New York Jets

New York Jets, American professional football team based in Florham Park, New Jersey, that plays in the National Football League (NFL). Behind the play of future Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath, the Jets won a historic upset in the 1969 Super Bowl over the Baltimore Colts. The Jets share a home stadium with the New York Giants in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

(Read Walter Camp’s 1903 Britannica essay on inventing American football.)

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It was established in 1960 as one of the founding teams of the upstart American Football League (AFL) and was known as the Titans until 1963, when the name was changed to reflect the team’s new home in Shea Stadium, which was close to LaGuardia Airport. The franchise was marred by financial struggles and athletic mediocrity as it competed with the older Giants franchise in the New York market. One of the lone bright spots in the team’s early years was wide receiver Don Maynard, who joined the team in its inaugural season and would set most major receiving records during the course of his Hall of Fame career. In 1963 the newly renamed Jets hired head coach Weeb Ewbank (who had guided the Colts to championships in the late 1950s) and in 1965 acquired Namath, which marked the beginning of the team’s move to respectability. Known as “Broadway Joe,” the famed quarterback had good looks and engaged in late-night partying that won him both adoring fans and commercial endorsements. Namath’s swagger was most memorably on display when, in the week before the 1969 Super Bowl, he guaranteed a victory over the heavily favoured Colts of the NFL, which was widely considered to be the superior professional football league and had easily taken the first two Super Bowls. Namath made good on his promise as the Jets defeated the Colts, 16–7. The Jets’ victory showed that the two leagues were on an equal footing, helping to ease owners’ concerns prior to the 1970 NFL-AFL merger.

Namath was waived in 1977 after a long play-off drought that began in 1970. Led by a fierce defensive line nicknamed the “New York Sack Exchange,” the Jets returned to the postseason in 1981 and advanced to the American Football Conference (AFC) championship game the following year. The Jets were intermittently successful throughout the remainder of the 1980s and the early 1990s, but the team experienced its greatest extended period of success beginning in 1998. That season ended with the Jets—led by coach Bill Parcells (who had earlier led the New York Giants to two Super Bowl victories) and featuring running back Curtis Martin and wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson—losing to the Denver Broncos in the 1999 AFC championship game. The Jets qualified for the play-offs in four of the following eight seasons, but they never truly contended in the highly competitive AFC.

In the summer of 2008 the Jets traded for former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre in hopes of improving the club’s fortunes, but after a 9–7 season, which was not good enough to qualify the team for the postseason, Favre left the Jets and a new coaching regime was brought in. In 2009, under new head coach Rex Ryan, the Jets repeated their 9–7 record from the previous season but this time advanced to the play-offs, where they won two road contests before ultimately falling to the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC championship game. The following season, the Jets again posted upset road victories in the first two rounds of the play-offs, but the team lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC championship game. The Jets’ successful run ended the next season, and the team posted a losing record in 2012. The team’s woes continued over the following two seasons, and both Ryan and the team’s general manager were fired in 2014. New York bounced back to win 10 games in 2015 but failed to qualify for the postseason. The team then returned to the bottom of its division in 2016.