Jets-Giants smells worse than New Jersey Turnpike

The battle of New York has turned into a pillow fight between two of the NFL’s worst franchises as the Jets and Giants have set competent football back at least 25 years.

Even though they play their games in New Jersey, the New York Giants and New York Jets are the football franchises that represent the country’s biggest city. Neither one has done a very good job of it, with the teams entering their matchup on Sunday as two of the worst franchises in the past decade.

There have been some memorable battles between the Jets and Giants over the years, including the Christmas Eve contest in 2011 that will be best known as the Victor Cruz game. Cruz scored the game-breaking touchdown for the Giants, escaping a tackle and racing the sideline for a 99-yard score to turn the tide for both teams that year.

The Jets would end up missing the playoffs in 2011, a year after going to consecutive AFC Championship games under Rex Ryan, while the Giants went on to win the Super Bowl. Since then, however, neither team has done much of anything for the rest of the decade.

The Giants went 9-7 and missed the playoffs in 2012, and since then they have posted only one winning season, going 11-5 in 2016 that led to a wild card berth. That performance was clearly a fluke as the Giants have gone just 10-31 since then, with Ben McAdoo and Jerry Reese giving way to Pat Shurmur and Dave Gettleman, who have arguably run the franchise into the ground with poor roster-building decisions.

Case in point? The Odell Beckham fiasco. New York signed the star receiver to a big extension only for Gettleman to ship him out of town a year later. However, the Giants have at least been competitive at points this season, which is more than their neighbors at MetLife Stadium can say.

That Cruz touchdown dash altered the course of the Jets’ franchise, which has not returned to the postseason since losing to Pittsburgh in the 2010 AFC Championship Game. The Jets have been a model of instability, as they are on their fourth general manager and third head coach since 2011, a sign that ownership doesn’t have enough patience to execute a vision or pick the right people to lead the franchise forward.

That ineptitude has been compounded by astoundingly bad drafting, as the combination of Mike Tannenbaum, John Idzik, and Mike Maccagnan whiffed on years worth of draft picks, selecting either complete busts or underachievers. Maccagnan, who was well regarded for his scouting acumen, was egregiously bad, with only 16 of his 34 picks over the span of five years remaining with the organization to this day.

Of that group, only seven have become starters on the Jets, with one (Chris Herndon) working his way back from injury and another being punter Lachlan Edwards. The draft is a lifeblood of an NFL franchise, and the Jets have been so bad at drafting that they have needed to invest big money in free agents to fill out their depth chart, which has led to signings that have had little impact like Trumaine Johnson and Ryan Kalil.

Head coach Adam Gase has made matters worse, inheriting a poor roster that competed for Todd Bowles and turning it into a group that gets routinely blown out. Jets’ fans, who weren’t thrilled with the hire when the team made it, are active on social media trying to encourage owner Christopher Johnson to can Gase as soon as possible.

All of this leads to a football game between two teams that is for “bragging rights” in New York City. The squads take the field Sunday with a combined record of 3-14. Neither the Giants or Jets appear to have a clue how to build a competitive football team, which is bad for the league as New York City has now become a football wasteland.