The 2012 NFL season began with the New York Jets as the center of attention because of backup quarterback Tim Tebow, and it has ended with the Jets still as the center of attention because of starting QB Mark Sanchez. At 6-8, it’s fair to say that the Jets haven’t had the season that they typically expect, as we’ve come to love those arrogant moments in the offseason when coach Rex Ryan or Sanchez declare that the Jets will win the Super Bowl. But this year there were no cocky declarations, just a trade that brought Tebow to the Big Apple.

Obviously, we’re all wondering why the hell the Jets even traded for Tebow because they’ve barely used him and Ryan has gone out of his way to avoid answering questions about his use in Tony Sparano’s offense. Meanwhile, Sanchez has developed into a parody of a parody on the field, an evolution that culminated with the now-infamous Butt Fumble. And the Jets floated the idea that they’d be willing to trade Sanchez after the season, and the rest of the league just laughed and laughed.

So it’s only fitting that one genius made a blooper reel of the Jets’ season set to “Yakety Sax”. It’s pretty much perfect.

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Back in July, New York Jets receiver Santonio Holmes vented his frustrations with the New York media, telling reporters that he didn’t appreciate how writers had been criticizing his team. Holmes, like many athletes, wrongly believes that the local newspapers should serve more as an ego-stroking PR guide than a non-biased source of information. And while the modern era sports columnist has proven that idea easier said than done, it still shows that athletes aren’t always the best at grasping reality.

Yesterday, Jets linebacker Bart Scott took Holmes’ gripe one step further in an interview with a USA Today reporter after his team laid a 48-28 spanking on the Buffalo Bills and Ryan Fitzpatrick’s Ivy League ass by declaring a “media mutiny”. I assume that’s before he yelled “YARRRRRGH!” and slid down the sails of his galleon with a knife in his teeth.

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In a story that is hopefully already in the process of becoming a Kissing Suzy Kolber skit, New England Patriots tight end, pitch man, folk hero and porn star gronker Rob Gronkowski attended a scheduled public speaking event at the University of Rhode Island and was asked probably the most learned thing a college kid in Rhode Island could ask Rob Gronkowski: “Marry, Eff, Kill: Rex Ryan, Tim Tebow, Betty White?”

Jets head coach Rex Ryan is a pretty obvious “kill” here, because 1) he’s Rex Ryan, 2) Tim Tebow wouldn’t be negatively affected by death because he’s set with The Lord, and 3) Betty White is about to die anyway. Assumedly you’d want to “marry” Betty, because she’s a rich old humanitarian who has managed to remain lovable despite the Internet’s attempts to ruin her, so that leaves Tim Tebow as your “eff”.

So how would that work, exactly? Gronkowski explains:

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"Hey you p*ssies, let me see some tongue!"

With a 2-1 road victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets yesterday, the St. Louis Blues extended their winning streak to 5 games and their 97 points and 45-18-7 record are the tits of the NHL, which means that the bandwagon is starting to get a little crowded. For instance, New York Jets coach Rex Ryan wanted in on the action on Saturday, as the Blues were preparing to whip the moose hide off of Columbus at home.

Rex was in town visiting his brother and radio personality Jim Ryan, and he took a few moments to meet and address the team. While it may seem a little odd, Rex is right at home on the ice, as he and his brothers all played hockey as kids and were goalies, which is the least shocking thing I’ve ever written. As for the Blues, Rex likes the cut of their jib.

“I said, ‘Man, you coach this team like a football team … and that’s the truth,” Ryan said. “He spent a lot of time around football coaches as well. This is my first opportunity to be around a great hockey coach.

“Sport is sport, but you watch this (Blues) team and golly, this is what I want for our football team … everybody buys in. They have one all-star and it’s the backup goalie, and here they are with the best record in hockey.” (Via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Rex was also spotted in a Blues jersey, which means that XXXL continues to be the best-selling jersey size in St. Louis. *rimshot, jiggles tummy*

But the Blues’ success is good news for people who complain that we don’t write enough about hockey, because as long as the Blues are kicking ass, I’m a happy man and there will certainly be more posts about the NHL and its famous players like Sidney Cosby, Alex Ovecktion and Boris Spazrussiankoff, instead of clips of Most Vertical Primate. Haha, okay, we can still include those…

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Elaine, could you just not talk for one minute?

The Peyton Manning “future endeavors” press conference is full of all the awkward man-hugging and loaded questions you’d expect (“what’s your favorite memory?” might as well have been followed by the guy handing Peyton a box of Kleenex), so let’s choose to remember Peyton in Indy the way he’d want us to — with a fan song set to “Desperado” by the Eagles.

Fan songs are a bit of an institution here at With Leather, and while the songs we normally carry are viral pandering or an indescribable kind of awful, this one gets pretty wistful, so don’t be surprised if you catch yourself staring off into the distance.

The only way this could be better is if it cut to a clip of Andrew Luck getting distracted by “Witchy Woman”.

"Hey you, get over here... stay here... please?"

It has already been a pretty big week for the New York Jets, as they’ve been making personnel changes to repair the problems that have kept them from fulfilling head coach Rex Ryan’s wrongly predicted Super Bowl victories before each of the last three seasons. The first move came with the team kindly asking offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to resign, and the second move came as the Jets hired former Miami Dolphins coach Tony Sparano to replace him. As a Dolphins fan, I can only offer a mild “Meh, we’ll see” to that latter move.

Now, though, some players are allegedly speaking out that the problem wasn’t completely in Schottenheimer’s inability to use his offensive weapons, as much as it’s the fault of weapon Numero Uno, QB Mark Sanchez.

“They don’t want to be truthful with him,” one prominent player said of the way that the organization has handled Sanchez. “They treat him like a baby instead of a man. He goes in a hole when someone tells him the truth.”

“So that should tell you everything,” the source said. “He just doesn’t have the mental toughness to be great… especially in New York.”

“They see the organization babying him,” said a Jets source. “They see him with a sense of entitlement. He’s been given all this and hasn’t done anything. They call him ‘San-chise.’ They make him the face of the organization. They gave him the captain tag. He’s not a captain. He should have never been a captain.”

(Via the New York Daily News)

Ah, my favorite type of sources – anonymous. There’s nothing quite like a player calling his teammate a coddled baby and refusing to go on record for it (also check out our cooler older brothers’ take at KSK). But the quotes are out there now for the whole world to see, and that’s all that matters. So how do these anonymous players think the team should handle it? Acquire Peyton Manning, of course.

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