Giants deserve praise over lowly Jets

With just three weeks left in the 2012 National Football League regular season, the New York Jets seemed poised to make a run at the playoffs with an 8-5 record following a three-game win streak. On the other hand, the New York Giants were struggling, just barely stealing their seventh win in a three-point nail-biter against their divisional rivals, the Dallas Cowboys. But fortune changes in the NFL more often than Apple releases new updates for their operating system. The Giants won two of their last three games, finished 9-7 and snuck into the playoffs as a Wild Card while the Jets lost three straight, finished 8-8 and missed the playoffs.

What happened next is the stuff of New York legend: The G-Men beat Atlanta, Green Bay, San Francisco and New England en route to their second Super Bowl victory in five years. The New York Jets and their fans were forced to watch their neighbors parade through Manhattan once again.

Despite all of the wonderful accomplishments of the New York’s representative in the National Football Conference, the downward spiraling Jets still seem to receive much more attention. Throughout the duration of the offseason, all eyes were on the Jets and their new addition, quarterback Tim Tebow. How would their starting quarterback, Mark Sanchez, react to Tebow’s arrival? What did head coach Rex Ryan do to lose all that weight? The only thing more dramatic in the Tri-State area was “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.”

Meanwhile, the Giants were nowhere to be found in the tabloids. No one wanted to interview two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning; no one asked Giants head coach Tom Coughlin how he felt about his Hall of Fame credentials; no one even discussed if the Giants could repeat as Super Bowl champs and become the first team since the Patriots to have anything close to a dynasty.

What do the Giants need to do to earn the media’s attention in New York? Should they go out and get a guy who seems to only polarize fans and journalists, as the Jets did with Sanchez, Tebow and Plaxico Burress? I hope New York’s fanbase will not only concern itself with the trials and tribulations of a team that hasn’t won a Super Bowl since 1968.

The media’s inattention needs to end, and it needs to end soon. I think we can all agree that people have grown tired of the Jets’ quarterback situation, lack of talented wide receivers and running backs and injury issues. They will most likely finish this season below .500 and continue their NFL irrelevance. When that happens, hopefully we can hear about the other team playing in MetLife Stadium for once. Otherwise, we might as well start a new TV show called “The Pretend Football Players of New Jersey” and accept the reality of the situation.

A version of this article appeared in the Tuesday, Oct. 9 print edition. Evan Kendall is a contributing writer. Email him at sports@nyunews.com. 

In the previous version of this article, WSN incorrectly reported that the Jets has not won a Super Bowl since 1969. In fact, it has not won a Super Bowl since 1968. WSN regrets the error.