When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way

Unless the first two home games take place during the High Holy Days.

According to the NFL schedule, which was announced with such bravado and pride earlier in the week, the Green-and-White will host their division rival, the New England Patriots on Sept. 20 — the second day of Rosh Hashana. If that’s not bad enough for Jets fans, they should skip the next sentence.  The Sept. 27 contest — a 4:15 affair at home against the Tennessee Titans — is erev Yom Kippur.

Jets Chair and CEO, Robert Wood Johnson IV, dispatched an angry letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about the fiasco.

“I understand the challenges and complexities associated with creating the NFL schedule each year,” he wrote in the letter dated April 16. “However, I am extremely disappointed with the League’s decision to schedule us to play at home on consecutive Sundays that are in direct conflict with the Jewish High Holy Days.

“There has long been an understanding that neither the Jets nor the Giants fans should have to bear completely the brunt of this issue since we are in the largest Jewish market in the country.”

Johnson the team is “flexible and would have been more than happy to work with the League to accommodate as many of our fans as possible” and suggested switching the Sept. 27 starting time to 1 p.m. “This would give our Jewish fans the opportunity to arrive at home before sundown for Yom Kippur.”

In an item on the Daily News website, Howard Katz (not wanting to assume anything but !!!), the NFL’s senior vice president of broadcasting and the man with the responsibility of overseeing the creation of said schedule, made a mea culpa, kind of. “There was a miscommunication between the Jets and the NFL office, for which I take full responsibility.”

The Daily News article includes an on-line poll asking readers if NFL teams should take religious holidays into account when making their schedules. The choices are:

• Yes. They have to be respectful of their season ticket holders.
• No. Football teams play every Sunday. What can they do?
• If the holiday is so important, then the Jewish fans shouldn’t be worrying about football.
• I don’t care. I’m an atheist.

Can you imagine the reaction of the first person on the Jets to notice this? A colleague of mine suggested this would be a no-brainer if Sandy Koufax was the Jets quarterback.

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Kaplan’s Korner on Jews and Sports © 2009 New Jersey Jewish News

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