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This is where journalism is right now . . .
The Jets wished the St. Peter’s men’s basketball team “good luck” on social media. The Peacocks made the final sixteen in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and play Purdue tonight. Both the Jets and St. Peters are based on New Jersey, so there is a home state connection.
So a prominent sports website, which I’m not going to name here because I don’t want to help them get clicks, wrote the following:
“The cursed New York Jets, who play in New Jersey and wanted in on the social discussion as well. It takes a special type of misfortune for a team like Saint Peter’s to lose on National Peacock Day but the combination of Purdue’s length, Jaden Ivey getting whatever he wants whenever he wants, and the unsolicited support of the sad sack Jets just may do it. You hate to see it.”
Are you serious?
Look, I’m no special-pleader for the Jets. I call balls and strikes, but I’m not going to take cheap shots like this. And of top of this being a gratuitous cheap shot to get clicks, it doesn’t even make any sense.
Can somebody explain to me what a “cursed” team is?
Is this some kind of paranormal deal?
The Jets are not “cursed.” I can assure you of that. They have struggled due to some questionable football decisions over the years, but mostly because they often didn’t have a true answer at QB. If you don’t have an elite QB, where are you going in the NFL?
You know what, you can destroy Adam Gase all you want, and perhaps he’s not the best head coach, but his QB was Sam Darnold, who is a heck of a guy, but you saw in Carolina last year, the same thing you saw with the Jets – he’s a one-read QB who doesn’t see the field well. It is what it is. Whatever you think of Gase, there was little he could about it, just like there was little Matt Rhule could do about it, and the offensive coordinator Joe Brady, who was fired by David Tepper mid-season.
And then the writer called the Jets “sad sack.”
What’s with the name-calling?
But “sad sack” is a good way to describe most sports journalists these days. Obviously there are some good ones, but for the most part, sportswriting is in toilet these days. I’ve never seen it this bad.
Actually, you could say this about most journalism these days. You couldn’t pay me to watch the local or national TV news or read a newspaper. I read plenty. Books.
What we try to do here and in Jets Confidential Magazine is analyze things in a fair, fact-based matter. We can be very tough, but never resort to cheap shots. I guess that is old-school these days.
I can assure you the Jets wishing St. Peters good luck tonight will not impact their performance one iota. Purdue’s talent might, but not the Jets tweet.
But surely the writer of this article got what he wanted – a lot of clicks.
Because that is all that seems to matter these days in sports journalism.
March 25, 2022
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