We never quite associate July and August with football as lyrically as we do February and March with baseball. There’s no reason for that, right or wrong. Perhaps there are simply more poets (or would-be poets) who turn their pens toward baseball. Hope springing eternal, and all that.
Still, as we grind toward the middle of August, as the preseason schedule heads into full-steam-ahead toward the opening weekend on the second weekend of September, it is unmistakable that there is a heavy football vibe taking over our fair city.
The Mets helped that feeling along by tapping out on their season two weeks ago. Most Yankees fans you talk to are inching toward the same conclusion, as the team keeps losing key players and the math for a playoff run becomes increasingly more complicated. So we are where we are now, which is to say: knee deep in football season.
And when was the last time you could say that, this far out from a season, around here?
The Giants are the ones coming off a playoff season, who generated so many feel-good moments and feel-great hopes for the future. They re-signed their quarterback for big money. They came to an agreement with their star running back, regardless of how reluctantly that might’ve come about.
Even the most overly realistic fan of the Blue — those who anticipate some regression to the mean, or a few growing pains, or a protracted period of adjustment to being the hunted again after a long winter of being the hunters — can’t camouflage how pumped they are.
And they should be pumped.
The Jets? Lord, the Jets. Episode 1 of “Hard Knocks” might’ve been an excruciating bore (and who knew that Ray Donovan was such a Gang Green fanboy?) but that hasn’t halted the Jets’ level of intrigue one bit. The offensive line might keep the team’s coaches up at night — and the coaches might keep more than a few fans up at night — but the fact is there are more Jets hats, Jets T-shirts, Jets gym shirts and Jets windbreakers walking around than there have been in years.
The Jets are now a full decade into a playoff drought, and it feels longer than that because of how many awful, empty seasons have come between then and now. The Jets also have a brutal six-game start to the season before their Week 7 encounter with the Giants, and it’s anyone’s guess what their record is going to look like after an early rush of games against the Bills, Cowboys, Patriots, Chiefs, Broncos and Eagles.
But though the Jets didn’t taste the sweet nectar of postseason last year the way the Giants did, they did play some damn good football across the first 11 games, and they did rouse their fans with hope and promise — however misguided that might’ve felt the way the season ended.
And they did trade for Aaron Rodgers.
And that means that for the first time since, what, 2011 or so, both teams are entering the season believing that they can achieve something epic. That 2011 season proceeded exactly that way for the Giants, and there were hints it might for the Jets, as well, at least until the moment they forgot to tackle Victor Cruz on Christmas Eve.
That can be a dangerous thing as we know — most Jets fans and Giants fans also have a local baseball team they root for, and it feels on Aug. 13 exactly as it did around here on March 13. And that didn’t exactly turn out as expected.
Then again, sports fans have a unique resilience, and that allows for what they feel now, even if it’s against their better judgment. And that’s OK. This? It beats what we’ve had around here for far too many Augusts in a row. Nobody wants to fast-forward through summer. Still, this year, it’s hard to get an old ditty out of your head:
See you in September.
Vac’s Whacks
The first episode of “Winning Time” on Max picked up right where we left it last summer, meaning the week can’t speed by fast enough to get to the next episode.
It’s starting to seem that the Jets might be well served to petition the league to enact the “Three Mississippi” rule in lieu of pass protection to keep Aaron Rodgers upright for 17 games.
When you watch the Mets and the Braves on the same field together, it is fundamentally impossible to remember that these two teams won the exact same number of games only one year ago.
Godspeed, Robbie Robertson, an essential member of one of the most essential bands in the history of music. Take a load off, Fanny.
Whack Back at Vac
Matt Deakin: I feel sorry for Luis Severino. By all accounts, he’s a good guy. Unfortunately all I can think about when he is pitching is Steve Blass. I hope it doesn’t turn out like that.
Vac: The puzzling thing is even in the same games he gets hit hard — sometimes even in the same inning — he’ll throw some of the filthiest pitches you’ll see all day.
Don Reed: The Pac-12 has been abandoned. How is this possible? The colleges and universities are now entering the transfer portals.
Vac: I like what Rick Pitino said this week: Let Power 5 football break off into one big confederation, and let the other sports have their leagues back.
SilasMa60681509: Aaron Boone complains about balls and strikes more than any manager since Bobby Cox. He should just shut up and take his orders from the algorithm.
@MikeVacc: I’m going to guess Jimmy Cannon never fielded a reader response with “algorithm” in it.
Mark DiBernardo: Is it too early to say that Carlos Rodon is evoking memories of “American Idle” Carl Pavano?
Vac: Somewhere, preferably adjacent to a beach or pool, my man George King smiles as he reads this.
