I would like to see a meme in which every NFL and FBS team logo are all together on one screen.
The caption: “Did your defense get at least one interception this year?”
Every team logo except the Jets is circled in green with the words: “Of course! It’s a long season!”
And the Jets are circled in red with the word, “No.”
This is beyond the ability of me to do with my phone.
Thanks in advance!
Wow. I had not been aware of that. I’m kind of surprised to see this has never been done before in NFL history, even in the days when they played fewer games and rarely attempted passes. Congratulations?
Sounds like a good task for AI.
(This from someone who doesn’t know much about AI.)
The NFL only started tracking interceptions in their statistics in 1933 (the league was founded in 1920), but even so, it was still absolutely a run-first league up through the '50s and '60s.
Yes, teams passed less often back then, but when they did pass, it was typically longer passes, and interception rates, generally, were a lot higher than they are today.
And, yes, it’s true, no team since 1933 had gone an entire season without making an interception, until now.
Not even in the strike-shortened 1982 season of only 9 games. The Jets also set a record with only 4 defensive turnovers for the season.
Indeed; even in that season, the lowest number was 3 (Houston).
How on earth is that possible?
The QB with the most single season passing yards for the Jets is Namath, who set the mark back in 1967. They haven’t had a QB throw for more yards than that in nearly 60 seasons.
But the Jets were the first team in two years to have the same five players on their offensive line start in every game!
And they were modest and didn’t point out the offensive line had as many interceptions as the defense!
AI won’t make such an image because of logo copyright. I won’t make such an image because there’s a million FBS teams.
But here’s my go at making one just for the NFL. If you like it grab it quick because the NFL won’t let it stay up for long.
Hehe, lovely.
They’re up there with the Bears for long-term sadness at the quarterback position.
Until about a decade ago, the holder of nearly all of the Bears’ career passing records was Sid Luckman, who retired in 1950. Many of Luckman’s records were finally surpassed by Jay Cutler, mostly by dint of being the Bears’ starter for 7+ years, rather than by being really good.
The Bears’ single-season passing yards mark was held by journeyman Erik Kramer for 30 years, until it was finally surpassed by Caleb Williams this season. Even so, the Bears still have never had a 4,000 yard passer (Williams finished with 3,942 this year); they are the only NFL team with this distinction (Namath had 4,007 in 1967).
Namath’s 4,007-yard season was accomplished in 13 games instead of the standard 16 and the now-17. Even so, he had more interceptions than touchdown passes that year, and the Jets missed the playoffs.
14 games.
Those 4007 yards were the NFL record at the time, and would remain the record for over a decade.
This. 14 regular-season games was what NFL teams played from 1961 until 1977; the AFL adopted a 14-game regular season when they began play in 1960, and continued with 14 until the merger with the NFL was finalized after the 1969 season.
The NFL didn’t adopt a 16-game schedule until 1978.
In 1967, when Namath threw for 4,007 yards, he started all 14 of the Jets’ regular season games, and threw 491 of the Jets’ 515 pass attempts.
Yes, he did (but barely): he threw 28 interceptions to 26 touchdowns, and in fact, led the AFL in interceptions. He also led the AFL in attempts, completions, and yards per attempt, as well as in yards passing.
It’s important to bear in mind that interception rates were a lot higher then, than they are in the modern-day NFL. When teams threw, they primarily threw downfield: in 1967 (when Namath threw for 4,007), the “West Coast Offense,” with its focus on short, high-percentage passes, was still several years away from being developed by Bill Walsh, and was still 15 or so years away from being commonly adopted. Plus, passing rules prior to the mid-to-late 1970s gave defensive backs a lot more freedom to legally contact receivers as they ran their routes.
It was not uncommon, at all, for a starting quarterback – even a guy considered to be good to great – to have what we would now consider a very high interception percentage. Namath had a 5.7% interception percentage in '67: the AFL league average was 5.9%, and two QBs who were considered among the AFL’s better QBs – Jack Kemp and Babe Parilli, had 7.0% interceptions. In the NFL that year, the league average interception rate was 5.7%, and Bart Starr – who won the “Ice Bowl” NFL Championship, then Super Bowl II, in '67, had 8.1% interceptions.
Just read the marketers for parmesian reggio had a strategic partner with the Jets. Seems appropriate.
Seriously, why the Jets? The Washington Generals have more credibility.
New York is the biggest market in the U.S., with a large population of people with Italian ancestry, as well as a big foodie culture.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they approached both New York teams, and the Jets were the ones with whom they completed a deal, for whatever reason.
I love the Washington “Football Team” logo. Recent nostalgia. 