Before Monday Night Football, ESPN aired a segment in which tennis legend John McEnroe interviewed Aaron Rodgers, the New York Jets’ new quarterback. The interview was charming, but as Rodgers repeatedly talked about winning the Super Bowl, McEnroe, a diehard Jets fan, kept squirming in his seat. Clearly scarred by the last 50 years of his Jets fandom, McEnroe was so visibly uncomfortable with Rodgers discussing a championship that Rodgers called out McEnroe’s pessimism.
“You’re a Jets fan!” Rodgers said.
“Exactly,” McEnroe said.
Rodgers rejected New York’s negativity and preached how he believed in manifesting what is in your heart. Rodgers sounded like Ted Lasso, if Ted Lasso took (more) hallucinogens and subscribed to Joe Rogan’s podcast.
“Once we start believing and start playing the right way, you’ll see everyone else like yourself start believing,” Rodgers said. “And you won’t be saying shit like ‘What if it doesn’t go right?’ And then when everybody else is believing in this city, there is a never-ending unstoppable wave of positivity and energy that we’re going to take all the way.”
As if to emphasize Rodgers’s point, a storm swirled over the stadium before the game. Fans were warned to shelter in place two hours before kickoff. But as kickoff approached, the clouds were replaced by a double rainbow. It was as if the heavens themselves were pleading with Jets fans to believe.
But rainbows are tricks of the light. In the most Jets thing that has ever Jets’ed in the history of the Jets, Rodgers was injured four plays into his New York career. While the severity of the injury has yet to be confirmed pending an MRI on Tuesday, Jets head coach Robert Saleh confirmed after the game that they fear Rodgers suffered an Achilles injury, which could be not only season-ending but could be career-threatening for a quarterback who turns 40 later this year. As the fans say in Ted Lasso, it’s the hope that kills you.
But in the least Jets thing that has happened since Joe Namath guaranteed and delivered a Super Bowl III victory (another guy who believed in speaking positivity into existence), the Jets ended up beating the three-time defending AFC East division champ Buffalo Bills anyway. At the risk of being caught in the moment, it feels fair to say this might go down as the single wildest game of this season.
by Danny Heifetz , The Ringer | Read more:
Image: Getty/AP/Ringer Illustration
[ed. What hype, what expectations, what commercials, interviews, choreography, over the top pre-game analyses... everything. It felt like a Super Bowl. Then this happens. Would've loved to see a montage of executive faces when Rodgers got carted off the field: NFL, upper management, agents, ad and tv execs, everyone financially and psychologically invested in the myth-making of the moment. Then the Jets go off and win it anyway. In a thriller. Wow. Update: Rodgers’s Jets Season Ends Early With Torn Achilles’ Tendon (NYT).]
