44 years ago: The Jets helped the Giants get into the playoffs

The Giants and Jets, both long eliminated from postseason contention and both reaching low points in an already sad epoch for a local football scene that has collapsed in terms of results and league-wide respect, will each play on Sunday. It will mark yet another day of meaningless football around here.

But 44 years ago this weekend there was a far different atmosphere surrounding the teams as they embarked on what may still be the two greatest concurrent days of NFL action that New York has ever seen.

It began on Dec. 19, 1981, with the Giants needing a win over the Cowboys in the regular season finale at Giants Stadium to keep alive their hopes of reaching the playoffs and ending a 17-year drought. They did, winning 13-10 on Joe Danelo’s 35-yard field goal in overtime. They still needed help to get in, however, and that happened to require having the Jets beat the Packers at Shea Stadium the following day, Dec. 20.

“It was the one time we rooted for the Jets,” former Giants quarterback Scott Brunner told Newsday this week recalling the scenario.

The Jets hadn’t made the playoffs in a while themselves, not since 1969, the year after they won Super Bowl III, and they too needed that victory to gain admission.

“We really weren’t worried about the idea that we could get the Giants in too,” former Jets defensive lineman Marty Lyons told Newsday. “We just wanted to win.”

And they did. It came in the form of a 28-3 rout.

Two teams. Two days. Two wins. Two berths.

Two rebirths.

It’s almost hard to imagine during these disappointing days but by the time fans had rushed the field and tore down the goalposts at Shea, both of the long-suffering franchises were in the postseason. It was the first time that two New York teams had made it to the NFL’s playoffs, a feat that has happened just four other times and not since 2006.

Neither would go on to win a championship that season, but just the idea that they could compete at the highest levels of the sport after so many years of despair was inspiring.

Said Lyons: “I think it meant a lot to the fans and the entire city that we were giving ourselves an opportunity to take the next step and get to the playoffs.”

Giant turnaround

It’s difficult to illustrate how dysfunctional and dilapidated the Giants had become in the years just before that triumphant weekend. It was in 1978 that they lost the game to the Eagles on the infamous Joe Pisarcik fumble, saw the first airplanes fly over the stadium with banners proclaiming a distaste for “15 years of lousy football” (the echoes of which still occasionally resurface with newer messages of impatience), and welcomed 1979 with dueling news conferences held by co-owners Wellington Mara and his nephew, Tim, who had very different opinions on the direction of the organization.

But by 1981 the Giants had gained some stability with the arrival of general manager George Young at the insistence of NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, the hiring of Ray Perkins as head coach and some key draft picks that included Phil Simms in 1979, Brunner in 1980 and Lawrence Taylor in 1981.

Simms had been the starting quarterback but injured his shoulder in a loss to Washington on Nov. 15 and the Giants’ record sunk to 5-6 with that loss. Brunner replaced him and the following week the Giants beat the Eagles for the first time since 1975. They lost to the 49ers in Week 13 but then beat the Rams and Cardinals to set up that game against the Cowboys on the last Saturday of the regular season.

“We had made a pretty good run,” Brunner said. “We were pretty hot as a team. And we had always had good luck against Dallas at Giants Stadium through the years so we were pretty confident going into that game.”

After a scoreless first half at a windy and raucous Meadowlands that featured three combined missed field goals, the Giants scored first with Brunner hitting Tom Mullady on a 20-yard touchdown pass. The Cowboys tied it in the fourth quarter on Danny White’s touchdown pass to Doug Cosbie, then after Brunner was intercepted, took a 10-7 lead on a 36-yard field goal. It looked as if the Cowboys were going to win but late in the fourth quarter Tony Dorsett fumbled and it was recovered by George Martin at the Dallas 45. A holding penalty on the first play set the Giants back and eventually they faced a fourth-and-13 from the 48 with time ticking away. That was when Brunner hit John Mistler for 22 yards.

“Every now and then if I run into John Mara he’ll come up to me and give me a big hug and just say ‘Brunner to Mistler!’” Brunner said.

The job wasn’t done with that completion, though. It fell on Danelo, who had already missed twice, to send the game into overtime. He did that with a 40-yard field goal.

In that extra period the Cowboys turned it over twice. The first was a fumble when a half-back toss from White to Dorsett wasn't handle and was recovered by Taylor which led to Danelo missing a third field goal, this time from 33 yards out. But then White threw a pass that was picked off by Byron Hunt and returned to the Dallas 24. Danelo eventually came out to once again try to win the game. This time he was good from 35 yards.

“Everybody was on the edge of their seats the whole time,” Brunner said. “I think I’ve met a million people who said they were at that game."

After the win the elevators from the press box level weren’t working so Wellington Mara had to walk down one of the spiral ramps that was filled with fans. They were the same fans who had been burning tickets and flying banners and ridiculing effigies of him for the past few years, but on that day the attitude was very different. John Mara, the team’s current president and CEO who escorted his father on that crowded descent, once told Newsday it was his fondest Giants memory.

“To walk down with him, to have people congratulating him and slapping him on the back and all that stuff, that, to me, is a moment that probably compares with any of the Super Bowl wins,” he said.

The Giants had won but their regular season wasn’t over. There was one more game left, only they had to watch it, not play in it. They still needed the Jets to win.

Jets were taking off

The Jets had been building toward this moment, too. They had assembled a strong defensive line that included Lyons, Joe Klecko and Mark Gastineau. Freeman McNeil was their rookie running back and Richard Todd, who had joined the squad as a first-round pick in 1976, was coming into his own after a bumpy start to his career. In Week 9 of that season they even faced the Giants in New Jersey and won, 26-7. That victory was the first in what would turn out to be a five-game winning streak, and after the Jets split road games with the Seahawks and Browns in early December, their season came down to that final Sunday against the Packers.

“We were going against Lynn Dickey and his mobility at the time was lacking,” Lyons said. “We knew we had an opportunity to get pressure on the quarterback and we had an offense that could put points on the board . . . We didn’t go into a game wondering are we going to get to the quarterback, it was our attitude to ask how many times are we going to get back there and get him.”

On that day it was nine. Klecko and Lyons led the way with 2.5 sacks each and Gastineau had two.

Todd threw for 247 yards and two touchdowns and McNeil ran for 70 yards.

“I remember after the game winning and the crowd and all the fans jumping on the field and tearing down the goalposts," Lyons said. "It was just a moment you'll never forget because it was more for the team and the fans because the fans celebrated with us after the victory. I don’t think there were any better fans than the ones we had at Shea Stadium. It was a great moment.”

The Giants enjoyed it as well. They had gathered at Giants Stadium to watch it on television and it soon became clear that they were going to the playoffs as well as the Jets. Some like Martin who had been drafted by the Giants in 1975 had been around long enough to have played for the Giants when they called Shea Stadium their home for one year, so watching the Jets on that same field was a full circle moment for them.

“For those older guys — Harry Carson, Brad Van Pelt, Brian Kelley, George Martin — they had been around,” Brunner said. “They had never seen that kind of success before. But we also had a bunch of new young guys who had come in and added to the team and Perkins and [Bill) Parcells was the defensive coordinator. We kind of had a whole different mindset coming through that season, especially at the end when we got hot and we pulled out some games.”

A turning point for both 

The following Sunday, Dec. 27, both teams played their Wild Card games. The Jets, who played first with a noon game against the Bills at Shea, lost, 31-27, after a fumble by Bruce Harper on the opening kickoff was returned for a Buffalo touchdown and a furious comeback in the fourth quarter was stymied on Todd’s interception at the goal line with just seconds remaining. Later that afternoon the Giants would beat the Eagles in Philadelphia, hanging on for a 27-21 victory after leading 27-7 at the half. They were eliminated the following week in the divisional round by the eventual Super Bowl champion 49ers, 38-24.

It marked the start of some good times for both squads. The following year, after a strike-shortened schedule, the Jets won two playoff games and made it to the AFC Championship Game. They  got back to the playoffs again in 1985 and 1986. The Giants took a step backward in 1982 and 1983 but returned to the playoffs in 1984 and win their first Super Bowl in 1986.

Those last games in the 1981 regular season, though, remained the turning point for both teams and New York football.

“That,” Brunner said regarding everything that would follow over the next few seasons, “was the key weekend.”

While it happened 44 years ago, it seems even further removed than that considering the Giants and Jets have combined for just five wins this season coming into Sunday’s action.

Those who were part of those turnarounds, however, don’t think another pair of comebacks is out of the question.

“They’re not that far away,” said Brunner of the Giants, the team he still follows as he lives in retirement in Delaware.

Lyons, who spent years as a Jets radio broadcaster and now serves as the team’s official ambassador, thinks both squads can get back to winning quickly with a little luck and wise decision-making.

“The two teams now are rebuilding,” he said. “I don’t know how long it will take them to rebuild. But you look at the Giants and they have a franchise quarterback in [Jaxson)]Dart and the Jets have to find out what their quarterback solution is going to be. But I haven’t lost faith in [coach] Aaron Glenn. You have some draft equity. Hopefully you get that right and you can move up fast, you can rebuild a team in one year.”

Maybe at this time in 2026 the Giants and Jets will both be back to playing meaningful games late in the regular season. They may even need each others’ help down the stretch to get in the playoffs and end their long droughts just like they did in 1981. If they do, the city will be ready for it, and those from that magical weekend will be as well.

“I’ve been saying it for 46 years, and I’m getting ready to say it for a 47th,” Lyons said of the motto of his Jets career that began as a rookie in 1979. “Next year!”