Tom Rock: When is the last time the Jets and Giants were 1-0 to start the season?
The Jets' Kiko Mauigoa, left, and the Giants' Isaiah Likely celebrate their Week 1 victories. Credit: Getty Images
Aaron Glenn had just retired as a player. John Harbaugh was in his second season as the head coach of the Ravens. Geno Smith was a freshman at West Virginia. Jaxson Dart was six.
It was the fall of 2009. And it was the last time New York football felt anything approaching this. It was the last time before this Monday that we woke up after the opening day of the NFL season to two undefeated teams, to positivity and promise.
The Giants and Jets both won on Sunday, a rarity in itself given their recent struggles, but the fact that they both did so in their first games of the season for the first time in 17 years gave the area an unexpected jolt of gridiron juice. Just hours after the Jets outclassed the Titans in Nashville the Giants outmuscled the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium.
MetLife Stadium? It wasn’t even completed in 2009. The teams were playing in Giants Stadium back then.
Oh, by the way, those 2009 wins both took place on Sept. 13, the same date as this Sunday.
Afterward you could feel the buzz everywhere. On the Long Island Railroad, in bagel shops, in schools and offices, there were smiles and nods and a knowing, growing confidence that only a win by the local football team can provide a community. The Jets and Giants gave that to both their suddenly strutting supporters. It was W squared.
“I want to make sure that this team is a team that fans are proud of,” Aaron Glenn said on Monday, reiterating his mission statement for the past year and a half. “That’s going to always be with me no matter what. I think that’s one of the jobs for me as a coach is to put a product on the field that fans are proud of.”
For the first time in his tenure it felt like he was approaching that goal.
Certainly it was not the hysteria of the spring when the Knicks were making their championship run, but it was there for both fanbases and it at least allowed for comparisons that didn’t elicit eye rolls and laughter. As Jets center Josh Myers said on Monday of the experience in Nashville with so many Jets fans in attendance: “I just can’t help but think back to the Knicks and their postseason run … I know the Jets fans are going to be crazy so I’m pumped for the home [opener] this week.”
There will be no schneid to get off, no coach talk about easy corrections for the costly mistakes. There will be optimism and appreciation, though. Videos circulated of fans chanting for the Jets throughout Nashville and on their early morning flights home. Giants fans did something they rarely if ever do and stayed until the end of a primetime game, the red taillights in the parking lots after the victory a testament tat no one had tried to beat the traffic.
And who knows where it will lead? The last time this happened the Yankees wound up winning the World Series. Could New York manage a triple crown in the coming months and hold simultaneous titles in basketball, baseball and football? Could 2026 go down as the greatest year ever in New York sports with the World Cup and the U.S. Opens in both golf and tennis played here as well?
That’s getting way ahead of things. Both the Giants and Jets had flaws on display despite the victories. Both are stepping up in class in Week 2 with the Jets hosting the Packers for their home opener and the Giants playing at the Rams on Monday night. But it’s the kind of thinking that is at least permissible for a few hours in the afterglow of this pigskin exacta.
Besides, neither the Packers nor Rams have something that the Jets and Giants do: A win this season.
So many times in recent years we have seen opening day losses tumble into losing streaks and quickly ruin seasons. Not this time. Even if the next few games wind up returning to that unhappy normal we’ve gotten used to, there won’t be any stats about the percentage of teams that start 0-2 making the playoffs or how September games are must-wins. Is that something to celebrate? Maybe. It’s certainly something to appreciate avoiding.
And the teams know what it means to the area, too. One of the first things Aaron Glenn mentioned in his Monday morning news conference was the impact that the fans who traveled to Nashville had on the game.
“It was outstanding to look behind us and see that many Jets fans there and the J-E-T-S chant that was going out,” he said. “It really gave our guys a boost when it came to finishing the game.”
Glenn noted how unusual it is to have a visiting crowd take over a building the way the Jets fans did. Well, not unusual at MetLife Stadium, unfortunately, where Patriots and Eagles fans have had many a party in recent years while the rooters for the home team were either home having sold their seats or already on the George Washington Bridge nursing another lopsided loss.
Sunday night in New Jersey was very different, though, as the Giants fans who in the recent past have booed the team going into halftime of their opener stayed and reveled in the smackdown their guys were giving to the Cowboys.
“The stadium was just absolutely electric from beginning to end,” John Harbaugh said of the atmosphere for his first home game in the building. “I want us to play well enough that we can create that atmosphere every single week here going forward throughout the season. That’s up to us. That’s our job as coaches and players to create a football team good enough to deserve that type of a stadium every time we play.”
Back in 2009 both teams were able to keep it going for a while. The Giants behind Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin began their season with five straight wins; the Jets, with rookie head coach Rex Ryan and rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez, started with three. The Giants would wind up at 8-8 but the Jets went 9-7 and reached the AFC Championship Game, their first of two straight and the first of three straight for New York (the Giants would get there, win, and win the Super Bowl in 2011).
We used to call those the good old days.
Now, for one week at least, we simply call it Monday.
Victories Monday.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
