ESNY Festivus 2025: Grievances for each local NY team

It’s December 23rd which means it’s the best actual day of the holiday season: Festivus.

It doesn’t matter that Seinfeld has been off the air for almost 30 years. Frank Costanza’s cranky, rambly, curmudgeonly “holiday” that serves no point except to….stroke some old rando’s ego? Either way, it’s hilarious. People in the greater Tri-State area love it, especially this time of year when football season is disappointing yet again.

Circumstances last year led us to make the call that it probably wasn’t the right call to do Festivus last year, so we’re making up for it in 2025. Set up the aluminum pole, stretch yourselves out for the feats of strength. And now, without further ado:

So for the airing of grievances, let’s start with the usual suspects.

New York Jets. Do we even need to say it again? The first year of Aaron Glenn might have saved itself from being a complete and utter disaster, but Christ on toast, man. How can it be that Chad Pennington was the team’s last actual homegrown franchise QB?

Justin Fields isn’t it and the first overall pick is out of the question. Both the Raiders and Giants have fewer wins. That means Fernando Mendoza isn’t driving up I-95 from Miami to come to the rescue. The Jets have no choice but to ace the draft next year but knowing them?

They won’t. J-E-T-S? Gross, gross, gross.

New York Giants. Where do we even begin here? Russell Wilson played until now-former coach Brian Daboll couldn’t justify playing him anymore. Jaxson Dart can’t play without getting hurt, and Cam Skattebo’s gnarly knee injury seems like one that could affect him the rest of his career. Rookie Abdul Carter is busy falling asleep in team meetings instead of showing up as an elite pass-rusher drafted third overall.

Mike Kafka has to be the most toothless interim head coach in recent memory. And save any pie-in-the-sky ideas about Bill Belichick coming back to the NFL. He’s 73 years old, never drafted anything well besides O-Line and defensive backs, and forget Jordan Hudson being a distraction. The man went 4-8 and thinks the solution is to hire Bobby Petrino away from Arkansas as his offensive coordinator.

Petrino has enough baggage of his own, and Arkansas was 2-10 in 2025. Whether it’s Mike McCarthy or someone else in the big chair next year, Big Blue is down bad.

Brooklyn Nets. For the umpteenth time, go back to Jersey. The Rock is a better basketball venue than Barclays anyway. Watching old clips of the Nets lose in consecutive NBA Finals in 2002 and ’03 is more entertaining than tuning into a game today.

New York Rangers. It’s the same goddamn thing almost every season. Rangers have a couple of good players and a handful of OK guys. They stumble their way to a mediocre record and also somehow have the best goaltender in the world on their team.

Well, guess what? Igor Shesterkin isn’t winning as much as his predecessor Henrik Lundqvist and is visibly unhappy with his team’s performance. As he should be. The Rangers are tied with the St. Louis Blues as the worst-scoring team in the NHL and, per usual, continue to be professional hockey’s Boston Red Sox (pre-2004).

New York Islanders. We get it. Matthew Schaefer is the reigning No. 1 pick and he’s pretty good. Your team is still barely better than the Rangers in a Metropolitan Division that’s up for grabs.

Long Island also sucks.

New York Knicks. Basketball-wise? Everything’s fine! No notes, especially after winning the NBA Cup. Firing Tom Thibodeau and leveling up to Mike Brown was a great decision and Jalen Brunson is making an early case for MVP.

But otherwise? Guys, these MSG prices. Seriously? Between price of admission, concessions, and the MTA’s continual price-gouging, going to a Knicks or Rangers game shouldn’t cost half of someone’s rent money.

New York Yankees. Please. For the love of God. Could we have just one season where the team doesn’t completely flatline for almost half the summer? I swear, there’s always one stretch where the Bronx Bombers swing noodle bats.

Also, hiding Anthony Volpe’s fairly serious shoulder injury the whole year? Not cool.

New York Mets. Guys. Y’all know what you did. You can’t make such a big grand show of poaching Juan Soto from the Yankees on a record contract and then miss the playoffs on the last day of the season. Worse yet, this offseason has gone about as badly as imagined for a team in desperate need of pitching.

Not even making Pete Alonso an offer before he signed with the Orioles? Subbing out Edwin Diaz with Devin Williams? Trading Jeff McNeil to the A’s and basically confirming reports of clubhouse drama?

Steve Cohen can play George Steinbrenner with his checkbook all he wants, but it still doesn’t change the story. Brand new owner, same old Mets.

And with that, it is now time for…the feats of strength! Festivus isn’t over until someone gets pinned.

Giants general manager Joe Schoen…STEP UP.