All Aboard! Making Room on the Jets’ Bandwagon
Good day, ladies and gentlemen! This is your conductor speaking. We will be making local stops all across the nation as we continue to collect passengers. Space will be tight, so please, make an effort to create room.
Eight months ago, the New York Jets couldn’t buy a new fan. The outlook was absolutely negative, and outside of the Jets’ faithful, no one was paying any real attention.
Most people only acknowledge the Jets as the team that house-sits Giants Stadium while the Giants are out of town. To add to that, they’ve played second fiddle to the New England Patriots’ dynasty over the last six seasons.
The expensive offseason transactions were only footnotes in what casual fans expected to be another abysmal campaign in 2008.
That was until the arrival of Brett Favre.
The New York Jets’ public profile is the highest it’s been in decades. A little over ten years ago, the signing of Bill Parcells as the Jets’ head coach was the talk of the town. His presence was to return the organization to respectability. It was effective for a few seasons, but the Jets’ inconsistency returned them to obscurity.
That buzz has been trumped by the acquisition of Brett Favre. Mountains of press continue to avalanche over all sports’ media outlets as excitement for the regular season builds.
Articles are appearing all around the Internet declaring the New York Jets as instant favorites for contention in the NFL. And there are even some beat writers tossing out “shock” articles in an attempt to downplay the transactions.
The waves are still rippling around the NFL, as the tide uncovers new Jets’ fans around the country. Casual Jets’ fans of old have resurfaced, declaring their allegiances to the organization. But a whole new species of fan has been discovered in the form of Brett Favre followers.
When the news broke, I received text messages from friends that weren’t Jets’ fans, my Inbox on Facebook took a beating, and I had a conversation on my Blackberry with a Redskins’ fan who has decided to anoint the Jets as his second favorite team.
This is not even the tip of the iceberg. Brett Favre is in City Hall, conversing with Mayor Michael Bloomberg as he’s officially welcomed to the Tri-State area.
And everyone is watching. Fans grew weary with the Brett Favre saga over the last month, but all of the negativity has officially dissipated.
The bandwagon will become more crowded as the months continue, but I assure you all, we’re looking at a pretty smooth ride.
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Been a fan since I was 12 (36 now) and have had a Jets tire cover on the back of my jeep since 2005 and only in the last week have people been commenting on it (mostly with cheers and people trying to talk to me at stop lights)…..welcome to the club folks!
It’s certainly something when you’re walking through the centre of Helsinki (the capital of Finland) in a Jets hoodie and some random tourist shouts “Hey, the Jets, Brett Favre” at you and gives you the thumbs up.
Hopefully all the attention and positivity it has brought the Jets translates into wins!