NEW YORK. When President Donald Trump announced today that he would nominate New York Jets owner Woody Johnson to be U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, he did so in a way that reflected his scrappy “bridge and tunnel” upbringing in the borough of Queens, where the football team had its home for many years.
“Woody’s gonna be great, just great, okay?” Trump said. “He’s gonna go over there and remind them we had a war and they lost, so they’re losers.”
“I tried to give Prince Charles a Jets table lamp, but he turned it down.”
Job number one on Johnson’s diplomatic “to-do” list? “We’re gonna get England to start paying more for their defense, just like I told all those other cheapskate NATO countries,” Trump said. “And nobody knows more about spending money on defense than Woody.”
“$39 million is not too much to pay for a halfway decent cornerback.”
Johnson has a reputation of over-spending on cornerbacks, offering contracts to both Antonio Cromartie and Darrelle Revis that topped $30 million. “I believe that the best offense is a good defense,” Johnson said in what was seen as a shot across the bow of the U.K., which has no cornerbacks according to Jane’s Fighting Ships, an annual reference book on the world’s warships written by a woman named Jane. “When your offense is ranked 26th out of 32 NFL teams, it’s not as if they’re doing any good on the field anyway.”
Revis: “Shit, man. I ain’t playin’ in no NFL Europe.”
The Jets are a semi-professional football team that was banished from New York to New Jersey in 1984, in much the same way that English soccer teams can be “relegated” from the Premier League to the less competitive Football League Division One for poor play. The Jets have remained in exile ever since, giving rise to a “cargo cult” that worships Weeb Ewbank and prays for the return of Joe Namath, a Dionysiac messiah figure who disappeared after making an incomplete pass at sideline reporter Suzy Kolber.
Prince Charles: “So these men–they have corners on their backs?”
Johnson made a courtesy call to Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and heir apparent to the British throne, telling him he was watching a “friendly” match between French Guiana and Curacao, a liqueur. “Nobody can put the damn ball in the net!” Johnson exclaimed. “Why don’t they pick it up and throw a pass fer Christsake!”