I can remember almost every opener since 1983. Here are some ones that stick out both on the good and bad ends of the spectrum: Good 1983 @ San Diego - Jets were summertime Superbowl favorites and went into Chargers country and demolished them by 20 points. Then new coach Walton said that they were only scratching the surface. 1994 @ Buffalo - Huge underdogs, the Jets went in to Buffalo and schooled the defending AFC champs 23-3. Esiason to Johnny Mitchell was big that day. 1997 @ Seattle - New Coach Parcells took the underdog Jets to Seattle and destroyed the Seahawks 45 - 3 (?). It was the first time in a long time you felt the Jets had complete control from the opening drive. No worries about collapses like in the past. 2000 @ Green Bay Al Grohl took the Jets into Green Bay, despite no Keyshawn and a rusty Vinny, Curtis stole the show along with a Victor Green pick at the end to secure a 20-16 victory. Bad 1985 @ LA RAiders - Ken O'brien sacked 10 times. Al Toon still holding out and the Jets looked awful losing 31-0, in what would turn out to be a very good year 11-5. 1995 @ Miami - The beginning of the low point of the Kotitie Jets getting clobbered 51-14. 1999 New England - Need I say more? Any season openers you guys want to reflect on go ahead.
How about the '05 Opener?? Loads of Hype, talk of Super Bowl... And a complete and utter spanking by the Chiefs. We were totally dominated and outplayed on both sides of the ball. The Jets were totally unprepared that day and some of the blame has to fall on the coaches not preparing the team. Larry Johnson had a field day. It is one thing to lose a game but to have played tough. Watching Pennington practice snaps with Mawae on the sideline was the first time I had serious doubts about Herm Edwards and his ability to run the show.
1968 @ Kansas City - Namath controlled the ball the last five minutes to win 20-19. Shape of things to come. 1970 @ Cleveland - First MNF game. Namath is heroic in defeat, 31-21.
I was at the 98 opener in SF, a tough loss on what turned into a very good season. Garrison Hearst 98 yards and an Ole' from every player on the defense I'll never forget the opener in year 2 of Kotite when we got destroyed by the Broncos... I knew in week one our season was over....
Joinathan Carter fumbling the opening kickoff against the Bengals. You could feel the air come out of the stadium. Only to have the O-line thoroughly dominate with CMART having a HUGE game. Curtis TD run for about 25 yards with Kendall and Mawae Mawae in front of him, with no one to block for 15 yards was perfection. -
I know it's off topic, but it's always to good to see a Bobby Heenan quote in a sig! Let me throw 3 more in. "You know why there were only 220 Mexicans at the Alamo? They only had one car." "Tito Santana is like a cue ball. The more you strike him, the more english you get out of him." Commenting on Hogan's entrance music: Heenan: That's my second favorite song. Gorilla Monsoon: I'm almost afraid to ask. What's your favorite? Heenan: All the rest are tied.
Our season openers are usually horrible. The last great one we had was the 2002 opener with the Bills I think. Remember Chad Morton saving our game with his 2 kick off returns for TD's? Started out our 1-4 season. *edit. Good. Thank god someone else remembered....
Home vs. Cleveland I'm not sure what year it was, may have been 1990. Eric Metcalf returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown and you could hear the life sucked out of the stadium.
2001, Herm's first game. Started off well with Vinny hitting Coles on a TD pass early. Ended horribly with Vinny chasing Chukie Nwokorie down the field after that fumble, which he returned 90+ yards for a TD. NY papers reading "A New Error" Monday morning.
They came back from commercial in the first half and showed the entire Jets defense on the field on one knee with their helmets off, gasping for air. I knew right then we were not prepared for the season.
That was the home opener, I was there. The opener that year was at Cincinnati, Bruce Coslet's debut vs his old team and friends, Boomer and Sam Wyche. The Bengals were good then and it was surprisingly close, as it was figured to be a blowout. Al Toon faked a guy out of his jock for a long TD pass from Ken O'Brien. That game was the debut of the green pants. Another bad opener was 1981, a 31-0 loss at Buffalo. It led to an 0-3 start before an amazing turnaround to finish 10-5-1 and host the Wild Card game, ironically also vs Buffalo.
This was my first game in the current seats we have now. We couldn't stop the Colts offense all day, they just moved the ball at will against us up and down the field. Here's one that comes to mind, 1993 opener at home vs Denver. I remember Blair Thomas losing his balance and falling out of bounds right before reaching the end zone on 4th down, which could have given us the lead late.
That reminds me of the playoff game in January of 99 which I was at. At one point during a commercial break, I remember Keyshawn completely exhausted and out of breath during the third qtr. These two posts answer another one from the other day questioning why Denver is so good every year. Yes, they draft well. Yes, they have a good coach. But they also have the biggest home field advantage in the league with the altitude. My favorite season opener was Parcells in Seattle. The Jets at that point seemed to always have to go on the road and always got blown out . If you remember, a few years later Parcells even complained to the league that the Jets always open on the road far from home . Anyway, that day the Jets just destroyed Seattle and you could see that the tough training camp completely transformed the team. We could see a similar thing happen this season.
Certainly the best opener EVER was in 1970 when the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP flag was raised to fly for that entire season until they lost to KC in a trumped up PO game
