Wow, never knew that. There wasn't nearly as much infomation available back then. You could go months without ever seeing a Jets article or TV coverage, not even sports radio in 1981.
IMO he should be blamed more in 82 for those misses than the year before because they should have been able to beat 6-10 seattle one time which also would have been the difference.
Yeah, I remember the solid mid-80s Leahy. It's hard reconciling my memories of him with people who were there in the early part of the decade.
Both you and Italian seafood are right....Leahy screwed up the '82 Miami regular season game by missing both the PAT and a short FG ruining a decent effort by the defense. Alot of people forget CB Bobby Jackson dropped a game saving INT with :50 seconds left. The seedings would have been much different....
It's amazing he lasted as long as he did. He never would have survived by today's NFL standards....he improved after the Jets moved to the meadowlands. Did you know Leahy did not kick a successful 50 yard FG until 1984 after ten years in the league?!
It's just gotta be that the strike affected the whole team in general,almost like they were forced to work out the mid season kinks in December. I remember listening to the end of the game on radio and wanted to smash the radio in a thousand pieces when they said Von Schamans GW 47 yarder would have probably been good from 67.
How in the hell is he not in the Hall of Fame? Had to throw that in. Preaching to the choir, of course.
um, not sure where you lived in 1981, but if you lived in the tri-state area - there was plenty of jets media coverage in 1981 - Dave Anderson's columns in the times introduced the country to the New York Sack exchange and steve serby was a young cub reporter for the post covering the jets at shea all the time - good times.
'Listened' to many a jet's games on a crackling AM tiny radio back then. you're right though about months at a time with not so much as a article in the paper.
I lived in the town I'm in now, but I was 14. I'm sure there was some coverage out there but nothing like we have now. Even putting the Internet aside for a moment (a biggie), ESPN wasn't even covering the draft yet in 1981 I don't think, plus we only had cable on one TV and I didn't get to choose what we watched. Had no VCR so if you missed something you missed it. No WFAN, we got the local paper and the Newark Star-Ledger at my house, months would go by without a Jets article. The Giants had already moved to NJ and they were treated here as much more the local team--it was still kind of a novelty at that point to have them here. Regarding Serby, he was as much of a tool then as he is now. That's why Richard Todd stuffed him into a locker in 1981, one of the best things Todd ever did.
I read the post, the times, daily news, not to mention national tv sports programming, the sporting news and sports illustrated and the Great Art Rust sports talk every night on WABC ! I just don't recall going "months" w/o seeing an article or hearing sports talk about the jets.
Off season moves were much less anticipated. Basketball & hockey got more coverage in the spring Baseball dominated the football off-season more than it does now You're right No internet and limited cable did tend to suppress the information There was no pre-draft publicity for example, so no one was aware of how close the Jets came to getting LT There was no clear understanding of who LT was unless you were a real college junkie
I was watching this game saying to myself they can't keep turning the ball over like this a team like Denver sooner or later will make them pay. It also seemed Testaverde was relatively INT free the whole season but once the pressure was on and they fell behind you almost knew it would happen. This one was in the bag and it stung for a while.
