The holiday season is about to hit its Christmas crescendo, but today is a very special day folks. Maybe, even more special than all the other days of the season. For today my friends, is Festivus! For those unaware (where have you been since 1997?!) Festivus is a real secular holiday created by author Daniel O’Keefe. The holiday became more widely known following the December 18th, 1997 episode of Seinfeld, The Strike. In the episode, which was co-written by O’Keefe’s son, George Costanza’s father Frank claims to have invented the holiday when Christmas shopping for a doll for his son.

The episode culminates in a Festivus dinner where Frank is joined by George, Elaine, Jerry, George’s boss Mr. Kruger, and clerks from a race book. Frank, played by Jerry Stiller then demonstrates the traditions of the holiday including the Festivus pole, the feats of strength and best of all the airing of grievances. If you haven’t watched it before then I recommend you immediately do that after you read this piece, as today we’re going to air some grievances of our own. These will of course pertain to the New York sports teams so let’s all gather around and share our problems with these people.

Shane Bowen and The Giants D

Grievance – The Most Inept Defense We’ve Seen: I am not a Giants fan, but no one on this putrid unit will escape my wrath this season. The much-hyped Giants defense was riding high on its own preseason supply going into 2025, and then the real games started. Their best skill this season was blowing big leads, perfected in their loss to the Broncos, where they threw away a 26-3 lead on the road. Shane Bowen deserves his share of blame for calling some of the worst defensive games we have seen in a long time, but so do his players. There is Brian “stat padder” Burns, Dexter Lawrence who gave up on being a good player, Kayvon Thibodeaux who we’re still waiting to breakout and rookie Abdul Carter who…well yeah he’s not even awake. Pitiful.

The Home & Away Rangers

Grievance – No Home Cooking: The Rangers are celebrating their centennial season in typically outlandish Rangers fashion. It’s never straight forward with these guys and this season is no exception. If you have watched a road game in 2025 you would preach to the masses that the first title since 1994 is going to be won, this year until you looked at the standings and saw the team hovering around .500 at 18-16-4. This is because they are a very impressive 13-5-1 on the road…now if you can do math, you have figured out that this means they are a lowly 5-10-3 at the World’s Most Famous Arena. Not only have they lost at home, but they also haven’t even scored several times, with five shutouts being posted on Garden ice. Imagine going to the game and spending a small fortune while commuting to and from MSG and not even getting to sing the goal song…tough business.

The Yankee Brain Trust

Grievance – Running it Back: imagine being eliminated in the playoffs for the same reasons over and over again and doing nothing different. Most teams in pro sports wouldn’t dream of doing that, but the Yankees aren’t one of them. They had another up and down regular season, just inconsistent enough to cost them division title. The bombers then followed that up with a postseason of underperformance, epitomized by a lack of lineup depth. But don’t worry, Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman think it’s all one big crap shoot and they just need to get lucky one year! Hope and luck aren’t strategies when your division rivals and the Dodgers are crossing off flaws left and right. No team in town is more in need of a change of leadership and approach more than the Yankees are.

Miserable Devin Williams

Grievance – A Miserable 2025: There is a select group of Yankees in the team’s history that make into the team’s hall of shame for their performance. Devin Williams 2025 work puts him in the elite company of Ed Whitson, Javy Vasquez, Mark Wohlers and many more. He was a bust from just about start to finish, outside of a few stretches of good work, and honestly, I’ve never had less fun watching a pitcher work in a game. He came into this franchise an upended a decades old rule and then moped his way through 162+ games. In perhaps the most shocking move in recent New York baseball history, he decided one miserable summer in New York wasn’t enough, so he signed up for three more with the Mets. I know relief pitching is cyclical, but don’t say I didn’t warn you guys Mets fans.

The Jets…Where to Begin?

Grievance – Being the Jets: Man even for the Jets 2025 was ugly. This team broke camp feeling pretty good about their change in culture. Aaron Glenn and his players even had yours truly believing things may not be so bad. For three quarters against the Steelers in week 1, it looked like they were right to feel good, but then the Jets remembered they were the Jets and fell flat on their face after that. The struggles of this team were not specific to any one player, and it led to the roster being blown up at the trade deadline. They managed to win a few games and the young players on the roster are showing some signs of life, but by and large year one of the Glenn and Mougey regime is a mess. Now the challenge will be pulling this thing together in the offseason at a critical draft.

The Mets…they did it again!

Grievance – Lowering the Bar for a Collapse: 2025 was supposed to be the Mets year and then the Mets happened. Not even Juan Soto’s individual brilliance could save this group from the weight of its own collapse down the stretch as they missed the playoffs entirely. A bad pitching staff, an underachieving lineup and a lack of leadership doomed this group in 2025 and that has led to major changes by the front office. Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, and Edwin Diaz are already gone and there will likely be more to follow before the team arrives in Spring Training. While some of the moves being made are hard to get one’s head around, the full picture has not yet been painted and it’s hard to argue with change being needed.

That does it for our airing of grievances for 2025. Next, we’re going to put Aaron Boone through the feats of strength, his task, being strong enough to tell the truth for once. I hope you all enjoy your holidays with your families, and if you have someone in your life you need to air it out with, go for it, it’s healthy, just make sure you have the pole handy. On twitter you can find Mike @Mike_Sheerin, Tyler @TMon_19 and Sean @SeanMartinNFL. Subscribe to the site by hitting the follow button in the bottom right corner and entering your email address. Check out our Instagram feed @thebroadwaybreakdownsports for special gameday and promotional content. Our podcasts are available on Spotify. Visit the Rangers Ed Shop by clicking the link on our homepage. Check out our mailbag page to join the conversation here on the site and on our partners show, The Rangers Ed Podcast! We’ll be back with more soon.