NEW YORK--The Jets lost 45-20 to the Raiders on Sunday, falling to 0-2 and looking as bad as everyone predicted before the season. With no light at the end of the tunnel, no talent, and no hope to compete in their division, they still managed to find a silver lining: the fact that everything is impermanent and someday we’ll all be dead.

“Sometimes I get so stressed out about wins and losses,” said quarterback Josh McCown, “but then I just remind myself that someday soon we’ll all be dead and none of this will matter anymore. Look at me. See this body? Someday it will be buried in the ground, then it will be a pile of bones, then dust, then nothing at all. Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? This is the kind of stuff I think about while I'm dropping back to pass.”

“The human life span,” McCown continued, “is a fraction of a fraction of a nanosecond in relation to the whole of the universe. We are nothing. We barely exist. And I’m supposed to get worked up over touchdowns and interceptions? The Raiders were dancing around like idiots today. Do they realize they are all on an inexorable march to the grave that started the day they were born and will not end until they are worm food? Probably not. That’s why I’d rather be me than them. They may win the Super Bowl, but I have the gift of clarity.”

McCown isn’t the only Jets player taking solace in the meaninglessness and impermanence of human existence. It seems his attitude has started to catch on in the locker room.

“Everybody in this locker room, everybody in the visitor’s locker room, all the fans and people watching TV, everybody - everybody - will, in a relatively short amount of time, be dead,” said cornerback Morris Clairborne. “A lot of people are horrified by this thought but I think it’s kind of liberating. All this stuff we stress about? It’s meaningless. We’re a speck of dust on a grain of sand in an infinite, uncaring universe. Pretty cool, huh? Josh McCown taught me all this stuff. I’d say that’s the biggest thing he’s brought to this locker room: existential nihilism.”

This philosophy has permeated the entire organization as the Jets try and grind their way through a season that was written off before it started.

“So what do we have, 14 games left?” coach Todd Bowles asked reporters after the game. “Good lord, I feel like we’ve played half the season already. There is just no end in sight - except for the sweet caress of death, that is. What is it that McCown says? ‘Death and the stillness of death are the only things certain and common to all.’ We've actually adopted that as our official team slogan. It’s not ‘Do your job’, but it works for us.”

Not all Jets players are filled with existential dread, however. At least one player, running back Bilal Powell, has learned to look at the bright side.

“Playing in a situation like this is kind of unbearable,” said Powell. “We stink and everybody knows it, including our own front office, which wants us to stink so they can get the top draft pick next year. So it makes for a long season, and I understand that guys do what they can do get through it. Me, I just think about my family - specifically, how lucky I am to be able to play football and get away from them for a while. In this way, we are all truly blessed.”

 


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Jets Take Solace In Fact That Someday We’ll All Be Dead

September 17, 2017        
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