This was the moment Jerry Jones could have cleaned the slate on his reputation as a brilliant businessman, Foghorn Leghorn tribune act, mirror addict and gaseous faildad, and as you may have guessed given his résumé, he duffed it. We all had such high hopes for him too.
In order, Jones flipped off New York Jets fans who were heckling him after his Dallas Cowboys dumpstered the Jets, 37-22, on Sunday. Then the NFL, a gaggle of billionaires that Jones largely steers, decided to fine him $250,000 for flipping off said fans. This is the standard fine for this sort of thing as established 16 years ago, when Tennessee Titans owner Bud Adams flipped off Buffalo Bills fans from his suite during a 41-17 Titans victory; it is, for the record, $50,000 less than what Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper got dinged for throwing a drink at Jacksonville Jaguars fans during a 26-0 beating two years ago. Then Jones decided for some reason to say he never meant to flip off Jets fans, and in fact was trying to make his hands form a celebratory thumbs-up when the bird was accidentally released. Worst of all, he is appealing the fine.
This tells us that Jones wants all the perks that naturally accrue to the brutish thick-necked oligarch, while still being considered the benign uncle who gives Christmas gifts to the kids right before he falls asleep in the easy chair after dinner, with his belt unbuckled due to all that turkey and taters. That should not be a surprise to those who know him, and even those who mock him.
Still, we see the appeal and say: No. No, a thousand times. If you're going to be crass in the shame-free contemporary world, you absolutely can, but you have to really step into it. You can't say, "Sorry, but my hands no longer obey my commands. Forgive me my dextrous shortcomings." You have to say instead, "It was worth it, and I'm doing it again right now. My only regret is that I do not have multiple arms with which to flip off those slackjawed troglodytes eight-fold. And yeah, that would absolutely be worth a million-dollar fine. I'd pull the cash out of my limo's glove compartment, packing-tape it to a cinderblock, and mail it to Roger, COD. I mean, these are Jets fans, for Christ's sake. How do they not deserve it? They're lucky we don't get to spray hot tar at them ... hey, wait a minute. There's an idea." And so on like that until the job is done.
Now that would be food for thought. Not the hot tar cannon, mind you. That seems a disproportionate response even to the events of the day. But Jets fans catching grief for being loudly and visibly Jets fans? It's hard to argue against that as a concept, on principle or in practice. They operate in defeat as Adams did in victory, which is to say boorishly; they alone in this seem to know where they are, which is in a world in which whatever awful thing you do matters less than how committed you are to doing it, and inhabiting that role. Are you willing to drop your pants while doing it? Then you might be on the right track, if not actually right. If nothing else, you will be Fireman Ed.
This brings us to the one great under-addressed sociopathy in sports—the tribal fixation of the favorite team. As abusive social relations go, there are few as comprehensively one-sided as having a favorite team, especially a bad one. Think of the money required to sustain this relationship and the acceptance of brazenly extortionate tactics to obtain it, the one-way emotional investments, the willingness to accept humiliation and even abandonment in the name of some misplaced and entirely optional loyalty, the all-around pseudoreligious iconography involved in worshiping said team—well, despite all of that, we get it completely. We don't think it is objectively bad to have a team to care about, but it is definitely a sucker's play, and the fans are the ones on the lolly stick. All the evidence is that the teams we purport to love not only do not reciprocate, but view us as spittoons with wallets. Their sole contact to you is the poor marketing clot who calls to badger you about season ticket renewals. Take that as a sign.
It’s a fine thing to have a hobby, and letting the Jets drive you into profound mental illness surely qualifies there. But we would as a society be far better off if we got over the idea of blind loyalty to the teams we adopt, and actually treated them like the megacorporations they purport to be. Owners like Jones, or the squabblesome Johnson clan that owns the Jets, are useful in this regard—if a team can feel like something worth caring about, the presence of owners, all petty and venal and tacky, is a reminder that this is fundamentally a matter of a rich person leasing you the right to play with one of their toys for a few hours, at a usurious rate.
It’s not a deal anyone has to take. If your team is not offering acceptable entertainment, walk. Don't buy their hoodies, tickets, or bullshit. Make them earn the significance you've been giving them for free. Don't mock the empty seat; credit the person who decided not to fill it as being a savvy and self-respecting consumer. The only teams worth loving unapologetically are defunct because they can't rob you of your money, time, or dignity anymore. Everyone else should have to operate on the sliding scale we apply to all other entertainments—be good, or be gone. Have a favorite player, absolutely. A favorite team? Make it conditional, and set your own tolerance rate at "stunningly low." A favorite team you love without exception? You may as well tattoo a kick-me sign to your forehead.
Which brings us back to the Jets. We don't have to tell you about their history, although having the worst record in the NFL over the last nine-and-a-half years is a helpful reminder of what they've been shoveling at you all this time. They are currently 0-5 in every imaginable way, and have lost not just to Jones’s Cowboys but the even more deeply dire Dolphins. Why is that not cause to cover your Jets paraphernalia with brown overcoats and masking tape and reclaim your Sundays for anything else? Why is that not proof that you should keep to yourself, head down, wearing a balaclava, shuffling quietly toward your ride and regretting your life choices all the way back to your parents sticking you with this mutated legacy of disgrace? Who would be proud to keep taking this, and why wear that pride in front of the guy who just paid for the work of the people who kicked your collective hinder? Friends, you are yelling at the wrong team's owner.
We know why. We already covered it. As for Jerry, here's hoping there is a way to make the fine actually hurt. Here's hoping Goodell comes out and says, "Actually, we're making it $15 million and two draft choices for trying to weasel out of a gesture that 1) you actually made, 2) actually meant, and 3) should have owned. You're a loathsome billionaire with the ethics and habits of a polecat who fancies himself a better human being because he tripped over some oil, and a football expert despite all the contraindicating evidence. Act like it, and here’s your bill."
And Jets fans? Knowing as we do that giving advice to Jets fans is screaming into a dumpster, it would still them better to vent your various spleens privately until your team is worth your notice. And if Gayle Benson flips you off after you lose to New Orleans in December to go to 1-14, recognize that game knows game, and acknowledge that your misplaced loyalties will have earned you every withered and disobedient septuagenarian finger that’s aimed your way.
