On January 16 2011 the New York Jets defeated the New England Patriots to advance to their
second consecutive AFC Championship game.
Becoming the first team in NFL history to win back to back road playoff games in back
to back seasons.
This cinderella story all started two years prior, on January 19, 2009 when the Jets hired
first time head coach, Rex Ryan.
Three months later, Rex got his signal caller when the Jets traded up in the 2009 draft
and selected USC’s Mark Sanchez with the 5th overall pick.
With the jets 7-7 in his first season, rex proclaimed they were eliminated from playoff
contention.
Two weeks later, I imagine much to Rex’s surprise, the Jets clinched a wild card spot
with a win over the Bengals.
A Bengals team they then defeated again in the wild card to advance to the Divisional
round.
Early in the 4th quarter, against the Chargers, Mark Sanchez hit tight end, Dustin Keller,
to take the lead.
Endzone.
Caught.
Touchdown!
The Jets sealed their win with a 53 yard touchdown run by Shonn Greene.
The backup running back behind aging workhorse, Thomas Jones.
There goes Shonn Greene.
Touchdown!
Despite an early lead in the AFC Championship game thanks to an 80 yard touchdown pass to
Braylon Edwards, New York fell to the Colts.
But they’d be back.
In the offseason, the Jets were the subject of HBO’s Hard Knocks, where the world was
truly introduced to the charismatic, bombastic, Rex Ryan.
He even took the time to write “soon to be champs” on the training camp bus.
A prediction he stuck to for the season.
Adding fuel to the hype fire, the Jets signed Hall of Fame running back, Ladanian Tomlinson,
replacing Thomas Jones who signed with the Chiefs in free agency.
They’re ground and pound offense paired with one of the best defenses in the league,
led by the best corner in the league, Darelle Revis, propelled the Jets to an 11-5 record
in 2010.
A game winning field goal, by Nick Folk, as time expired in the wild card sent the Jets
to Foxborough to face the Patriots in the divisional round.
A touchdown pass in the corner of the endzone to Santonio Holmes and a 16 yard touchdown
run by Shonn Greene helped the Jets secure a 28-21 win and a date with the Pittsburgh
Steelers in the AFC championship game.
This team surprised everyone the last couple years and were hell bent on making their first
Super Bowl appearance since 1969.
They didn’t.
The AFC championship was immediately terrible for New York.
Rex Ryan deferred after winning the coin toss and handed the ball to Ben Roethlisberger
who led Pittsburgh down the field on a nine minute drive that ended with a 7 - 0 lead
for the Steelers.
This Mark Sanchez sack fumble gave Pittsburgh a 24 - 0 lead in the waning minutes of the
first half, all but drowning the hopes and dreams of a fanbase married to the physical
embodiment of disappointment.
The Jets did their best to make it a game, they scored 19 unanswered points and held
the Steelers scoreless in the second half but the hole was too big to fill.
Rex Ryan’s crew was headed home without a ticket to the big game.
In the offseason, Braylon Edwards, the team leader in receiving yards and touchdowns left
in free agency.
To sure up their passing attack, New York signed Plaxico Burress, who was making his
NFL comeback following a self shooting incident at a nightclub in 2008.
Burress proved to be a very solid addition to the team and contributed immediately, scoring
in the teams first game of the season en route to a win over the Cowboys.
But even though most starters returned in 2011, this was not the same team.
With LaDanian Tomlinson in the twilight of his career, Shonn Greene was handed starting
running back duties.
He played well but in no way did he make up for Tomlinson’s now limited usage.
With the two headed running attack now a one and a half headed ground game, the Jets had
to place more on the shoulders of their third year quarterback.
They shouldn’t have.
Sitting at 8 - 5, with control over their own playoff destiny, the Jets entered a week
15 matchup against the Eagles.
The first touchdown of the game came off a Santonio Holmes fumble returned 47 yards and
really set the tone.
Sanchez, taking Holmes’ lead, threw two picks and lost a fumble on the way to demoralizing
45 - 19 loss in a game that really mattered.
The following week, Sanchez had a bit of deja vu, and once again threw two interceptions
and lost a fumble against a Giants team also playing for their playoff hopes.
Entering week 17, the Jets needed a lot of things to happen in order to make it back
to the playoffs.
But perhaps the most difficult of them all was winning a football game.
Frustrations hit a boiling point and in the final minutes of the game, team leader and
top wideout, Santonio Holmes mentally quit on the team.
He began arguing with teammates in the huddle before ultimately being pulled by an assistant
coach.
Rex claimed that Holmes took himself out of the game, but that’s only because he wasn’t
aware of what was going on.
The Jets finished the season 8-8 and missed the playoffs.
They then did the only reasonable thing they could.
They traded for Tim Tebow.
The Jets were already a bit of a circus but when they brought the QB in as competition
for Sanchez they turned their little circus into the cirque du soleil of the football
media world.
But instead of awe inspiring acrobatics, they just played football poorly.
The season was engulfed in quarterback controversy talk and the looming threat of Tebow shattered
Sanchez’s confidence as fans chanted for Tebow anytime Sanchez made a mistake.
Which was often.
To make matters worse, Revis, the crown jewel of the defense, entered the 2012 season openly
unhappy with his contract.
This lead to a lot of uneasy feelings amongst fans, who worshipped the island he put his
opponents on.
Then in week 3, he tore his ACL.
He was traded to Tampa Bay in the offseason.
But really, the 2012 Jets season can be summed up in one play.
In week 12, on Thanksgiving in primetime, the Jets faced off against the rival Patriots.
With nine minutes remaining in the first half, down 14-0, Mark Sanchez set a new low for
the entire franchise.
I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life.
The butt fumble as it would come to be known, replaced back to back AFC championship appearances
as the defining moment of the Rex Ryan, Mark Sanchez era of Jets football.
It was so bad that fireman Ed, the Jets self-proclaimed mascot retired in the middle of the game.
After this video you can watch me deep dive the butt fumble in an episode of Rewinder.
But first, lets see if the Jets were able to turn things around.
Spoiler, they weren’t.
The following week, Sanchez threw three interceptions which finally prompted Rex to make a change.
With Tebow inactive with broken ribs, the Jets trotted out Greg McElroy to finish the
game.
And in his first career game, McElroy threw a game winning touchdown, inching by the Cardinals
7-6.
Sanchez was back under center the next week, and with a win over the Jags, there was still
a glimmer of playoff hope wrapping its arms around the slowly rotting corpse of gang green.
The following week, the Jets had the ball deep in Titans territory, in the fourth quarter,
down only four.
Prime timing for Sanchez’s fourth interception.
They’d get another shot only to watch him fumble away the ball and the season.
That’s the way this game should end, that’s the way the Jets season should end.
Ugly!
The Jets slank their way into the offseason with a 6-10 record, prompting change.
On December 31, 2012 they fired GM Mike Tannenbaum.
He was replaced by former Seahawks executive, John Idzik.
Tight end Dustin Keller, Mark Sanchez’s safety blanket, signed with the Dolphins as
a free agent and starting running back Shonn Greene inked a three year deal with the Titans.
But Rex Ryan?
New York wasn’t quite done with him yet.
Idzik and Ryan pulled the trigger on west virginia QB, Geno Smith in the second round
of the 2013 draft and felt confident that this time, the quarterback competition would
be beneficial.
But they never really got a chance to see how it played out.
Rex made the mind numbing decision to send Sanchez out in the 4th quarter of a meaningless
week 3 preseason game behind a practice squad offense line.
On his second drive, Sanchez took a hit that resulted in a season ending injury to his
throwing shoulder.
The 2013 season now laid squarely on the shoulders of rookie QB Geno Smith.
And it worked out!
Until it didn’t.
Running back Chris Ivory, signed in the offseason, breathed life back into the Jets ground game
alongside 2011 draft pick and emerging talent, Bilal Powell.
With a running back and a solid defense, the Jets showed flashes of promise.
Following a win over the Saints, the Jets entered their bye week with a 5-4 record.
Fans once again felt the gentle embrace of hope.
But the smartest among them knew what would come next.
They lost their next three games as Geno Smith threw six interceptions and zero touchdowns.
The last of this three game stretch was a week 13 matchup against the Dolphins in which
Smith was benched for Matt Simms.
Smith exited the game with a passer rating of 8.3.
That’s bad.
But it could be worse.
Smith had trouble putting two consecutive good games together and his up and down performance
led to an up and down season for the Jets.
They were eliminated from playoff contention following a week 15 loss to the Panthers and
once again finished the season 8-8.
Santonio Holmes, who missed most of the 2012 season with a lisfranc fracture, returned
in 2013 with lackluster results.
He was released in March of 2014.
March also brought an end to an era.
Three years after quarterbacking the Jets to their second consecutive AFC championship
game, the man once dubbed Sanchize for his franchise quarterback potential, was released.
To replace the now vacant qb roster spot, the Jets signed veteran Michael Vick.
He would back up Geno Smith.
As for Rex Ryan, despite another season of turmoil and disappointment, he was given yet
another chance as it was announced that he would return for the 2014 season.
GM John Idzik was holding onto 12 draft picks in the 2014 draft and planned to plug the
teams holes and set Ryan up for success.
Those draft picks would go on to be known as the Idzik twelve.
As in, holy shit Idzik, how do you fuck up twelve times.
To be fair, it was more like eleven times as sixth round wideout, Quincy Enunwa would
go on to be a serviceable receiver for the Jets.
But he was the only player from that draft to still be on the team by 2019 and eight
of those twelve were out of the NFL entirely by 2018.
Many people expected the Jets to use the truck load of picks to trade up in the draft and
Rex Ryan even lobbied Idzik to trade up to select an LSU receiver by the name of Odell
Beckham Jr.
But no, one by one John Idzik threw the picks into a pit of despair while the fanbase gathered
around and screamed into the abyss.
There was hope surrounding first round pick, Calvin Pryor but he failed to live up to the
hype.
Third round pick, Dexter Mcdougle never really got his chance to prove himself after tearing
his ACL in the preseason.
But the most egregious of those picks came in the 4th round, where they selected two
wide receivers.
The first was Jalen Saunders who made one reception in his NFL career, as a member of
the Saints.
Their second pick of the round was Shaq Evans who never played a regular season NFL game.
My personal favorite, however, was 6th round pick Ik Enemkpali, who was released in 2015
after breaking Geno Smith’s jaw over a $600 debt.
Anyway, after a week one win over the Raiders to start the 2014 season, Geno Smith finally
found some consistency, losing six straight heading into a week eight match up against
the Bills.
It was here that Geno threw two completions to his teammates and three completions to
the opposing team, in the first quarter.
He was benched with a passer rating of zero.
Zero.
Mike Vick finished the game and pushed the losing streak to seven before then starting
the following week and extending the streak to eight.
They finally notched a win in week ten and entered their bye with a 2 - 8 record.
After their bye week, Vick lasted three quarters before Rex decided to give Smith another shot.
They lost some more games and then in week 17 Geno Smith posted a perfect passer rating
in a win over the Dolphins because why the hell not.
The Jets finished with a 4-12 record, the worst under Rex Ryan, who was finally fired
despite the team collectively lobbying in his favor.
The joy and excitement of those AFC Championship game appearances felt as far away as Namath’s
Super Bowl win in 1969.
The Jets had become the laughing stock of the NFL, partially unwarranted.
When they were good, they were everything you want from a football team.
A loud, charismatic, no bull shit Head Coach and an underdog team writing a cinderella
story with smash mouth defense and a young gun quarterback.
But in the end it was all a joke.
A fan base starved for success was shown a bright light, and as they stared longingly
at its beauty with open arms, they forgot for a moment, that they were standing in the
middle of the new jersey turnpike and that sound wasn’t cheering it was a blaring horn
shouting warnings at the delusional people standing in the middle of
the road.