Having Trouble Hating The Jets? You Shouldn't

Even in caricature, Holmes is never without his pipe.

It wasn't quite a letdown that the Steelers didn't end up getting the Patriots in the AFC title game. It was more like a narrative shift. All season it seemed fated that, if the Steelers were going to make it to another Super Bowl, they'd be forced to knock off their non-divisional nemesis in New England.

Then Sunday happened. Now instead of a championship game loaded with the history of two playoff losses, the Steelers are trying to avenge what was ultimately a pretty meaningless late regular season loss.

That said, it's fitting in many ways that the Steelers would have to face Santonio Holmes, the specter of a nightmare Pittsburgh offseason, with a Super Bowl berth on the line. Yeah, the Steelers dealt Holmes for less than he was worth, but it's not as though they did terribly by him. The team could have dealt him to practically any team, even the Bills, yet they allowed him to go to the Jets, another contending team. Perhaps this was stupid on their end. Actually, it was. But Holmes doesn't need to play the victim the way he did before the regular season contest and again this week. 'Tone wasn't much of a factor in Week 15 with six catches for 40 yards, but as know, he's the Jets' greatest threat of producing a huge play outside of Brad Smith, who appears to be ready to play, after all.

Of course, the animosity doesn't begin and end with 'Tone. Braylon was on the losing end to the Steelers long enough to make himself an even bigger asshole now that he's with a contender. Jets fans are maybe only a step down from Philadelphia on the fan mouthbreathing toxicity scale. It was Jets fans, absent of any semblance of self-awareness, who chanted "No means no!" during the Steelers picks at last year's draft. Somehow they didn't pull the same stunt when their team drafted fellow alleged rapist Mark Sanchez in the first round the year before.

If you thought the Jets' gloating outlandish last week, just imagine if the team completed its run through the AFC playoffs. Granted, going through the Colts, Patriots and Steelers would be an impressive run through the top three seeds (and the standard bearers of the conference championship the past seven seasons), that's almost besides the point once one imagines how the New York media would instantly mythologize the feat and proceed to never shut up about it for the next decade and a half. Even if they fell apart in the Super Bowl, we'd never hear the end of it. Better to establish the reputation that, for the Jets, the conference championships are as good as it gets.