NYT:In New York, It's Disarray in Duplicate

[TK]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/02/sports/football/02ANDE.html?ei=5062&en=d7824f081dbcdec4&ex=1070946000&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print&position=

December 2, 2003

SPORTS OF THE TIMES

In New York, It's Disarray in Duplicate

By DAVE ANDERSON

AST RUTHERFORD, N.J.

IT could be worse, and it has been. But as an entry, New York's two pro football teams have been more of a double disappointment to their frustrated followers this season than ever before.

The Giants are a pathetic 4-8. The Jets needed to upset the Tennessee Titans last night at Giants Stadium to avert a 4-8 record.

For what it's worth, which isn't much, the two New York teams (who play here in New Jersey) at least possess more victories than they did in 1996, when their combined 7-25 record (Giants 6-10 under Dan Reeves, Jets 1-15 under Rich Kotite) defined the entry's most losses in a season since the Jets' ancestors, the New York Titans, and the dear departed American Football League opened for business in 1960.

It's not coincidental that Reeves was succeeded in 1997 by Jim Fassel, and that Kotite was succeeded that same season by Bill Parcells. The 1995 record wasn't much better. The two New York teams combined for an 8-24 treadmill (Giants 5-11 under Reeves, Jets 3-13 under Kotite).

The difference between those two dreadful seasons and now is that these Giants and these Jets, along with their fans, had every reason to expect to be in the playoffs again. Together, they had roared into the playoffs last season in back-to-back finales at Giants Stadium, arguably the best weekend in New York pro football history, the Giants a wild card at 10-6, the Jets a surprising division winner at 9-7.

Even when the Giants lost their playoff opener in San Francisco, 39-38, wasting a 38-14 lead, the co-owner Wellington Mara looked forward to this season.

"I had a great feeling; I thought we could score on anybody," Mara said after Sunday's 24-7 sleepwalk loss to Buffalo. "But every year is a new year."

And in this new year, the Giants can't score on anybody. Not only are they losing, they are losing without honor. For all the players' insistence that they're still playing hard, they're playing as if they don't really care. They have not only cost Fassel his job, but their better players have sabotaged their own stature, as well as their market price in the eyes of other coaches and general managers. Other teams have to be saying, "Maybe some of those Giants aren't as good as we thought they were."

The Jets at least have more valid reasons for limping through the season. Already weakened by the free-agent departures of Laveranues Coles, Randy Thomas, Chad Morton and John Hall to the Washington Redskins, the Jets were without quarterback Chad Pennington for six games as he recovered from a fractured and dislocated left wrist. By the time he returned, it was too late to save the season.

No matter how or where the Jets finish, Coach Herman Edwards appears secure, as he should be. If anybody is at fault for the Jets' problems, it's General Manager Terry Bradway for letting the Redskins raid his roster and for too many draft choices that have yet to make much of an impact.

Then again, New York pro football fans should have known better than to expect both the Giants and the Jets to be in the playoffs again this season. Last season was only the fourth time that happened. The first time was 1981, each as a wild card (Giants 9-7 under Ray Perkins before losing in the second round of the playoffs, Jets 10-5-1 under Walt Michaels before losing their playoff opener).

New York's best combined season (24-8) was 1986, when the Giants were 14-2 under Parcells before going on to win Super Bowl XXI, and the Jets were a 10-6 wild card under Joe Walton despite an 0-5 finish before losing in the second round of the playoffs.

The year before, they were 21-11, New York's second-best combined record (Giants a 10-6 wild card under Parcells before losing in the second round of the playoffs, Jets an 11-5 wild card under Walton before losing their playoff opener). The third-best record was 20-12 in 1998 (Jets 12-4 as a divisional winner before losing at Denver in the conference title game, Giants 8-8 in Fassel's second season).

• But as bad as the Giants and the Jets have been this season, their combined record won't be anywhere near as bad as it was in the 70's, when both teams had a playoff famine that lasted 11 seasons, 1970 through 1980.

In 1976, in the era of 14-game seasons, they were 6-22 (Giants 3-11 under Bill Arnsparger and John McVay, Jets 3-11 under Lou Holtz, who resigned before the season finale conducted by the interim coach Ken Shipp). In 1973, they were 6-21-1 (Jets 4-10 in Weeb Ewbank's last season, Giants 2-11-1 in Alex Webster's last season).

Notice how often the phrase "last season" accompanies the coaches involved in New York's "worst combined" records. You can't have one without the other.