I always feel like I want to like and root for the Jets. As a Giants fan, I've never considered them rivals, just the other local team. It's not like Rangers/Devils playing in the same division and hating each other. But every time I feel like I want to support them, the Jets fans always have to rub it in about the Giants. It's like a local inferiority complex. The moment the Jets drafted Darnold it became about the Jets getting the QB for the future while the Giants squandered their future (instead of it just being about the Jets, it has to be a comparison). It became about shoving it down the Giants throat and that got even louder after week 1. I'm pretty happy to have watched the end of last nights game and watched all my Jets fans stfu in my group chat with my friends. I don't think it means Darnold won't have a great future with the Jets, just put their fan base down to ground a little bit at least with regards to rubbing it into Giants fans.
Funny enough, most of my Giants hate comes from a lot of the asshole Giants fans I’ve had to deal with. When the Jets were actually one of the top teams in the league from 2009-2010, all of the Giants fans I knew were trying to say it was a fluke meanwhile the Giants didn’t even make the playoffs those two years. It was so frustrating to have people say my team’s success was invalid, and then when the Giants went on to win the Super Bowl the next season, my frustration turned into pure hatred because those fans were able to throw it in my face even more. After that, I simply cannot root for the Giants unless they’re playing the Patriots. The Jets-Giants dynamic is very similar to the Yankees-Mets dynamic. Yankees fans don’t hate the Mets because they have no reason to. But for Mets fans, the Yankees represent everything that their team isn’t. The Yankees are successful and their fan base is massive and far reaching so there’s no escaping the constant reminder that your team’s history is one of failure. It goes even further with the Jets, because for a long time, we had to watch our team play in GIANTS stadium, creating a feeling that the Giants essentially owned the Jets, and watching the Giants win four Super Bowls while enduring Rich Kotite, the Broncos scoring 23 unanswered points in the 1998 AFC title game, Bill Belichick’s unceremonious resignation and subsequent success with our biggest rival, the Steelers converting on 3rd and 6 in the 2010 AFC title game, the infamous butt fumble, the Geno Smith era, and many other moments of ineptitude and heartbreak...well it leads to anger and jealousy. Being a Jets fan is rough, and watching the Giants fans around us enjoy their team’s general success while rubbing it in our faces makes it so much worse.