Ryan Leads Jets into AFC Title Game

(Originally published 1/19/2011 in "The Montclarion")

New York Jets Head Coach Rex Ryan has been the catalyst for the franchise’s newfound confidence and winning attitude.

The New York Jets are talking themselves up to be huge, and have proved it against two of the league’s best quarterbacks. The Jets took back-to-back wins on the road in the playoffs to advance to the AFC championship game for the second straight season, but the first ended in a loss to the Indianapolis Colts. Rex Ryan and the Jets thought they were the better of the two teams and should have gone to the Super Bowl, and maybe he was right. The Colts lost to the Saints in an embarrassing move to lose the Super Bowl. He took a personal vendetta to the AFC wild card playoff game against Manning and the Colts this season and shut down the hall-of-fame quarterback for a decisive win.


This only led to an even better AFC Division playoff game — round three of what was thought to be a brawl. A few weeks earlier the New England Patriots embarrassed the New York Jets 45-3, making the gap between the two seem wider than it really was. Rex Ryan took another personal vendetta to this game with Tom Brady and the Patriots team as a whole. His players latched on and unleashed a whirlwind of trash talk towards New England. Everyone thought this swagger would only fuel Bill Belichick and Tom Brady’s animosity towards the Jets and have them scheme up another precise game plan that would lead to another humiliating defeat for the Jets. Everyone couldn’t have been more wrong.

Rex Ryan gives the Jets such bravado that they feel they can beat any team they face. Some see this as arrogant and brash, but it’s really turning out to be superb. Ryan lets his team boast, taunt, brag, celebrate and do almost anything they please because he has a team of players that shine under the New York spotlight. And when the Jets win like they have been, against who they have been beating, it makes them that much harder to beat, because their “we’re better than you and we know it” attitude is that much harder to break.

Ryan has brought a wide range of attention that was never on the Jets before. This attention has the Jets stealing the city away from the New York Giants, and has Empire State Building shining green in support of the Jets rather than the blue that looked to be there earlier in the season. Confidence beat discipline. The Jets topped uptight Giants’ Head Coach Tom Coughlin for the city, and beat apathetic New England’s Head Coach Bill Belichick to reiterate it.

But what goes up must come down. The Jets need to ride the wave Ryan has them on for as long as they can. Reaching the AFC Championship Game — on the road — with a rookie head coach and a rookie quarterback is amazing, but if the Jets catch an unlucky break and miss the playoffs a few times, there is going to be heavy scrutiny. If the swagger breaks, so does the team. And with the string of negative media attention Ryan has been getting over the course of his two years, he needs to win. Another big slip and a coach with a losing record would have been gone if they supplied the same amount of negative attention that Ryan has brought towards team owner Woody Johnson and the New York Jets.

The Jets are one win away from the Super Bowl and could have the city in an uproar if they were to win. Rex Ryan plays his game and he plays it well; many might not like it, but he accomplishes what he says he’s going to do, no matter how rough it may be

Big Names in Sports Make Big News in 2010

(Originally published 12/8/10 in "The Montclarion")

2010 has brought us another exciting, drama-filled year in sports. Locally, the Jets are running their mouths as the best team in sports and hold a 9-3 record, yet they have only beaten one team with a record above .500.

The Giants were outmatched by a quarterback who hasn’t started since 2006 and has served jail time in between.

Oakland pitcher Dallas Braden and his catcher, Landon Powell, share a hug after Braden’s perfect game in April. It was the first of two perfect games during the 2010 baseball season.

The Yankees just ended the circus free agency signing with Derek Jeter that was about as exciting as Ben Stein’s voice.


The Mets have added a Terry and a Sandy to their front office; and I don’t mean the ladies that appeared in Grease.

The Islanders and the Nets seem a little lost, which isn’t a surprise.

The Devils sit just above the Islanders, which is a surprise.

The only team that hasn’t given us anything to talk about are the New York Rangers … and that’s probably a good thing.

This year brought us a lot of positive things as well. The New Orleans ‘Aints helped a city stand on its feet with an unlikely victory over the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl. The San Francisco Giants won their first World Series since they departed New York. The LA Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics in a rematch similar to the days of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. The Red Bulls came close to winning the MLS championship, but fell in the semi-finals to the San Jose Earthquakes. In an attempt to bring some excitement to the MLS the Red Bulls signed international French star Thierry Henry, a contract that cost less and provided a better turnout than the David Beckham signing that happened a few years back. Beckham’s career to Americans can be compared to Carmen San Diego or Waldo; where has it gone?

Baseball saw three perfect games in a season. Well, technically, there were only two: Dallas Braden of the Oakland Athletics and Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies. Armando Galarraga came close to being the third, but was denied a chance at history by umpire Jim Joyce. It was a game that’s sure to live in infamy with not only the players involved, but fans of the sport as well. It was a game that’s sure to lead to further use of instant replay in baseball, another thing that will be remembered by sports fans for years to come.

USC seemed on top of the college football world, but their coach bolted to the NFL and joined the Seattle Seahawks, and their starting player during that era was revoked of his Heisman Trophy. This led to the likes of Auburn, Oregon and TCU rounding out the top three teams respectively. The only classic powerhouse college team in the top ten is Ohio State.

What we didn’t see this year was the implementation of a playoff system for college football. But when every college football team plays in a bowl game there probably isn’t a need for a playoff system.

2010 also saw the rise of MMA, a fiercer form of boxing that lets fighters use every part of their body that isn’t just below the belt. Boxing’s biggest headline is their loss of fans and funds — the people that decided MMA was more exciting to watch. Maybe it’s because the most exciting thing to happen in boxing this year was the Manny Pacquiao/Floyd Mayweather fight that never happened.

2011 is sure to be as exciting as 2010 and the drama that will ensue will surpass that of all the MTV “reality” shows. Maybe Jimmie Johnson will win his sixth straight NASCAR title, or Tiger Woods will regain his number one ranking. Maybe Roger Federer will retake the number one tennis ranking from Rafael Nadal. At this point, everything is just speculation. There is always uncertainty heading into a new year. Something new and exciting is bound to happen soon after the ball drops. Until then, we still have the rest of 2010.

Giants and Jets Battle for Stadium Supremacy

(Originally published 9/5/210 in "The Montclarion")

The unveiling of the 2010 season for the New York Giants and New York Jets caused noticeable electricity amongst all the fans. The wait that seems eternal from every year’s Super Bowl to opening kickoff is finally over.

The New York Giants and New York Jets are in a race to make their mark on New Meadowlands Stadium first in its inaugural 2010 season.

With aspirations of reaching the Super Bowl, each team took the field for their home opener in a new, state-of-the-art, 1.6 billion dollar stadium. The New Meadowlands opens its doors to both the Jets and the Giants, but just whose house will this be?


First and foremost, the Giants have a richer and longer history than the Jets do. The Giants have three Super Bowl titles, the Jets have one. The Giants have 20 Hall of Fame members, while the Jets only have three. The Giants have 11 retired jersey numbers, the Jets have four. It’s impossible to argue which team has a bigger influence on the history of the city of New York, but the stadium is a sign of new life, change and outlook towards the future, not a place to dwell in the past.

Talk may be cheap, but the Jets are backing up each and every word so far. As far as the free agent market, they’ve brought in future hall-of-famers with Jason Taylor and Ladainian Tomlinson, household names in Antonio Cromartie and Santonio Holmes and return with all the swagger they left-off with last season. Their coach has everyone believing they’re a Super Bowl contending team, and with good reason.

They were 30 minutes away from a Super Bowl berth last season, while the Giants lost by 32 points to close out an embarrassing 2009 season and final game at Giants Stadium. They did atone, however, winning the first official game of the new stadium against the Carolina Panthers. The Jets, on the other hand, lost their first official game at the new stadium 10-9, committing almost twice as many penalties as points scored.
The face of the Jets franchise, Rex Ryan, can barely be squeezed into a driver’s license photo, yet is still known throughout all of football with help from his mouth and ego. The face of the Giants franchise is a shy quarterback in Eli Manning who was a few bad games away from being exiled from New York. At least the Giants have a player representing them.

Then again you could pick Mark Sanchez as the Jets representative; a quarterback that barely completed over 50 percent of his passes and had a horrific touchdown-to-interception ratio in his rookie campaign, nearly matching Joe Namath’s career numbers. Maybe that’s why Jet fans love him so much.

Neither team sold out their first game of the season. The Giants had a waiting list to purchase season tickets up until last year and the Jets, along with a lot of “experts” and all their fans, believe they’re going to the Super Bowl this year. Yet neither of them were able to sell the extra 2,000 seat difference from Giants stadium to the new stadium. The Jets did, however, sell more seats than the Giants, even with the memory of the Giants remarkable upset in Super Bowl XLII against the New England Patriots only three years removed. The Patriots were heavily favored to win that game, but it just proves that nothing is as sure-fire as a “Broadway Joe” prediction.

No longer can the Giants use the excuse that they came around first. The cost of this stadium was split evenly between the Giants and the Jets, so neither team gains the upper hand financially over the stadium. The New Meadowlands Stadium won’t stick for long, and to avoid controversy they won’t call it Giants Stadium or Jets Stadium.

Which team will rise and take the stadium for their own? One of these teams will have bragging rights to call this stadium their home, but with that victory comes the cost of claiming that ugly Xanadu thing next door as a neighbor.