This past Sunday, I made my first visit to Met Life Stadium. To see my long-time team, the New York Jets, host a rival that goes back to the start of the American Football League where both teams began their journey. Buffalo came out a winner in this clash.
I am in my 49th year as a season ticket holder for the Jets. I have seen them play at Shea Stadium in Queens. The Jets shared the facility with baseball’s New York Mets, who had a sweetheart deal with the building’s owner, the City of New York. To preserve the turf and not move the mechanical lower tier seats, no football would be played in the ballpark until the baseball season concluded.
That clause was eventually modified, but the infield dirt would remain in place until at least mid-October or once the Mets finished the post-season. Then sod would be hurriedly put in place to make the field look more like a football field rather than a football field superimposed on a baseball diamond.
The trip to Flushing was onerous—whether it was from Highland Park, Avenel or West Orange—where I lived when the Jets called Shea home. Driving was hellacious, and taking the subway on the interminable 7 train was no pleasurable excursion after taking the bus to the Port Authority Bus Terminal on Eighth Avenue or parking my car on the streets of Midtown Manhattan.
But these were the New York Jets—still somewhat respectable with Richard Todd as the quarterback. And only ten or so years removed from the team’s historic upset win over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
Yet I should have realized that my introductory year at Shea Stadium would have produced a woeful 3-11 record. Maybe that was how the team might trend now that they were full-fledged members of the National Football League.
Another signature moment was the day after I met my future wife. On December 27, 1981, I watched the Jets host the Bills in a noontime Wild Card game. Which they lost 31-27 in excruciating fashion.
Then in 1983, just after we were married, the Jets won big over Cincinnati in the first round, then followed up the road success with a win in Oakland by a score of 17-14. We settled in to watch the AFC Championship game in Miami as newlyweds—only to see hope vanish by a final score of 14-0.
At the end of the 1983 season, the Jets were ready to vacate Queens for New Jersey, where they would become a co-tenant with the New York Giants at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford. I was present for the final Jets game at Shea Stadium—a loss to Pittsburgh when the fans ripped out seats and bleachers along with turf as the game concluded.
The 1984 season gave me tremendous promise, It was close to home—no more treks to Flushing and arriving home at a reasonable hour. Or so I thought.
The traffic pattern to and from the Meadowlands were not made for thousands of automobiles descending onto Route 3 and towards the New Jersey Turnpike. Unless you were prepared to fight your way through drunken and crazed fans—it didn’t matter much if the team had won or lost—you might sit in the parking lot s darkness fell and overwhelmed the area until you could finally make a break for home. When you would hope that the traffic had receded enough to move at a 30 mph clip on the aforementioned highways or the Garden State Parkway.
That 1984 season produced my first home playoff win, as the Jets pounded the Kansas City Chiefs in the Wild Card game. Only to bitterly end the season by losing at Cleveland in double overtime.
From 1984 to 1997, there was only one playoff appearance—a loss at Houston. 1996 might have been the worst year, with a 1-15 record. It was not a ton of fun going to the games during that stretch.
Then there was 1998. Incredibly, this moribund franchise actually finished first in the AFC East, compiling a 12-4 record. The Jets romped over the Jacksonville Jaguars in the Divisional Game. The cold at the game was made bearable by the result.
My euphoria increased when I won a season ticket holder lottery for Super Bowl tickets. The Jets went out to a halftime lead in Denver and I began to think, Florida, here I come as I consulted airline schedules while thinking of how far away I would have to stay to get to the Super Bowl site in Miami.
That’s when my hopes and dreams were crushed. Final score: Denver 23 New York Jets 10. That would be the closest I would ever come to see my team in person playing in the biggest championship game.
I’ve had my heart broken repeatedly by this franchise. The possibility of a domed stadium on the West Side of Manhattan where the Jets would be the sole tenant seemed to be surreal. It never became a reality due to the greed of politicians and the angst over the facility from community groups protecting the area, and MSG head James Dolan’s not wanting any competition from events merely blocks away from his building.
The Jets experienced much success in the early part of this century. An AFC East crown in 2002. A pair of trips to the AFC Championship game—losses. The last loss—in Pittsburgh in 2011 to end the 2010 season, was the last playoff game this franchise has seen.
There hasn’t been a home playoff game since 2002 when the Indianapolis Colts were shut out by a score of 41-0. That’s 22 seasons since I last attended a playoff game. I have never seen an AFC title game in any of the three stadiums the Jets have called home in this 49 year span. Let me repeat that: NEVER have I seen an AFC champion crowned in person.
Of course there have been plenty of players and coaches whom I have liked. And maybe more whom I have never liked. Yet one of them has found the winning combination to even make it back to the Super Bowl after Joe Willie Namath boasted how his team was going to defeat the big, bad Colts from the NFL.
I’ve had to put up with the superiority in New England during the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick years. As philanthropic as the owners of the Patriots are, I cannot stand to see the Kraft family gloating over another Super Bowl win or Belichick ’s smugness and I don’t see hope through the leadership of Jets owner Woody Johnson.
Home games are in a sterile facility which does not have a roof because the cost would have been astronomical and the partners—Jets, Giants and New Jersey—couldn’t agree to that kind of expenditure without greater promise of recouping the money with Super Bowls and other events. Additionally,, there was the misplaced belief that the cold weather would favor the home teams in the late season and playoffs; a fallacy if I ever heard one. Why is it that all new stadiums seem to be designed with roofs? Kansas City, Chicago, Washington and Cleveland all have unveiled plans where games can be played inside when the weather isn’t cooperative or cold.
I thought this might be a promising year with a new head coach (former Jets DB Aaron Glenn) and new management. Plus acquiring the young QB Pittsburgh jettisoned (Justin Fields) to upgrade the offense.
However, a part of me worried that if I selected the season opener versus Pittsburgh, where former QB Aaron Rodgers landed, the Jets would find a way to lose. Which they did.
So I took the second game—against a seasoned Buffalo team which hungers for an AFC title and a Super Bowl win. With the Bills eking out a late win over Baltimore, another AFC powerhouse, it made me foolishly think that the Jets could be competitive last Sunday.
Dumb thought there. I should have known better. This a franchise which has compiled a 445-572-8 all-time record. The playoff record is 12-13.
While NYJ was flat on Sunday, Buffalo converted its opportunities.
Fan X, a loyal Jets fan like me, muttered about how there was no spark. He asked me when was the last time we saw the Jets win, given that we always go to an early season game (I think it was in 2017).
So here I am, holding onto what could prove to be worthless (and expensive) tickets for a number of remaining games, now that Fields suffered a concussion in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s debacle. At least I didn’t choose to see the team play Denver in London on October 11, nor did I buy a seat license anywhere in the stadium. That is money better not spent. On the Jets.
I want to see the team play on the road once—maybe this year or next. Because I am looking for closure as 50 years of being a season ticket holder fast approaches and I won’t want to schlepp to East Rutherford as I age and trips will be that much more difficult.
Do I want the chance to freeze for an AFC title? Yes. But unless there is a dramatic change in the culture in Florham Park, it isn’t going to happen as soon as I would like.
I will be watching on Sunday when the team visits Tampa and old NYJ head coach Todd Bowles, a genuinely nice man whom I root for. QB Baker Mayfield won a game his team shouldn’t have won on Monday night in Houston. The odds aren’t in the Jets favor with backup QB Tyrone Taylor under center.
I will take it one game at a time. Even if, besides Buffalo, the AFC East is a weaker division and the chances to win are ever present.
I may have become accustomed to losing. I never said I liked it. I will wear my hats, jerseys, T shirts and continue to root for the Green and White. Maybe, after all of these years, I still haven’t realized that there are better things to do on a Sunday…Thursday…or Monday night in the Summer, Fall and into the cold weather.
Unfortunately, such is the lot of a true Jets fan.
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