It's a good thing Charles Dickens wasn't enlisted to cover our games for the Radar last season. For one, guys who have shuffled off this mortal coil a century before don't really blog as well as you might think. For another, what kind of drama was he going to add to the way things unfolded — "It was the best of times, it was the best of times"? I mean, seriously.
Things have been going pretty well since Rex rode into town — -two straight appearances in the AFC Championship Game, lots of wins and highlights, and a new home to boot. All things to make any Jets fan, myself included, let out an unbridled "Well, all right!" when looking back.
That said, the 2010 season can be split into two halves in my mind, not because the win-loss record changed so much after a certain number of games but more because a good thing got even better when wideout Santonio Holmes got into the mix.
Rex's teams had a rotating bunch of players cast in the role of hero each week. Some weeks it was the defense as a whole keeping things close enough to eke out the "W." For a few games, it was Dwight Lowery stepping in as the man of the hour, pick-sixing Brett Favre to seal one win, recovering a fumble to seal another.
For the early part of the campaign, it seemed like Braylon Edwards, Jerricho Cotchery and Dustin Keller caught everything tossed their way. After four games, though, Holmes hit the lineup running, jumping and practically willing the ball into his own hands to set up the overtime win in Detroit and encoring that with an OT TD at Cleveland the following week. Both on the road. Clearly, these are not your daddy's Jets, unless of course, he's watching them with you now.
All of this makes my job easier, with lots of fun photos to snap while all this unfolds. Randy and I had an idea to give you a nice highlight reel of cool still moments, and that's where the job suddenly got hard: How to pare it down? So we said why try? We've decided to make two slideshows for you, so the attached is the first installment. In a few weeks, we will give you Part 2. (Spoiler alert: It kicks off with another dramatic TD by No. 10 to beat Houston at home in the final minute and keeps rolling right through the playoffs!)
Two-parter? Maybe this Dickens fellow could've worked with it after all. Enjoy!
