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New York Jets facts for kids
| New York Jets | |||||
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| Established 1959 First season: 1960 |
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| League/conference affiliations | |||||
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American Football League (1960–1969)
National Football League (1970–present)
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Current uniform
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| Team colors |
Green, White |
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| Personnel | |||||
| Owner(s) | Woody Johnson | ||||
| Chairman | Woody Johnson | ||||
| CEO | Woody Johnson | ||||
| President | Neil Glat | ||||
| General manager | Mike Maccagnan | ||||
| Head coach | Todd Bowles | ||||
| Team history | |||||
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| Team nicknames | |||||
| Gang Green | |||||
| Championships | |||||
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League championships (1)†
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| Conference championships (0) | |||||
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Division championships (4)
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| † - Does not include the AFL or NFL championships won during the same seasons as the AFL-NFL Super Bowl championships prior to the 1970 AFL-NFL Merger | |||||
| Playoff appearances (14) | |||||
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The New York Jets are a professional American football team located in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team is headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey. In a unique arrangement for the league, the Jets share MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey with the New York Giants. The franchise is legally and corporately registered as New York Jets, LLC.
The team was founded in 1959 as the Titans of New York, an original member of the American Football League (AFL); later, the franchise joined the NFL in the AFL–NFL merger in 1970. The team began to play in 1960 at the Polo Grounds. Under new ownership, the current name was adopted in 1963 and the franchise moved to Shea Stadium in 1964 and then to the Meadowlands Sports Complex in 1984. The Jets advanced to the playoffs for the first time in 1968 and went on to compete in Super Bowl III where they defeated the Baltimore Colts, becoming the first AFL team to defeat an NFL club in an AFL-NFL World Championship Game. Since 1968, the Jets have appeared in the playoffs 13 times, and in the AFC Championship Game four times, most recently losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2010. However, the Jets have never returned to the Super Bowl, making them one of three NFL teams to win their lone Super Bowl appearance, along with the New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The team's training facility, Atlantic Health Jets Training Center, which opened in 2008, is located in Florham Park. The team currently holds their annual training camp sessions on the campus of the State University of New York at Cortland in Cortland, New York while holding occasional sessions at the Florham Park complex.
Franchise history
The first organizational meeting of the American Football League took place on August 14, 1959. Harry Wismer, representing the city of New York at the meeting, proclaimed the state was ready for another professional football team and that he was more than capable of running the daily operations. Wismer was granted the charter franchise later dubbed the Titans of New York as Wismer explained, "Titans are bigger and stronger than Giants." He secured the Titans' home field at the decrepit Polo Grounds, where the team struggled financially and on the field during its first three years. By 1962, the debt continued to mount for Wismer, forcing the AFL to assume the costs of the team until season's end.
A five-man syndicate, headed by Sonny Werblin, saved the team from certain bankruptcy, purchasing the lowly Titans for $1 million. Werblin renamed the team the New York Jets since the team would play in Shea Stadium near LaGuardia Airport. The new name was intended to reflect the modern approach of his team. The Jets' owners hired Weeb Ewbank as the general manager and head coach. Ewbank and quarterback Joe Namath led the Jets to prominence in 1969, when New York defeated the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III and solidified the AFL's position in the world of professional football.
When the AFL and NFL merged, the team fell into a state of mediocrity along with their star quarterback, Namath, who only had three successful post-merger seasons after injuries hampered much of his career. The Jets continued to spiral downward before enjoying a string of successes in the 1980s, which included an appearance in the 1982 AFC Championship Game, and the emergence of the popular New York Sack Exchange.
The early 1990s saw New York struggling. After firing coach Bruce Coslet, owner Leon Hess hired Pete Carroll who struggled to a 6–10 record and was promptly fired at the end of the season. Thereafter, Rich Kotite was selected to lead the team to victory; instead he led the Jets to a 4–28 record over the next two years. Kotite stepped down at the end of his second season forcing the Jets to search for a new head coach.
Hess lured then-disgruntled New England Patriots head coach Bill Parcells to New York in 1997. Parcells led the team back to relevance and coached them to the AFC Championship Game in 1998. Hess died in 1999 while the team, plagued by injuries, produced an eight win record, falling short of a playoff berth. At the end of the season, Parcells stepped down as head coach deferring control to his assistant, Bill Belichick; Belichick resigned the very next day (leaving a napkin at the stage for his introduction, on which he had written "I resign as HC of the NYJ") and went on to accept the head coaching position with the Patriots.
The franchise obtained a new owner in Woody Johnson in 2000. Additionally, through the 2000s the Jets visited the playoffs five times, a franchise record, under the direction of three different coaches. Rex Ryan was hired in January 2009. Ryan led the team to back-to-back AFC Championship appearances during his first two years but the team never made the playoffs again during his tenure.
Images for kids
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JetBlue honors the NY Jets with its green plane
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Map of radio affiliates