When his team loses, so do I

^{By Caroline DeLuca}

You can tell a lot about a man by how he handles football season.

Mine? He handles it like it’s a full-time job he never asked for but can’t quit.

Every Sunday is a new emotional performance review and spoiler: the results depend entirely on how the Jets play.

I’ve been with him for three years now and I swear football has been our longest third wheel. Every fall, I forget what peace feels like. The air gets cooler, the leaves change, and suddenly my boyfriend’s entire mood depends on whether a group of men he doesn’t personally know can catch a ball.

It’s the same pattern every week. Friday night, he’s in this giddy, sending me highlight clips from 2010, talking about “potential,” as if history doesn’t exist. Saturday, he’s nervous but hopeful, usually too distracted by college football to worry about the day ahead. And then Sunday hits, and I swear the energy in our apartment changes. There’s this quiet tension that builds the second he turns on the TV.

It’s like living with two boyfriends. There’s Weekday Him: funny, calm, makes coffee for both of us, sends me TikToks of raccoons doing human things. Then there’s Game-Day Him who sits on the couch like he’s been drafted into emotional warfare. He wears the same jersey every week like it’s lucky, even though statistically it’s not. He doesn’t blink for entire quarters.

And I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not. I could trip over a power cord and break my ankle mid-play, and he’d just say “Hold on, babe” until the commercial break.

At first, I thought it was cute. Like, passion! Loyalty! A man who commits! But now I realize it’s closer to a seasonal disorder. From September to January, his mood depends entirely on a scoreboard.

Mind you, the Jets haven’t won ONCE this season. Yet every week, he swears they’re “turning a corner,” like it’s character development. For three hours, he’s pacing, yelling, and coaching imaginary players who can’t hear him. Then the game ends, and he’s a ghost — the same man who was just shouting “let’s go!” now whispering “what’s the point.”

I’ve learned to recognize the signs...

If the game’s on mute, it’s bad.

If he’s circling the living room, it’s worse.

If he starts saying things like “we need to rebuild,” I know I’ve lost him for the night.

And it’s not just game time. The loss bleeds into Monday. He’s quieter than usual. Sighs a lot. Eats cereal standing up. By Thursday, he’s back in full delusion — “Fields is finding his rhythm,” “the defense is elite,” “we just need one win to turn it around.”

I tried to reason with him once. I said, “Babe, it’s just a game.”

He looked at me like I’d just told him his childhood dog died.

“Just a game?” he said. “It’s my team...”

And that’s when I realized: I am not competing with other women. I’m competing with the New York Jets.

There was one Sunday I made the mistake of planning brunch during the game. In my defense, I didn’t know they played at one that day, I thought they were playing at night. But you’d think I’d suggested we sell the TV. He said, “We can’t go then,” in a tone people usually reserve for funerals. So we stayed home. I drank mimosas alone while he argued at the TV because apparently the refs are just always wrong.

At one point I tried to distract him, like, maybe this is an opportunity to bond. Brought over a blanket, tried to cuddle. He flinched. “I can’t focus if you’re touching me right now.”

Cool. My bad. How dare I interfere with this sacred ritual of self-inflicted pain!

Sometimes I think about how peaceful my fall used to be before I met him. I didn’t even know when football season started or ended. Now I know the entire schedule by heart. I know the backup quarterback’s name. I know what a third-down conversion is, unfortunately. And I hate that I know.

But I also kind of love it. Not the losing (duh). But the ritual of it. The way he still believes even when there’s zero reason to. The way he wears that jersey every week like it’s armor. There’s something kind of sweet about it. Naive, but sweet.

Anyway, Go Jets! (please)