New York Jets

As the Mets are to the Yankees, and the Knicks are to…well, the Knicks, so the New York Jets are to the New York Giants. The poor old Jets have taken a lot of stick over the years. Heard the one about their only Super Bowl photograph existing in black-and-white? How about the one about how they’re the only jets in the world that never touch down? Or then there’s the one about the Jets being unable, like the Post Office, to deliver on Sundays. It is always a strange thing to be the second team of a city, sort of a younger brother to an older and (much) more successful sibling. And yet it all could have been so much different (perhaps). After winning Super Bowl III 16-7 over the Baltimore Colts in 1968, many expected the New York Jets to soar to the heights of the new amalgamated NFL when it began two years later. Instead, they remained grounded, failing to make the playoffs until 1981 (to be fair, this was also the first year after 1970’s AFL-NFL merger that their cross-town big brothers, the Giants, qualified for the postseason). The Jets were promptly dumped out of the playoffs by the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Wild Card, but returned the following season to best the Cincinnati Bengals and Oakland Raiders before being blanked by the Miami Dolphins in the AFC Championship game 14-0. The Jets have returned to the AFC Championship three times since, in 1998, 2009, and 2010, but have proven unable to surmount this final obstacle to a much-awaited Super Bowl return (much-awaited for the few who can still remember 1968), falling to the Denver Broncos, Indianapolis Colts and Pittsburgh Steelers. Recent years have been particularly miserable for Jets fans, with the team unable to get back into the playoffs since that last AFC Championship challenge in 2010. Will the Jets ever be able to throw off the black sheep mantle that their city seems to have thrown upon them? If they ever do, it will be quite the story.