Heisman Trophy Perspective

The Heisman Trophy finalists have been announced; and among the quarterbacks who are always included, you can find Ohio St. WR, Marvin Harrison, Jr.  I want to put a bit of perspective around his nomination even though I do not expect him to win the award.  I know this is an award given – nominally – to the best college football player of the year, but I want to begin with this:

• The two best NFL WRs I have ever seen play are Jerry Rice and Randy Moss.

I never saw either Rice or Moss play college football because:

• Randy Moss played for Marshall University at a time when Marshall was a Division 1-AA school.  Not having any connection to Marshall nor living anywhere near Marshall, I was never motivated even to try to find a Marshall game on TV that I might watch.
• Jerry Rice played for Mississippi Valley State, a school in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.  Again, their games never made it to TV status in the Washington DC viewing area.

I have seen Marvin Harrison, Jr. play at Ohio St. at least a half-dozen times and based on those games I will say:

• Marvin Harrison, Jr. is the best college WR that I have ever seen.

Does that mean he should win the Heisman Trophy?  That is for the committee to decide, and I am not on the committee.  Does that mean he will have an NFL career approaching the Hall of Fame accomplishments of Randy Moss or Jerry Rice?  I think he might – – and because I think he might, I would be sure to take him very early in the upcoming NFL Draft.

Having said all the above, I suspect that one of the three QBs named as finalists for this year’s Heisman will win the award.  I have seen those three QBs play and if I had a vote, I would pick Jayden Daniels from LSU as the best of the three..

Switching gears …  The optimism and the attempt to view the NY Jets’ season through rose-colored glasses has come face-to-face with a cruel reality.  The Jets’ hopes for a playoff appearance at the end of this season actually ended in Quarter #1 of Game #1 when Aaron Rodgers was injured and could not play any more this year.  Fans and writers could and did conjure up scenarios whereby the rest of the team steps it up and makes it to the playoffs wherein Aaron Rodgers makes a miraculous recovery and returns to action in the playoffs.

Rodgers himself seems to have bought into that phantasm; he has made oblique statements that can be taken in many ways – – and sometimes with a grain of salt – – about how fast he is recovering and how he might be ready for late-season action.  However, the predicate for any such thinking must be that the Jets would remain a viable playoff contender once December arrived, and that is simply not the case.

The Jets’ record as of this morning is 4-8 meaning if they win out, the best possible record for the Jets is 9-8.  In the AFC, there are 11 teams that have a better record than the Jets have today.  Only 7 teams make the playoffs meaning the Jets would have to climb over 5 other teams that have a head start on them in a race to the playoffs.  Reality says that is not going to happen.

And that bit of reality leads me to beg sportswriters and sports radio hosts to stop with the teaser stories about Aaron Rodgers’ returning to action for the Jets in the 2023 season.  In fact, if the NY Jets are run by even marginally competent managers/coaches, they will not put Aaron Rodgers into an NFL game for the rest of the season.  Remember, Rodgers is under contract with the Jets for next season meaning once he is fully healed, the Jets can approach 2024 with optimism equal to the way the team approached 2023 pre-injury.

• The injury back in September was season-ending.
• An injury that might be incurred by playing in an NFL game before the previous one was fully healed could be career-ending.
• Since there is little to nothing to be gained from a return to action this year, why would Jets’ management take that risk?

Finally, I’ll close today with an observation by Oscar Wilde that just might apply to the way Jets’ fans have looked at the 2023 season:

“When one is in love one always begins by deceiving oneself, and one always ends by deceiving others.  This is what the world calls a romance.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………