What if the New York Jets weren't the New York Jets? What if Rex Ryan's green rogues were instead a beacon of humility—a soft-spoken franchise that didn't crow, didn't chirp, didn't predict Super Bowls, didn't crudely curse their opponents, didn't thunder at every slight real or imagined, didn't celebrate victories by running around with their arms outstretched like Boeing wings, and weren't led by a loud coach fond of distilling a team sport into a narcissistic revenge fantasy?

It wouldn't be the same. It would be gracious. It would also be totally boring.

Let's curb all the cheap, easy moralizing about the Despicable Jets. Time to end the caterwauling about the End of Sports Civility and the theatrical hand-wringing about the pristine sensibilities of young fans. Let's stop leaving a copy of John Wooden's "Pyramid of Success" on Mr. Ryan's bedside table and hoping he'll transmogrify into the genteel Wizard of Westwood. Call off the town-meeting intervention with Tony Dungy, Coach K and Miss Manners. The pitchfork parade of Jets haters, so eager to see Earth's Most Obnoxious Team get a comeuppance, has officially become prissy, joyless and soooo last week.

In a swaggering rebuke, the Jets backed their big talk on Sunday, shocking the New England Patriots, 28-21, in a game not nearly as close as that final score. Confirmed loon Mr. Ryan outcoached confirmed genius Bill Belichick, the earthbound Mark Sanchez out-quarterbacked the otherworldly Tom Brady, and the "Same Old Jets" will leave their Meadowlands garage apartment for a second consecutive AFC Championship game. The Great Jets Comeuppance is postponed—at least until Sunday in Pittsburgh. The wild-card Jets are the NFL guest that won't leave—propping a pair of muddy cleats up on Roger Goodell's coffee table, belching loudly and asking what's left in the fridge.

Surely there are those who will continue the high-minded crusade against the Jets. No doubt Mr. Ryan and his men do and say foolish things, but there has been something misplaced and overbaked about the outrage. This is football, after all—cartoonish, violent, excessive entertainment. It's a multibillion-dollar sport with high-tech gimmicks that still has old men reaching into their socks to pull out red kerchiefs to stop play. It's supported by beer commercials that depict men as 13-year-old half-wits and women as appendages. It has Tony Siragusa and Ron Jaworski and Chris Berman. It's goofy. It's not church.