The Difference Between the Giants and the Jets: A Sense of Competence

The Giants lose their exhibition opener badly, and their fans are like, "Relax, we'll have it turned around by the time the real games start."

The Jets lose their exhibition opener badly, and their fans are like, "Well, here we go again! Another miserable season in Jetland!"

And they're probably both right.

And that's the difference between Big Blue and Gang Green.

It's not just that the Giants have Eli Manning as quarterback, and the Jets have a cast of thousands, or so it seems, none of whom are any good, the best of them being Geno Smith -- a guy not smart enough to reach into his fat wallet and pay back $600, nor to avoid getting socked in the jaw over it.

It's that the Giants have a sense of organizational competence that leads you to think, "Hang on, I know it looks bad now, but they've turned it around and starting winning again before, and they will do it again."

While the Jets have a sense of organizational screwiness that leads you to think, "I don't care care how good they look now, somehow, they will find a way to futz this up. They always do."

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The Giants have won 8 World Championships. The Jets, 1 -- and the Giants have won 4 since that Jet 1.

The Giants have won 10 postseason games in the 21st Century. The Jets have won 12 postseason games -- in their entire history.

The Giants have been in 5 NFC Championship Games since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, winning 4. The Jets have been in 4 AFC Championship Games since then, and lost them all.

Title droughts of the 9 Tri-State Area teams -- if you count the ABA titles won by the Nets:

1. Giants: 4 years, 6 months
2. Yankees: 5 years, 9 months
3. Devils: 11 years, 2 months
4. Rangers: 21 years, 2 months
5. Mets: 28 years, 10 months
6. Islanders: 32 years, 3 months
7. Nets: 39 years, 3 months
8. Knicks: 41 years, 3 months
9. Jets: 45 years, 7 months

It's not that the Giants' title drought is the shortest and the Jets' the longest: Within a single sport, it's by far the greatest gap. NFL: Giants to Jets, 41; MLB: Yankees to Mets, 23; NHL: Devils to Rangers, 10, Devils to Islanders, 21; NBA, Nets to Knicks, 2.

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Also, the Giants rarely have out-of-game embarrassments. There was Plaxico Burress accidentally shooting himself. Maybe, you can count the marital scandals of Tiki Barber and Michael Strahan. But the Jets? Pardon me for using a technical term, but, "Hoo, boy!" The incident with Geno Smith is just the latest.

As for in-game embarrassments, the Giants' last really bad one was probably that Playoff choke against the San Francisco 49ers. They've never failed to show up for a Conference Championship Game like the Jets did against the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2011, or had a "butt fumble."

Maybe you can count Sean Landeta's whiffed punt against the Chicago Bears in the 1985-86 Playoffs, but the Bears were going to win that game anyway. Or the Joe Pisarcik fumble that became "The Miracle of the Meadowlands," but that was before the George Young regime came in and instituted the current reign of competent control.

There's never been a "butt fumble." Nor have the Giants ever been suckered by an opposing quarterback the way the Jets were by Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins with that fake spike.

The Jets have hired head coaches that end up embarrassing them, even (especially) if they later went on to success elsewhere (though not all of these have): Lou Holtz, Pete Carroll, Rich Kotite, Bill Belichick, Rex Ryan. I doubt that Todd Bowles will embarrass them, but with the Jets, you never know.

Not since John McVay at the 1978 Miracle of the Meadowlands have the Giants been embarrassed by their coaches. True, Ray Handley inspired "Ray must go" chants, but he was merely ineffective, not embarrassing.

Tom Coughlin probably should have retired after that 2nd Super Bowl win -- now 4 seasons ago -- and he drives a lot of Giant fans nuts, and the way his skin turns bright pink when he gets mad is a little silly. But he's never embarrassed Giant fans.

The Jets are a sucker organization, totally undeserving of their incredibly loyal fan base. They will rise again, someday -- only to fall at a very inopportune time.

The Giants just don't do that.

In short: The Giants/Jets relationship is like the Yankees/Mets relationship. You might think, "Well, the Giants have won 8 World Championships, not 27 like the Yankees." This is true.

But the Mets don't have to share a stadium with the Yankees. The Jets have to share one with the Giants. True, the Giants no longer have their name on the stadium that the Jets have to call home, and the Jets do have half-ownership, equal ownership.

But the Mets, at the very least, are Number 1 in their own building. The Jets are not.

The Jets: New York's Favorite Situation Comedy

At the end of the last calendar year, I rated the 9 major league sports teams of the New York Tri-State Area on their level of dysfucntion. The NFL's New York Jets came in at Number 1: The most dysfunctional.

With the firing of head coach Rex Ryan and general manager John Idzik, and their replacements by Todd Bowles and Mike Maccagnan, respectively, I thought that had changed, or, at least, that it had reduced their level of dysfunction.

In the words of the immortal adoptive New Yorker John Lennon, I should've known better.

Yesterday, at preseason training camp, they lost their starting quarterback for 6 to 10 weeks -- through Week 3 of the regular season, possibly to Week 7, and for all we know maybe longer than that -- over a matter of $600. Week 7 (the Jets' 6th game, counting a bye in Week 5) is away to the defending World Champions, the cheating New England Patriots.

This comes at a time when the Patriots will be without their cheating quarterback Tom Brady for the 1st 4 weeks, because he was caught cheating -- possibly giving the Jets, the Miami Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills a much better shot at winning the AFC Eastern Division. In theory.

Knowing the Jets, the Patriots will end up winning all 4 of those games anyway.

(The games are home to Pittsburgh, away to Buffalo, home to Jacksonville and away to Dallas. Even without Brady, all 4 are winnable, although only the Jacksonville game looks, by NFL standards, easy. Still, I wouldn't count on them going 1-3. And, even if they did, they could still win 9 of their last 12, finish 10-6, and still win the AFC East.)

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Based on what's been said thus far, here's the situation:

Eugene Cyril Smith III, better known as Geno Smith, is a 24-year-old quarterback, a native of Miami who grew up in the suburb of Miramar. He went to West Virginia University, and impressed the Jets enough for them to make him their 2nd Round pick in the 2013 NFL Draft.

Desperate for quarterbacks after their failed experiments with Mark Sanchez, Tim Tebow and Michael Vick, the Jets made him their starter in his rookie season. But in his 2 years as a starter, he's been very inconsistent, looking great at times, looking shaky at more of them. He's been booed by the home fans at MetLife Stadium, and many view him as the worst starting quarterback in the League.

Nevertheless, Bowles told him, flat-out, that the starting quarterback's job was his to lose.

Ikemefuna Chindedum Enemkpali, better known as IK Enemkpali -- apparently, like CC Sabathia of the Yankees and the 20th Century American poet who went by "e e cummings,"  he prefers to drop the periods on his initials -- is a 24-year-old linebacker, a native of Texas and a son of Nigerian immigrants, who played at Louisiana Tech, and is now entering his 2nd season with the Jets. He played in only 3 games as a rookie last season. He has a sister, Nneka, who played basketball at the University of Texas, and is now a rookie with the WNBA's Seattle Storm.

While at Louisiana Tech, at age 19, he got into a bar fight. Why he was in a bar at age 19, I don't have that information. A police officer -- apparently not plainclothes, as was first reported, but openly identifying himself as such -- subdued him with pepper spray and a stun gun. Enemkpali punched the cop. He got 13 months' probation and 32 hours of community service. So, above and beyond the rough stuff that is a part of every football play, he has a history of off-field violence.

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Enemkpali, like many other football players do and have done over the years, hosts a Summer football camp for kids in his hometown. He invited Geno Smith, now the Jets' starting quarterback, to be a coach/counselor at this camp. As a courtesy, he even bought Smith a plane ticket, costing $600.

All Enemkpali wanted was for Smith to come to the camp, demonstrate his quarterbacking skills (or his own perception of them) for the kids, and then pay back the $600. That seemed reasonable enough: Smith's contract called for him to be paid $1.2 million last season.

Then a friend of Smith's was killed in a motorcycle accident, and he went to Miami to attend the funeral instead of the camp. This would be understandable, presuming he told Enemkpali why he couldn't come. (As far as we know, that isn't an issue.)

But Enemkpali still wanted his $600 back. Also understandable.

Reasonable men could work that out. To a 21st Century NFL player, especially a starting quarterback for a team representing New York, that's not much money. In the words of the immortal Jackie Gleason (in 1956, at a time when the figure was worth a lot more than it is now), "Six hundred dollars? Peanuts! Peanuts!"

Smith said he would pay it back.

And if hadn't yet gone any further than that, the general public wouldn't even be talking about this, because we almost certainly wouldn't know about it.

As of yesterday, at Jets training camp in East Hanover, Morris County, New Jersey, Smith hadn't yet paid back the money. Why not? At this point, it may no longer matter.

So there was an argument between the two of them in the locker room. Apparently, while Smith never touched Enemkpali, he did point a finger in Enemkpali's face.

Then Enemkpali threw a punch, breaking Smith's jaw.

At first, it was reported as a sucker punch, that Smith couldn't possibly have expected it. Now, it's being reported that Smith did point the finger in, but not on, Enemkpali's face. Not smart, even if the reaction was merely the same.

Bowles screamed at his team afterwards, telling them to, "Act like grown men," and telling the media that the situation was "childish." All-Pro center Nick Mangold called it "bizarre and frustrating." Darrelle Revis, back with the Jets after winning a tainted ring with the Patriots, said both players were responsible for what had happened.

Now, the Jets are hanging their quarterbacking hopes, at least in the short term, on Ryan Fitzpatrick, a 31-year-old Arizonan who went to Harvard -- clearly, he's too smart for the Jets -- and who was named Ivy League Most Valuable Player. In 2004. A decent credential, but not a recent one.

Here's his NFL starting experience: 4 games with the 2005 St. Louis Rams, most of the season with the 2008 Cincinnati Bengals, most of the 2009 through 2012 seasons with the Bills, half the 2013 season with the Tennessee Titans, and the 1st half of 2014 with the Houston Texans before he was demoted.

If you're a Jet fan, are you encouraged?

Well, it's only for 3 games. Or 4. Or 5. Or 6. Or maybe more.

But then Geno comes back...

The job was Geno's to lose. Maybe he's lost it. They say, "Nobody loses a starting job due to injury." Yeah, tell that to Drew Bledsoe of the 2001 Patriots. Or Trent Green of the 1999 Rams. (Both teams went on to win the Super Bowl with their injury replacements.) (UPDATE: Now you can add Carson Wentz of the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles.)

The Jets' dysfunction level was supposed to go down with the end of the Rex-periment. It hasn't.

But then, we're talking about the J, E, T, S, Jets, Jets, Jets here.

If they had never existed, and a Hollywood scriptwriter had written their history and pitched it as a sitcom, no studio would take it. It simply isn't believable.

But it's happened. And, once again, the Jets are New York's favorite situation comedy.

But Jet fans aren't laughing.

New York Head Coaches: The Current, the Longest-Serving, the Shortest-Serving

Today, it was announced that Todd Bowles has been hired as head coach of the New York Jets.

He succeeds the recently-fired Rex Ryan -- who has been hired as head coach of the Buffalo Bills, an AFC Eastern Division opponent. I'll be curious to see how Jet fans react when Rex is introduced as Bills coach at MetLife Stadium next fall.

Who is Todd Bowles? Born November 18, 1963, making him 51 years old. Born and raised in Elizabeth, Union County, New Jersey, making him a local guy. African-American, the 2nd such head coach in the history of New York football, following former Jet coach Herman Edwards, who was also born in New Jersey (while his father, an Army sergeant, was stationed at Fort Monmouth).

Played safety at Temple University in Philadelphia. Played 8 years in the NFL, mostly for the Washington Redskins, including starting 12 games of their 1987 season that resulted in winning Super Bowl XXII. Intercepted 15 passes in his career. Listed as having played at 6-foot-2, 203 pounds.

Worked in the Green Bay Packers' front office, including in their 1996 season that resulted in winning Super Bowl XXXI, meaning he got a 2nd Super Bowl ring. Defensive coordinator at "historically black colleges" Morehouse and Grambling State. This is his 2nd time on the Jet coaching staff, as he was Al Groh's defensive backs coach in 2000. Coached defensive backs for the Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys (under Bill Parcells), Miami Dolphins and Philadelphia Eagles.

Miami's interim head coach in 2011, going 2-1, so, however minimal, he does have NFL head coaching experience. Philadelphia's defensive coordinator in 2012, and the last 2 years, he's held the same post with the Arizona Cardinals, making the Playoffs all 3 seasons.

All in all, there are reasons to like this hiring, and no obvious red flags. The Jets may have gotten this one right. (UPDATE: They didn't, although that was hardly all Bowles' fault.)

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Here are the current head coaches of the 9 major league teams in the New York Tri-State Area, in terms of length of service:

1. New York Giants: Tom Coughlin, 11 years. (2 titles, 2007 and 2011.)
2. New York Yankees: Joe Girardi, 6 years. (1 title, 2009.)
3. New York Islanders: Jack Capuano, 5 years.
4. New York Mets: Terry Collins, 4 years.
5. New York Rangers: Alain Vigneault, 2 years.
6. New York Knicks: Derek Fisher, 3 months.
7. Brooklyn Nets: Lionel Hollins, 2 months.
8. New Jersey Devils: Tri-coaches Lou Lamoriello, Adam Oates and Scott Stevens, 19 days.
9. New York Jets: Todd Bowles, 1 day.

Hard to believe, but Girardi has now lasted longer as Yankee manager than all but 5 human beings who have ever lived: Miller Huggins, Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel, Ralph Houk the 2nd time around, and Joe Torre. Indeed, despite George Steinbrenner living on until 2010, the Yankees have had just 2 managers in the 19 years since November 4, 1995.

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Longest-Serving Head Coaches for the New York Teams

*. New York Giants (baseball): John McGraw, 30 years, 1902-32. 3 titles, 1905, 1921 and 1922.

1. New York Giants: Steve Owen, 23 years, 1931-53. 2 titles, 1934 and 1938. That's Owen in the photo, at the Polo Grounds, between 2 of his Hall of Fame players, Ken Strong (50) and Mel Hein (7).

2. New York Islanders; Al Arbour, 19 years, 1973-86, again 1988-94, and 1 more game in 2007, just to get him to the milestone of 1,500 games as a head coach. (Ted Nolan, the head coach at the time, came up with the idea of stepping aside for that 1 game, and Islander management agreed.) 4 titles, 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1983.

* Brooklyn Dodgers: Wilbert Robinson, 18 years, 1914-31. No titles, but Pennants in 1916 and 1920. Walter Alston was the longest-lasting Dodger manager, 23 years, 1954-76, but only the 1st 4 of those were spent in Brooklyn.

3. New York Yankees: Joe McCarthy, 16 years, 1931-46. 7 titles, 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941 and 1943. Huggins, Stengel and Torre each served 12 years.

4. New York Knicks: Red Holzman, 14 years, 1967-77 and again 1978-82. 2 titles, 1970 and 1973.

5. New York Rangers: Lester Patrick, 13 years, 1926-39. 2 titles, 1928 and 1933. He was also the team's 1st GM, 1926 to 1955, adding a 3rd title in 1940.

6. New York Jets: Weeb Ewbank, 11 years, 1963-73. 1 title, 1968-69.

7. New Jersey Devils: Jacques Lemaire, 7 years, 1993-98, again 2009-10, and again 2010-11 -- the last 2 tenures being interim. 1 title, 1995.

8. New York Mets: Davey Johnson, 7 years, 1984-90. 1 title, 1986.

9. Nets (under any name): Kevin Loughery, 7 years, 1973-80. 2 ABA titles, 1974 and 1976.

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Shortest-Serving Head Coaches for the New York Teams

Note: This excludes interim hires, and, of course, the current head coaches, whose tenures have obviously not yet concluded.

1. New York Giants: Bob Folwell, the team's first head coach, 12 games in 1925. Quarterback Benny Friedman was a player-coach for the last 2 games of the 1930 season, making him the only interim head coach in the G-Men's history.

2. New York Jets: Lou Holtz, 13 games in 1976. He was a great college coach, but, like so many of those, he was a bust in the NFL. Mike Holovak was named interim coach for the last game. Ken Shipp, the year before, was also an interim hire, 5 games. Bowles can avoid being the shortest-serving Jet head coach if he lasts until December 13, 2015 (week 15 of the 2015 NFL season, presuming the Jets have 1 bye).

3. New York Islanders: Earl Ingarfield, 30 games at the end of the 1972-73 season, the team's 1st. Ironically, he was an ex-Ranger. He was not intended as an interim coach, but chose not to return. Good thing for the team that he didn't, as they hired Arbour.

4. New Jersey Devils: Kevin Constantine, the last 31 games of the 2001-02 season. The Devils have had several interim tenures, because -- letting Peter DeBoer stay nearly 2 1/2 seasons until this past December 26 being a notable exception -- Lamoriello, the team's general manager since 1987, has a trigger finger nearly as itchy as Steinbrenner's was. If Lamoriello settles on either Oates or Stevens as a single head coach, I won't count the other as the shortest-tenured even if it ends up being less than 31 games. Whichever it is (or if it's both), he (they) would surpass Constantine on March 14, 2015.

5. New York Rangers: Bernie "Boom-Boom" Geoffrion, 43 games in 1968-69. He was not fired: Instead, he quit because of his health, an ulcer. He recovered, and lived another 37 years. The Rangers have had many interim head coaches who lasted fewer games than that.

6. Nets (under any name): P.J. Carlesimo, 54 games in 2012-13. The Nets have had many interim coaches. Hard to believe their briefest full tenure was not in the period from their 1976 arrival in the NBA and the 2001 arrival of Jason Kidd as a player. Or Kidd's as head coach. Hollins will surpass Carlesimo if he lasts until February 23, 2015.

7. New York Knicks: Don Nelson, 59 games in 1995-96. Twice, Herb Williams has been called on to be interim head coach, for 1 game in 2004 and 43 games in 2005. Fisher will surpass Nelson if he lasts until March 4, 2015.

8. New York Yankees: Bill Dickey, 105 games in 1946. This stat carries a major asterisk, as Steinbrenner made so many managerial changes, it was hard to keep up. The manager intended as regular (as in non-interim) with the shortest individual tenure was Billy Martin, in his 5th and final go-around, 1988, lasting just 68 games; however, Billy managed 941 games from 1975 to 1988, adding up to nearly 6 full seasons. Steinbrenner's  quickest firing at the start of a season was Yogi Berra, 17 games into 1985, leading to Billy's 4th run; however, Yogi had managed the season before, and in 1964. The actual shortest tenure in the Steinbrenner Era (1973-2010) was 1 game, as Dick Howser had to fill in for a game in 1978 after Billy's 1st run ended, and replacement Bob Lemon couldn't get to the game on time; other than that, it was 39, Lemon's 2nd go-around in late 1981 and early 1982.

9. New York Mets: Jeff Torborg, 200 games in 1992-93. Collins has already surpassed him.