10 best Giants and Jets teams that didn't win a championship

Jan. 28 is the 25th anniversary of Super Bowl XXXV, a game in which the Ravens beat the Giants and one that still stands as the only time a Giants or Jets team lost a Super Bowl in its six combined appearances (although there were plenty of other losses in championship games before the Super Bowl era). To “honor” that team, here is a list of the 10 greatest Giants and Jets teams that for one reason or another couldn’t quite finish their campaign with a title.

10. 2004 Jets

Reg. season: 10-6; Playoffs: Lost to Steelers in Divisional round

This was the best chance for the Chad Pennington era Jets to win a championship and the last time Curtis Martin (1,697 rushing yards, 12 rushing touchdowns) was able to carry a team on his back before injuries forced him to retire in 2006. They limped to the finish line with losses in three of the last four games in the regular season but still clinched a playoff berth despite a 32-29 overtime loss to the Rams in the finale. With a reputation for not being able to beat the “quality” teams, the Jets turned that criticism on its ear when they topped the Chargers in San Diego in the Wild Card round. Nate Kaeding missed a 40-yard field goal in overtime for the Chargers and Doug Brien hit his 28-yarder on the ensuing possession to give the Jets a 20-17 win. The following week, the Jets were on the wrong side of a 20-17 overtime decision as the top-seeded Steelers escaped after Brien missed two potential game-winning field goals in the fourth quarter.

9. 1982 Jets

Reg season: 6-3; Playoffs: Lost to Dolphins in AFC Championship Game

The players’ strike limited the season to nine regular-season games, so the six wins for this team don’t really stand out, but this was a championship-caliber club. Not only was the Sack Exchange coming into its own but the offense behind Richard Todd, Freeman McNeil and Wesley Walker really clicked for nearly 28 points per game in the regular season. The Jets got the sixth seed in the eight-team AFC playoffs and dispatched the seven-win Bengals, 44-17, and the eight-win Raiders, 17-14, on Scott Dierking's touchdown run in the fourth quarter. The following week, they faced Miami in the Orange Bowl for a shot at the Super Bowl, but the Dolphins and the muddy conditions were too much to overcome. A.J. Duhe intercepted three passes, returning the last for a touchdown that sealed a 14-0 victory.

8. 2016 Giants

Reg season: 11-5; Lost to Packers in Wild Card round

Ah, yes, the boat trip —  a wide receiver getaway to Miami in the brief window between the regular-season finale in Washington and the Wild Card game in Green Bay in which Odell Beckham Jr., Victor Cruz, Sterling Shepard and others spent their off day partying on a yacht with rapper Trey Songz and others. The photo went viral and impacted the legacies of those involved more than anything that took place on the field that season. It began the public souring toward Beckham (he had 101 catches for 1,367 yards and 10 touchdowns that season but several bad drops and an awful performance in the 38-13 playoff loss; he was traded two years later), showed how tenuous Ben McAdoo’s control of the team was (he was fired before he could complete another season as head coach), and gave Eli Manning his last gasp of postseason air. Had the receivers stayed home, the Giants still might have lost to Aaron Rodgers and the Packers that day, but the events of that week feel as if they haunt the organization still.

7. 2000 Giants

Reg season: 12-4; Playoffs: Lost to Ravens in Super Bowl XXXV

The only local team that has ever lost in the Super Bowl, that ignominy overshadows how dominant they were when they crushed the Vikings in the NFC Championship Game, 41-0, just two weeks earlier. As unstoppable as Kerry Collins looked in that game, that's how inadequate he looked against the Ravens on the big stage in their 34-7 loss. The season also is remembered for coach Jim Fassel pushing all of his chips in to bet his job on a playoff berth after they lost two straight to fall to 7-4; they won their next seven games, including two in the playoffs. The team featured the franchise’s eventual all-time leaders in rushing (Tiki Barber) and receiving (Amani Toomer) and its second-place-by-half-an-official-sack leader (Michael Strahan). Much like the 1985 team that wasn’t quite hardened enough to win it all but had similar bad timing and lost to the Bears in the Divisional round (but didn’t quite make this list), the 2000 team’s fate might be far different had it not run into one of the two or three most ferocious defenses in NFL history.

6. 1989 Giants

Reg. season: 12-4; Playoffs: Lost to Rams in Divisional round

The gritty toughness and relentless defense the Giants like to believe is their identity really shone through in this team. Lawrence Taylor still was the most dominant defender on the planet and recorded 15 sacks. Ottis Anderson, in his first year as a full-time starter for the Giants at age 32 and three seasons after he was acquired from the Cardinals, rushed for 1,023 yards and 14 touchdowns. In the Divisional playoff game against the Rams, Anderson scored on a 2-yard run to help give the Giants a 13-7 lead in the third quarter, but two Rams field goals in the fourth quarter sent the game into overtime. On the opening possession of sudden death, Flipper Anderson caught a 30-yard touchdown pass from Jim Everett and ran right through the end zone and through the Giants Stadium tunnel as the Rams recorded a 19-13 victory. It was the last time a Bill Parcells-coached Giants team would lose its last game of the season.

5. 1958 Giants

Reg. season: 9-3; Playoffs: Lost to Colts in NFL Championship Game

It may have gone down in history as “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” but the Giants certainly didn’t see it that way when they lost to the Colts, 23-17, at Yankee Stadium, the NFL’s first game to go into sudden-death overtime. Having the game televised nationally led to its legendary status and helped boost the NFL toward the entity it is today. As for that team, it boasted six future Hall of Fame players (Frank Gifford, Roosevelt Brown, Sam Huff, Don Maynard, Andy Robustelli and Emlen Tunnell), not to mention two Hall of Famers running things (owner Tim Mara and vice president Wellington Mara) and two Hall of Famers as assistant coaches (Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi). The Giants won the last game of the regular season when Pat Summerall kicked a 49-yard field goal in the snow at Yankee Stadium to beat the Browns, 13-10, and force a tie in the Eastern Conference standings. The following week, they beat the Browns again at Yankee Stadium, this time 10-0, to advance to the championship game against the Colts.

4. 2010 Jets

Reg. season: 11-5; Lost to Steelers in AFC Championship Game

Coming off a 2009 season in which they had won nine games and made it to the AFC Championship Game with rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez and rookie head coach Rex Ryan, the Jets got even better and brasher in 2010. They won 11 regular-season games, their defense ranked third in yardage allowed and sixth in points allowed, and they rolled through a pair of Hall of Fame quarterbacks in road playoff wins, beating Peyton Manning’s Colts (the team that had bounced them the year before) and Tom Brady’s Patriots. Bart Scott epically proclaimed “Can’t wait!” after the latter when asked about  the AFC Championship Game in Pittsburgh. Alas, the Jets lost, 24-19, and the wait, well, it continues.

3. 1963 Giants

Reg. season: 11-3; Lost to Bears in NFL Championship Game

Y.A. Tittle had his one and only MVP season, throwing an NFL-record 36 touchdown passes — at the age of 37! — as the Giants scored a league-best 32.0 points per game while ripping through the regular season. Those 36 touchdown passes still stand as the franchise record. The defense was so nasty that it held Jim Brown to 40 yards in a game in Cleveland in late October in which the Hall of Fame running back became so frustrated that he was ejected in the fourth quarter for fighting. Finishing first in the Eastern Conference sent them straight to the NFL Championship Game, and they faced the Bears, who had the best defense in the league. On a 10-degree day at Wrigley Field, the Monsters of the Midway knocked Tittle out of action in the second quarter with a knee injury, and although he returned to play in the second half, he could hardly move or throw. He was held to 11 completions for 147 yards and threw five interceptions as the Giants lost, 14-10. It was the third straight championship game loss for the Giants and their fifth in six seasons.

2. 1998 Jets

Reg season: 12-4; Playoffs: Lost to Broncos in AFC Championship Game

The 1968 Jets won Super Bowl III and are considered the best team in franchise history. A case can be made that the 1998 team was better, though. At least they were more dominant. They had a higher point differential (+150) than the team 30 years earlier (+138), ranked fourth in offensive yards and seventh in yards allowed, and after a slow start with three losses in the first five games, took off to win 10 of the next 11 to set a franchise record for victories. Bill Parcells, Vinny Testaverde, Curtis Martin, Keyshawn Johnson, Mo Lewis, Bill Belichick and, yes, Aaron Glenn were all in their absolute primes. A loss to the defending — and ultimately repeating — Super Bowl champion Broncos in the AFC Championship Game was heartbreaking, but the wave from that season carried over all the way to the promising 1999 opener . . . when Testaverde tore an Achilles, ending that era of optimism.

1. 2008 Giants

Reg. season: 12-4; Playoffs: Lost to Eagles in Divisional round

The Giants won the Super Bowl in 2007 and again in 2011 with a lot of the same players, but neither of those squads could boast what the 2008 team could rightfully say for the first three months of the season: that they were the best in the league. They were 10-1 when Plaxico Burress accidentally shot himself in the leg in a New York City night club — and won the ensuing game to improve to 11-1 — but the loss of their best receiver and the distraction his episode caused were too much to overcome. They managed to beat the Panthers in Week 16 to clinch the top seed in the conference and a much-needed bye, but the Eagles crushed them in the Divisional round, 23-11, in the last postseason game ever played at Giants Stadium. Six All-Pro nods for a team that couldn’t win a single postseason contest makes them not just the best team to never win but the most disappointing Giants or Jets team in history.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

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.