Is there anything Jets fans do not — under any circumstance — want to see when the Jets play the Bears on Monday night at MetLife Stadium more than Santonio Holmes catching a game-winning touchdown pass for Chicago, then spilling into his silly, taunting “fly boys’’ jet airplane celebration in the end zone?
There isn’t a potential scenario more difficult to stomach for Jets fans, who still are queasy from Sunday’s bizarre timeout snafu in Green Bay, where their team blew an 18-point lead and accidentally negated its own game-tying TD in the waning minutes with an ill-timed timeout just before the snap.
So the last thing the Jets and their fans need now is to see Holmes — whose lack of production with the Jets because of injuries and his selfish, divisive presence in the locker room played such a significant role in the team’s recent demise — rubbing it in their faces by making some big plays on the national stage.
Come up with a more insulting scenario to this game and you win a door prize.
Because he is such a player-friendly coach who never publicly rips players, it was not surprising to hear Jets coach Rex Ryan attempt to compliment Holmes while speaking to Chicago media on a conference call Wednesday, describing reports of Holmes as a disruptive locker room presence as “totally untrue’’ and “a joke.’’
It was, however, disappointing to listen to Ryan paint Holmes as such a terrific teammate, he would make Mother Teresa look like a diva.
Because that’s a lie.
Holmes was a headache and a handful for Ryan and the Jets — so much so, they collectively exhaled when he finally was released in the offseason.
Sure, Holmes, who was signed by the Bears last month and is their third receiver, helped win some games for the Jets in 2010, with several game-winning catches. But for all those big TDs in 2010, Holmes went on to alienate his own quarterback, Mark Sanchez, call out the offensive line, and became such a virus inside the locker room, he became the reason why Ryan no longer has in-season team captains.
Ryan took the calculated risk after the 2010 season to name Holmes as one of his captains — his players-coach way of giving the moody Holmes ownership in the team. What Ryan did not calculate properly is that selfish players cannot be leaders.
So it all blew up in Ryan’s face when Holmes started sniping at Sanchez, blaming everyone else on the team, pouting about not being thrown enough passes and — in his most dubious moment as a Jet — getting kicked out of the offensive huddle by his own teammates in the final moments of the Jets’ 2011 season finale in Miami.
The following year, Ryan was so exasperated by Holmes’ lame act as a captain that he opted for the one-guy-ruined-it-for-everyone approach and said he would no longer have in-season captains, instead naming certain players as game-day captains on a weekly basis.
The 31 other NFL teams have designated in-season captains. The Jets do not.
Sadly, that is as much Holmes’ legacy as a Jet as his electrifying 2010 season that seduced team management into signing him to that ill-advised five-year, $45 million contract extension, which became an albatross the past three years (he ended up collecting $25 million of that contract while delivering just 84 catches and 10 TDs).
A couple of Holmes’ former Jets receiver teammates on Wednesday made him sound like a contradiction.
Jeremy Kerley said Holmes “was a mentor to me.’’
David Nelson recalled Holmes staying after practice with him after the Jets signed him in midseason to help him learn the game plan and watch film.
“The feeling I got from him was he was extremely frustrated,’’ Nelson said. “Physically, he was frustrated because he couldn’t play, and I think he felt that he was getting a bad rap. He felt like he was doing his job and people were trying to get him onto the field faster than he felt ready and he didn’t feel right. He was definitely a very guarded person.’’
Ryan waffled on Wednesday while addressing the New York media about Holmes, insisting he believed “’Tone meant well.’’
Ryan said it was “not necessarily true’’ he opted to eliminate captains because of the disastrous failed Holmes experiment.
“It’s not because of him,’’ Ryan said before adding, “Look, it might not have been a great selection or whatever …’’
That drew laughs from the room, but it was the most seriously honest thing Ryan said about Holmes all day.