Scott interview becoming legendary

• Recommend0
• Tweet0
• Comments0
• Email
• Print

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. -- As unforgettable as Sunday's live TV version of the rant that made New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott a YouTube sensation this week was, the rest of the team insisted Wednesday to get the full majesty of Scott's bellowing, WWF-like performance, you have to click on the extended play version on YouTube.

That's the one where Scott comes swooping and circling toward the TV camera with his arms extended like airplane wings, slows down for a pinpoint landing on one knee, then remains like that -- stockstill, arms extended, helmet still on -- for an impressive couple of seconds while the fallout and noise following the Jets' playoff upset of New England rages on all around him.

"Hysterical," Jets defensive lineman Trevor Pryce says.

To Jets fans who have waited decades since their last and only Super Bowl championship team, Scott's victory kneel-down was the second-best jet landing the city has seen since the miraculous Captain Sully brought that damaged airplane down on the Hudson River in 2009. What Scott went on to shout for the next 58 seconds was, hands down, perhaps the most memorable postgame purge since Arizona Cardinals coach Dennis Green's classic "They are who we thought they were!" screed after a frustrating 2006 loss to the Chicago Bears.

But Scott's might never have happened if he wasn't in such a magnanimous mood after the Jets' 28-21 win sent them winging into this Sunday's AFC title game in Pittsburgh.

"I was actually over there cussing out the [New England Patriots] mascot, the one with the big chin," Scott explained Wednesday. He recalled "YEAH! Go home and drink some Sam Adams" was among the things he said -- when a Jets' media relations man caught up to Scott and asked, "Can you do a TV interview?"

"Sure," Scott replied.

ESPN's Sal Paolantonio didn't even have to ask Scott an opening question after Scott's one-wheel landing. Scott still had eye-black smeared on his face and a black breathing strip slapped across the bridge of his nose, and he immediately launched into a shout out "TO ALL THE NON-BELIEVERS! TO ALL THE NON-BELIEVERS!" who remembered the Patriots' 45-3 smackdown of the Jets on Dec. 6 and gave the Jets no chance in Foxborough on Sunday.

"ANYBODY CAN BE BEAT!" Scott bellowed.

"FELT GREAT!"

"POETIC JUSTICE!"

He growled that the Jets' third-ranked defense had to hear "CRAP" all week when it was the Patriots who had the league's 25th-ranked defense.

"THEY CAN'T STOP A NOSEBLEED!" Scott roared.

Scott sounded like a drill sergeant from start to finish. His blast-furnance anger never waned. It was so emotional, so loud, so over-the-top honest and, yes, funny.

"He's such a prideful guy, and how can you not love that?" injured Jets safety Jim Leonhard said. By Wednesday's practice, the other Jets were shouting some of Scott's best lines back at him ("FEELS GRRRREAT!") when they passed him in the hallway. The defensive players decided to start breaking its team huddle each play by shouting "CAN'T WAIT!" and they replayed Scott's interview one more time during their meeting.

"'Can't Wait!' is going to be on some T-shirts come the offseason," offensive tackle Wayne Hunter predicted.

Some Jets expressed admiration, too, for how Paolantonio stood his ground when other interviewers might have wilted under the feeling that their face was getting microwaved.

"It was like watching one of those 'Saturday Night Live' skits where they're trying so hard not [to] laugh," Jets defensive tackle Mike DeVito said.

"Bart was certainly expressing a plethora of emotions," agreed Sione Pouha, another Jets defensive tackle.

More From ESPNNewYork.com

Everything you need to know about the Jets' AFC title game matchup can be found here:
Jets Center

Jets blog

Told that was a fine use of the word "plethora," Pouha -- a 325-pounder who wears his long wavy hair in what might be called a modified Polamalu -- smiled and said he's sure Scott has a future in pro wrestling and "I'm hoping to be his tag-team partner."

Smart guy. By midday Wednesday, a check at YouTube.com showed the extended jet-landing version of Scott's interview had gotten 144,941 hits; another labeled "Bart Scott Interview" had 168,938 views, and a third version had been clicked on 104,971 times. At least a dozen other variations were posted, most of them filmed off people's home TVs, that thousands more YouTube visitors watched.

"Bart, you've gone viral," a reporter told Scott Wednesday as Scott kept protesting he was "out of juice" and "on sabbatical" from talking to reporters because Sunday's performance "took a lot out of me."

Scott also tried to beg off by noting he's scheduled to be one of the Jets players at the news conference podium Thursday and he'll say his piece then. The NFL Network is scheduled to carry the session live sometime after 2:30 p.m.

(CAN'T WAIT!)

No matter what Scott says then, even he laughed and agreed it's unlikely to top what he said Sunday. He noted: "Even my wife is teasing me."

"I loved it," Leonhard repeated.

"His best ever," Pryce proclaimed.

"I'm going to take [crap] for this for a long time," Scott sighed.

Johnette Howard is a columnist for ESPNNewYork.com. You can follow her on Twitter.

More from ESPNNewYork.com »

• Recommend0
• Tweet0
• Comments0
• Email
• Print
• Subscribe

Johnette Howard | email

ESPNNewYork.com

• Follow
• Archive

• Columnist, ESPN and ESPNNewYork
• Formerly at Sports Illustrated, The Washington Post
• Author of "The Rivals"