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Keidel: Jets Made A Huge Mistake Getting Harvin, And Will Pay For It In The End

By Jason Keidel
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Little did we know the Jets migrated from the NFL to the WBC.

Percy Harvin, the middleweight champ of pro football, is now a New York Jet. And it's beautiful.

No doubt you wondered why the Super Bowl champions traded their most gifted receiver. But the Jets didn't. No doubt you were worried about reports that Harvin went Mike Tyson on his teammates. But the Jets weren't. No doubt you pondered the reality that if a sound Seattle locker room couldn't keep Harvin from using his friends as heavy bags, how could a fractured lot like Gang Green appease him? But the Jets didn't.

We can parse the particulars and go all Jimmy Johnson on the value of players versus picks. And no one who has ever seen Harvin run with a football questions his exotic talent. But that's not the point.

It speaks to the Jets' eternal addiction to drama.

Didn't you wonder why my beloved black & gold gave you Santonio Holmes -- a newly-minted Super Bowl MVP -- for a MetroCard? Jets fans rejoiced, drooled over all the touchdown catches and Kodak moments that he would deliver.

And he did. For about five games. But the last snapshot of Holmes will be that meltdown in Miami. It was an infantile tantrum in the huddle in which he blasted Mark Sanchez and then squatted on the pine while his teammates tried to soldier on.

Forget how this begins with Harvin, because everyone is at their Sunday-school best in the beginning of any relationship. Remember those ethereal days with your ex when you held hands, smooched and flaunted all forms of public affection? A year later you sleep facing opposite directions; you can't even stand to hear each other breathe.

The report that sealed it was the one involving Russell Wilson. Does he look like he's looking for a fight? Wilson has kept his college spirit for as long as we've known of him, his cornball "Go Hawks!" mantra punctuating every interview. If Harvin will pick a fight with a selfless soul like Wilson, then he's cursed beyond repair.

Wilson, like the other Seahawks, belched their scripted platitudes about wishing Harvin luck and how blessed they were to be with such a transcendent talent. But you could practically see their fingers and toes crossed when they faked all those pastoral recollections.

I'm tempted to turn this into a tangent on the halfway house that Urban Meyer ran at Florida. But we'll keep it to Gang Green, whose arms are always open for orphans. It's a home for the eternally damaged, a football freak show of the highest order.

This is all alleged, of course -- the classic proviso of pro sports. Alleged. Maybe none of this happened. Maybe Harvin is an innocent bystander run over by rumor, roadkill on the information superhighway. Sure. Doug Baldwin already admitted to a scuffle with Harvin but downplayed its import.

And there's a certain symbolism to getting Harvin as a holiday (or Halloween) gift from Pete Carroll, who wasn't good enough to coach the Jets but was gifted enough to build two empires, first at USC and then in Seattle.

The Jets don't cast out talent lightly. They hurl it with great abandon. Harvin is quite talented. But it appears he's even more tormented. And that's probably the part the Jets find more appealing, no matter how appalling.

Follow Jason on Twitter @JasonKeidel

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