By Tom Rock
Someone asked Laveranues Coles if the Jets-Patriots dynamic is overplayed.
“Yeah,” he sighed, “but y’all are having fun doing it, so I don’t mind.”
That’s basically the story for the week. We, the media, will have fun stirring things up between the two bitter rivals (the teams) and two bitter rivals (the coaches) in a week-long, drum-banging preparation for Sunday’s AFC Wild Card Game in Foxborough. Are we having fun? Of course! Sportswriters love to read between the lines, and when it comes to Mangini and Belichick, it’s all about between the lines. That the Patriots were so infuriated over their Week 10 loss to the Jets that they literally tore the field up and installed a new FieldTurf system tells you all you need to know about where each side is coming from.
Just some housekeeping, as Mangini would put it. I was sitting at Gi@&%$ Stadium Sunday night convinced that the Jets were going to Indianapolis. I had even written an “About the Colts” story that was prepared to run. Unfortunately the Broncos soiled their sheets and I had to go back to re-write the Patriots package. At one point several of us were gathered around Steve Serby listening to him give us play-by-play off an Internet connection. We didn’t really know that the 49ers had won until Rich Cimini, on the phone with some people who were watching the game on TV, announced “It’s good!” on the winning field goal. A few minutes later we learned that the game would be at 1 p.m. Sunday (which, from a newspaper perspective, is about as good as it gets).
As for the Jets, well, they had very different ways of learning their playoff fate. Mangini insists he was playing with his sons when the Broncos game ended and Mike Tannenbaum called him with the updated itinerary. David Barrett said he called in to the Jets complex later in the evening to find out if he had to come to work on Monday (had the Jets played on Saturday, they would have been given the day off on Monday). Coles said he turned off the Broncos game when they had a lead and figured he was headed for Indy. It wasn’t until later in the evening, when he was watching TV, that he saw the brackets for the AFC Playoffs on the screen and realized he had to play the Patriots for the third time this year. And Chris Baker, a sports fan, spent his time actually watching the Broncos game, knowing full well that his week would depend on the outcome. “It was pretty cool,” he said.
There’ll be plenty to talk about this week, from expectations to denunciations to lack of communications. Have fun, Jets fans. I know I will.
Comments (3)
Tom,
As "exciting" as all the between the lines stuff is to some people, mostly news guys who have to fill pages, the REAL interest we have as fans is how did they do, what are some of the things that happened in the last game that we were not aware of, how is the team's psyche for the upcoming game, how do you think they might be planning to attack the Pats this time, how is everybody's health, etc. In othe words, IT'S ABOUT THE GAME. The post game handshake stuff you can save for the ladies auxilliary tea.
Read Michael felger column in todays Boston Herald. He gets in the history of Pats-Jets animosity.Also, the "word" is that Mangini tried to lure some Pats staff to Jets after he took the job. Also charges filed with by Pats with NFL claiming that Jets tampered with Deion Branch with Mangini knowing what the Pats strategy was. These actions supposedly infuriated Pats which led to BB treating Mangini as if he were carrying a communicable disease. Bottom line, much ado about nothing except the media!
Can U advise which players did not purchase the helmets? Thanks