Is the NFL Screwing the Jets and Some of Its Fans?

So sayeth the Jets' front office and Jewish fans, who are ticked that the NFL elected to schedule home games in New York on the holiest of Jewish holidays -- Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The first game is smack in the middle of the Jewish New Year's holiday, and the latter starts right before the beginning of the Day of Atonement (it's a 4:15 game, and Yom Kippur begins at sundown that night). The Giants, though, are on the road.

This is pretty insensitive of the NFL, as there are lots of Jewish fans in New York. Woody Johnson, the Jets' owner, is trying to reschedule the Jets' game on the eve of Yom Kippur to 1:00 p.m., so that it can end in time for Jewish fans to begin their religious holiday. As for the Rosh Hashanah date, it's unclear what can be done at this point, but the NFL has enough resources and brain power to do the right thing here.

The NFL should be embarrassed by this. It's 2009 already, and the whole world - the working world, the political world, the media world, the sports world -- is sensitized to cultural and religious needs. So why goof in such a blundering way?

The best resolution? Admit your error, reschedule the Yom Kippur game to 1:00 p.m., and juggle the schedule so that the Jets don't have a home game in the middle of Rosh Hashanah. That would be the smart thing to do.