Content warning: This article contains mentions of suicide.
There are a lot of dysfunctional, disastrous and downright depressing teams in the world of athletics. These are teams that always find themselves with high draft picks that become busts, miss the playoffs year after year and just as a wave of optimism appears, still seem to encounter the most unfortunate of events. The Colorado Rockies, Oakland Athletics, Charlotte Hornets and Cleveland Browns all sit among the pyramid of sports misery, but there is one unlucky team that lies above them all … the New York Jets.
To truly understand the painstakingly long and sad history of the Jets, we need to go all the way back to the beginning. The Jets were founded in 1959 and quickly made their first Super Bowl, beating the Indianapolis Colts 16–7 at the end of the 1968–69 season. And, 56 years later, they have yet to make it back to the championship game for a chance at the Lombardi trophy. Jets fans who remember the sweet taste of victory are probably in their late 60s. Super Bowl MVP Joe Namath, meanwhile, is in his early 80s. Needless to say, it has been a while since the Jets have seen success.
Since their first Super Bowl win, they have only had 17 seasons with a winning record and have only won the division three times. To put that in perspective, their division rivals, the New England Patriots, have had 20 winning seasons, won the division 17 times and won six Super Bowls since the year 2000. Yes, the Patriots had arguably the best quarterback and coach of all time with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick at the helm, but it shows that sustained success in the NFL comes from stability, something the Jets have clearly lacked.
What separates the Jets from the aforementioned and other similarly tragic franchises is the amount of public attention they receive in pop culture. At the end of the day, nobody cares about the Buffalo Sabres; even owner Terry Pegula puts most of, if not all, of his attention towards the Buffalo Bills. The Jets don’t get the privilege of being overlooked. Playing in a major market with a dejected yet loyal fanbase keeps the Jets in the spotlight, making them an easy target for ridicule in popular media. One example of this mockery is former late-night host David Letterman, who frequently used the Jets as comedic material on his show, often featuring them in his famous “Top Ten” lists. Among his best jokes was the “Top Ten questions on the Jets’ head coach application,” which included the memorable line, “Are you bothered by 70,000 people chanting, ‘You suck?’” Another came from the “Top Ten ways President Clinton has fun in New York City,” which included, “Goes to Jets game, laughs his ass off.”
Similarly, comedian and lifelong Jets fan Larry David wrote an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in which his friend Carl kills himself out of long-term frustration with being a Jets fan. In Carl’s suicide note, he writes, “I can’t take any more disappointment,” after a fictional season-ending injury to Jets running back Le’evon Bell is announced. Carl’s wife, in the show, also mentions, “The Jets ruined our marriage.” This is brutal media coverage, to say the least, and the repeated gut punches in mainstream media make being a Jets fan—rather than being a forgotten Jaguars fan (sorry, Jacksonville, it’s true)—an even more painful experience than already is.
Maybe the mainstream media is too harsh. The Jets haven’t done everything wrong. While they clearly have some problems, recently they have operated like any successful team should. Over the past few years, the Jets have objectively done well in the draft, a pathway to success for teams like the Philadelphia Eagles, Kansas City Chiefs and Detroit Lions. The Zach Wilson pick was a bust — there’s no way around it — but aside from that miss, the Jets have added real talent. In 2022, they nailed their first four picks, getting two-time All-Pro Sauce Gardner, Rookie of the Year Garett Wilson, one-time Pro Bowler Jermaine Johnson and Breece Hall, who is an above-average starting running back. In 2019, they drafted one-time All-Pro and three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, and in 2017, they selected Jamal Adams, who made two Pro Bowls and an All-Pro team in his first three years with the Jets before being traded to Seattle. The Jets seem to have found pockets of talent recently but have just failed to turn that into success on the field.
In April 2023, it seemed like their luck had finally turned around. The Jets traded for future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers. After missing heavily on the Wilson pick, New York had finally found the quarterback who was supposed to take them back to the Super Bowl. With talent to surround him, the Jets entered the season with the seventh-highest odds to win the Super Bowl despite going 7–10 the year prior, showcasing just how promising Rodgers’ stint in New York was predicted to be.
After the Week 1 game, it was finally the time for the Jets to shine against the Bills, who had come to MetLife Stadium for Monday Night Football. With 12:30 remaining in the first quarter, Rodgers took the field for the first time in the green and white. On their first offensive play of the game, Breece Hall exploded for a 26-yard rush, but from there, it all went downhill. After just three plays, Rodgers was sacked and tore his Achilles tendon. Just like that, with 11 minutes and 32 seconds left in the first quarter of the season opener, it was already over. The sad part is that Jets fans weren’t even surprised; having their hearts ripped out yet again was simply par for the course.
The Rodgers injury felt eerily similar to another pitiful letdown in Jets history. In 1999, the Jets entered the season tied for the fourth-best odds to win the Super Bowl. With quarterback Vinny Testaverde in control, the Jets were a strong preseason contender, having gone 12–4 the year before, topped the AFC East and won a round in the playoffs. In the first game of the year, the Jets hosted the Patriots, with hopes high for what was expected to be a great season. Unlike Rodgers, Testaverde made it through the first quarter, but halfway through the second quarter, Testaverde handed the ball off to Hall of Fame running back Curtis Martin and, untouched by any member of the Patriots defense, Testaverde went down, grabbing his left leg. Testaverde had torn his Achilles tendon, leaving him out for the year. Testaverde walked so Rodgers could run (well, not literally), and the cursed record of the Jets found a way to repeat itself in a strikingly similar manner decades later.
Are the Jets cursed? Is there a supernatural force deliberately torturing Gang Green? Is any of this deserved? When it comes to injuries, I have to chalk that up to bad luck, although owner Woody Johnson has surely done his part to add to the hardship. In 2024, Johnson reportedly vetoed a trade for wide receiver Jerry Jeudy because his video game rating on “Madden” was too low. Jeudy was then traded to the Browns, where he had 1,052 receiving yards, landing him fifth in the NFL. Johnson has also been known to use the opinions of his teenage sons to influence decisions. While some of the Jets’ problems are purely unfortunate, their owner has done little to put them in a position to succeed.
With the NFL trade deadline passing on Tuesday, the previously mentioned homegrown All-Pros Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams were traded for a haul of first- and second-round picks amid the Jets’ 2–7 season record. These moves officially signaled that the Jets will enter a rebuild once again. But was anything ever really built in the first place?
In the coming years, the Jets will probably look to find their next franchise quarterback through the draft. To whoever that lucky guy turns out to be, I have two pieces of advice: Protect your Achilles while you can, and get the hell out of New York as fast as possible. Just look at the career trajectories of former Jets quarterbacks Sam Darnold and Geno Smith once they left. In the end, it’s never the players who fail — it’s the Jets who always find a way to make failure inevitable. And that’s what truly makes them the saddest team in sports.
