells’ Pats in ’94).

The Patriots bloomed under Belichick, with an embattled Drew Bledsoe handing the starting role over to Brady who, outside of missing the 2008 season, has been a constant for the Pats ever since.

In contrast, since 2000, these have been the Jets starters: Vinny Testaverde, Chad Pennington, Quincy Carter, Brooks Bollinger, Kellen Clemens, Brett Favre and Sanchez. The list is equally disorienting from 1980-2000, with dead weight mixed in with serviceable arms, none able to make the Jets relevant for long: Richard Todd, Pat Ryan, Ken O’Brien (or, as Namath would say, “Kay-knee O’Bray-en”), David Norrie, Tony Eason, Kyle Mackey, Browning Nagle, Jack Trudeau, Bubby Brister, Frank Reich, Neil O’Donnell, Glenn Foley, Ray Lucas and Rick Mirer — a who’s who of journeymen, something the Patriots could relate to.

For decades, it was impossible to hate the Patriots. From 1980 on, outside of its 1985 Super Bowl run, New England endured a wretched string of seasons. Their quarterbacks were lambs to the slaughter — men now likely huddled away in a cube farm selling insurance premiums in Hadley, Mass. Names like: Matt Cavanaugh, Tom Owen, Tom Ramsey, the odd couple: Tony Eason and Steve Grogan, Bob Bleier, Marc Wilson, Tom Hodson, Hugh Millen, Scott Zolak, Jeff Carlson, Scott Secules and mighty mite Doug Flutie.

“I’m not really bothered by the Pats, because I respect Brady as a player so much,” Hanzus said. “Like the Jets, the Pats went through the 70s, 80s, and the better part of the 90s as a total afterthought, so there’s a silent kinship there. If anything, I think a Jets fan looks at what the Pats have managed to accomplish in the past decade and it gives us hope. That said, Belichick … total dick.”

VIDEO: Rex and the Jets after beating the Pats 28-14 in Week 2

“I feel a near kinship with Jets fans,” said Rank, who rooted for the bygone Los Angeles Rams. “You’re the No. 2 team in a major media market. Your only championship came before many of the fans were born. Yeah, that was a lot like the Los Angeles Rams. The only thing we could hang our hat on was a championship from the 1950s. Yet, you had the Raiders winning the Super Bowl. NWA was wearing Raiders gear. Us Rams fans had dudes wearing watermelons on their head, Georgia Frontiere and Eric Dickerson, who was traded away on Halloween ’87. Jets fans are also probably Mets fans, and the same goes here — just like Rams fans rooted for the Angels. So, I know the Jets fans’ angst all too well. But cheer up, Jets fans. It’s not like your owner mysteriously died, the widow moved the team to some Dust Bowl town and your best years are being played out 2,000 miles away. So, enjoy it.”

Jets fans recognize that their team hasn’t completed its masterwork 12 weeks into the regular season. They haven’t supplanted the Patriots — they’ve merely matched them, a feat in itself, but ultimately dust if it doesn’t amount to a championship.

The Patriots have been doing this for a decade — this week’s game is not the mountain top for a team that’s repeatedly won Super Bowls. “I’ve been around a little while,” Brady told WEEI on Monday. “Look, we’re 9-2, we haven’t accomplished anything. These games that we’re playing, yeah, they’re important, but a lot of guys on this team have played in much bigger games … I’m trying to express to teammates: ‘We haven’t done anything. Nine wins is nothing.’”

Jets fans know there’s a ways to go, but deserve to relish the teams success after lifetimes of despair.

“I think the Jets still have a lot to prove to show me that they’re going to become the perennial powerhouse the Pats have been for years now,” Hanzus said. “And even if New York wins on Monday night, I don’t count out Brady and Belichick even a little bit. In fact, I just soiled myself a little bit at the prospect of having to beat them for a third time if they met in the postseason.”

Adam Rank is a writer and editor with NFL.com and can be seen weekly on NFL Network’s Fantasy Live at 11:30 a.m. EST.  His NFL.com fantasy football blog can be found here. Follow Adam on his website and on Twitter @adamrank.

Dan Hanzus is a news editor with NFL.com, and a frequent contributor to Bleacher Report. Follow Dan on his Yankees’ blog, River & Sunset, and on Twitter @danhanzus.

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