Japaneese ?

*****DISCLAIMER NOTE ********
although i often times will doctor a story to make it more interesting....I did not have to change a single word on this one....even I can't make this up.



MIAMI -- Santonio Holmes quit on his teammates. They saw it in his eyes, his body language, and they called him out in the huddle, leading to an ugly exchange between him and right tackle Wayne Hunter.

With one last chance to save their season, Holmes turned Tone Time into Groan Time. The New York Jets’' bust of a season ended with an on-the-field meltdown in the huddle, with players yelling and Holmes having to be restrained from going after Hunter.

This was ugly and embarrassing, even by Jets standards. Holmes was benched for the final two-plus minutes of their 19-17 loss Sunday to the Miami Dolphins at Sun Life Stadium -- one last example of a chemistry experiment gone bad.

"Is it disturbing? It’s been disturbing for a while," guard Brandon Moore said later at his locker, suggesting that dissension has been rearing its ugly head for a lot longer than one bad afternoon in the Florida sunshine.

Pressed, Moore finally said, "I don’t have anything more to say about Santonio."

He said plenty. Other teammates did, too, especially the most respected player in the locker room, future Hall of Famer LaDainian Tomlinson, who unloaded on Holmes. He basically said that Holmes -- a captain, for crying out loud -- shut it down, mentally.

If the U.S. Army had captains like Holmes, we'’d all be speaking Japanese.

Turns out the Jets have a lot more to worry about this offseason than fixing Mark Sanchez and finding a replacement for offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, who almost certainly will be fired or demoted. They have a serious locker-room issue -- or maybe it’s just a Holmes issue.

"Let me just say there were some guys in the huddle that were unhappy with Tone’'s demeanor," Tomlinson said. "When you have a group of guys fighting their butts off and one guy, for whatever reason, their demeanors not with them, you’'re going to get some guys to say something to him and tell him how they feel. That’'s what you got today."

Tomlinson wasn’'t finished.

"It'’s tough for guys to follow a captain that kind of behaves in that manner," he said. "The worst thing that can happen is when teammates start to question your passion. In that huddle, that’'s what you saw. Guys looked at his eyes and he didn’'t have fire in his eyes. Guys were turned off by that. … It was definitely boiling at that point. Guys had had enough."


In the culture of an NFL locker room, it doesn'’t get more stinging than that. Tomlinson'’s words weren'’t that different from what Moore said in October, when he questioned Holmes'’ leadership. That came in response to Holmes’' criticisms of the offensive line. The tension subsided for a couple of months -- winning helped -- but it was always there, simmering.

Let’s be honest: The Jets (8-8) played a horrible game and, even if Holmes had been in the lineup, they probably wouldn'’t have overcome a nine-point deficit in the final 2½ minutes. But that'’s not the point. The point is, Holmes bailed on his teammates at a time when they needed unity.