Rex Ryan hasn't fulfilled his pledge to shake the President's hand and it doesn't sound like President Obama thinks it's going to happen next year, regardless of who is occupying the White House in 2013.
Because there isn't an American citizen who is allowed to go through life without an opinion about the Jets' quarterback situation, President Obama was asked about it during a recent interview. In his answer, Obama seemed about as fond of the move for Tim Tebow as he is of the thought of a Mitt Romney administration.
"I gotta tell you, I don’t like the idea of a quarterback controversy at the start of a season, so if I was a Jets’ fan, I’d be pretty nervous," Obama said. "There’s going to be a lot of tension in that situation, so it’ll be pretty interesting to see how it plays itself out."
Mark Sanchez's visit to the White House for a state dinner seems to have paid off for him. If he could get the Supreme Court to outlaw Tebowmania once and for all, he might actually get people to think of him as the Jets' starting quarterback.
Of course, Obama could just think that it makes more sense to stick with the incumbent than to opt for a candidate whose support is strong among religious conservatives. We are still talking about football, right?
The Jets insist that they are sticking with the incumbent, of course. It doesn't matter how many times they hedge on how much Tebow will play and how many packages of plays they dream up for Tebow on offense, they refuse to say that there's any controversy in Jets camp.
"I'll say this, I respect President Obama and I respect the fact that this is his opinion. That's it," Ryan said, in a moment of rare circumspection. "I'm not taking the layup and all that jazz. That's it."
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We're pretty well through the looking glass when the President of the United States is weighing in on the Jets offense and, frankly, it's hard to come up with anything new to say about a team that seems to be remaking Groundhog Day as a football movie. The Jets act quite confident that everything is going to work out just fine, but you hear a lot of confidence from both presidential candidates right now.
One of them is going to have a rude awakening, although it's likely to pale in comparison to the beating the Jets will take if this grand experiment winds up blowing up in their faces.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.
