NFL Films: NFL 1981, The Giants and Jets Return to The Playoffs

Source:The Daily Post 

1981 was a huge year for New York pro football fans, because it was the year that both of their football franchises woke up from their more than a decade long hibernation. The New York Giants hadn’t made the NFL PLayoffs since 1963 when they lost the NFL Championship to the Chicago Bears. And the New York Jets hadn’t made the playoff AFL or NFL since the NFL-AFL merger of 1970. 

Its one thing to live in a market, a metro area with two pro football franchises, which I do in the Washington-Baltimore Region, but it is another thing to live in a market with two bad pro football franchises, especially if you love football. And not just bad, but to the point every year you know your team isn’t good and won’t even have a winning season mostly likely, let alone make the playoffs. 

And you’re just hoping to see some improvement going into the next season. And that was the Giants and Jets of the 1970s, two of the worst franchises in the NFL and they just happened to represent the same city. Year in and year out in the 1970s for the most part, both the Giants and Jets could be counted on to lose ten games each. And the sixteen game schedule didn’t start until 1978.