Most Painful Playoff Loss?

I was there,sitting on the wooden bleachers of the home plate end zone of old Shea Stadium. IT WAS COLD!
Jets had first and goal at the 1 and could not take the lead...had to settle for a tying field goal. Chiefs came back and scored on two plays IIRC, and that was it.
Who would've thought that would be it for the play-offs for the next 11 years?

It was disappointing, but coming off a Super Bowl win the year before, it wasn't so bad. It certainly wasn't as painful a loss as '86 '04 or '10.

 

The 1982 mudbowl was a true nightmare and the cumulative effect of that game together with the traumatic loss at Cleveland in '86 when we somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory was so unbearably painful that I was never the same again as a sports fan in general and a Jets fan in particular. It just took too much out of me. After awhile I resumed following the team but was less emotionally invested. When Parcells came on board, I immediately recognized the change in culture of the team (no more Same old Jets Syndrome) and began to believe again which brings me to the third most painful loss, that being the 1998 AFC title game against Denver where we had a 10-0 lead at the half followed by the 2010 game at Pitt.

 

Cleveland '86, even though it was just a Divisional round game. Add in the fact we had to wait over 4 hrs for the final outcome.

 

I admit that I'm no where near as invested as I once was with the Jets. Even though, relatively speaking, the Jets have been in the post season on average every three years or so since Parcells. Maybe because I'm older and have more responsibilities. I used to lose sleep after disappointing losses. Now, like this past Sunday, I just shake my head and watch Netflix. I always felt the team lost its identity when it left Queens.

 

I gotta go with 2010 against the Steelers as I got last min tix online and did the drive out for the game. Only to freeze and to lose... legit I couldn't feel my body in the second half. Not to mention we drove right back and how fitting got a speeding ticket.

 

I was ready to go down to Miami as that would've probs been a once in a lifetime shot to catch a Jet super bowl

 

I think a fair number of people on this forum may be too young to really remember the 86 game vs. the Browns. That was the most painful for me. The game was won, and a Gastineau roughing the passer penalty gave the Browns life. Double overtime loss was really painful.

 

FUCKING PITTSBURGH

 

I will never forget that roughing the passer charge against Gastineau, it still stings to this day..brutal.

 

as far as painful in the moment it has to be Cle '86 followed by Pitt '04 but I don't believe we make either SB even if we win those games. I think looking back the most painful was Den '98 b/c I think we would have won the SB.

 

Again, I come through as an old-timer here.

I was a youngster in '69, and a young married man in '86

To me, this was by far the worst Jets loss I have ever experienced. Jets were a very good team that had been really hampered by injuries all year. O'Brien, playing hurt and skittish behind a make-shift O-line, was actually benched the week before for a play-off game against the Chiefs. He came back to lead a late game drive in this game, to put the Jets up by 10 with about 4 minutes to go.

You said it all. The game was won. Cleveland's first plays of the drive were awful. I can't recall if there was a sack or holding but It was going to be 3rd down and 24 with about 3 mins to go. Around the Browns own 30. Kosar looked beaten. And then, the absolute worst play in Jets history. Why did he do it? It was the most obvious roughing the passer call ever. I believe the play was actually over when he hit Kosar. And, if I recall correctly, the Browns didn't even start moving on the drive until 3rd down after the penalty. Kosar kept hitting all his receivers, Brian Brennan and Webster Slaughter especially, with that wobbly pass he threw. The Browns scored and kicked off, IIRC. The Jets could barely take any time off the clock before they punted. Browns easily moved down the field and kicked the tying field goal as time expired.

But the worst was the OT. It went well into the second quarter. The Jets didn't move the ball at all. The game was prolonged because the Cleveland kicker, Mosely, missed at least one chip shot. This was truly a point when Jet fans wanted to be put out of their misery. But it was a slow, painful death.

After witnessing this game, '04 Pittsburgh was nothing lol!

 

In a way, in '86, the painful loss may have spared us an even worse fate, because had we won and then beaten the Broncos in '86 ( and we had beaten them handily earlier in the year) , we would've faced the juggernaut Giants. I would not have been able to take losing to them in the SuperBowl

 

I'm only 23 so I don't know the earlier games. 98 sucked because I was a kid and after we lost there was no more Jets football.. 04 was, for me, the most painful playoff loss I saw until that 09 playoff loss to the Colts. Being up at halftime, so close to a superbowl, but knowing that the Colts were better... But for me, it has to be '10 against the Stillers. To be so good, to have such a great game against the Pats just to lay a fucking egg in the 1st half in the AFCCG? Then not being able to tackle the rapist and get the ball back, it stung and still stings to this day. In my adult life that is the most painful loss I've seen. I wanted revenge for 04 and obviously to finally go back to the super bowl... To get that far to not even be competitive in the first half? Terrible feeling.

 

I doubt we beat Denver(even though we crushed them in reg season) but there's no way we beat the Giants and yeah that would have been a bad one losing to them.

 

Just looking at it from a game stand point and not what round of the playoffs it was, I think I might have to say the Steelers game in 2004 with Brien missing those 2 FGs. That was heartbreaking.

The 1998 game was devastating as well cause most people thought Atlanta was ripe for the picking in the SB and we jumped out in front early in that game and then watched the lead slip away.

 

I'm guessing it's because that was the closest we came to winning the AFCC and thus the closest we've come to the Super Bowl since before Joe Willie's knees turned into soft spaghetti.

 

I wasnt alive to see 1986 against the Browns but I watched that game on Youtube. If I was a fan then I would've been crushed.

The Pitt loss still hurts though. I agree with those who said we would've had a better chance in the Superbowl in 98 but the Steelers werent that great that year. Denver was atleast very good.

 

I woke up that morning with a sore throat and it turned out I ended up having the flu for the next 3 days. Thank God I was off from work but that was brutal.