All in With John Jastremski

Does Jets 2024 Season Top The List Of Biggest NY Sports Disappointments in my lifetime?

After another Jets Sunday gut punch, this time a loss to the Indianapolis Colts sending the hapless Jets to a 3-8 record 11 games into the season, I was given a tremendous homework assignment by one of our esteemed SNY Producers. 

For our Monday Sports Nite show, I was asked to come up with a list of the three individual seasons for a team that profiled as the most disappointing. 

Now, that’s a very vague definition, “disappointing” right? 

You can take that a variety of different ways, but for me I kept it pretty simple. 

I tried to find in my lifetime as a sports fan in this town, since 1993 to be exact, the three seasons I remembered being the most crushing. 

I eliminated teams that qualified for postseason play, I didn’t want the “disappointing angle” to focus on falling short on the grandest of stages. 

I wanted teams on this list that flat out flopped with lofty expectations going into the year. 

Here’s the top 3. 

3. The 2017 New York Giants. 

The 2017 Giants season is one of the most rotten years I can ever remember, especially considering the expectations. The team was fresh off a playoff appearance in 2016. The defense was full of high priced talent, Odell Beckham Jr was still catching passes and Eli Manning was still the quarterback. 

The Giants took the stench from the boat trip and the playoff loss to the Packers and carried it throughout the regular season. The season got so bad that Eli Manning was unceremoniously benched. The outcry from fans and pundits alike was of universal outrage. 

The decision led to the firing of Head Coach Ben McAdoo and the season finished up with a horrific 3-13 record. 

2. The 2009 New York Mets

2009 is officially the year the bottom fell out for the mid 2000’s high flying Mets. 

2006 was a season of promise and a trip to Game 7 of the NLCS. 2007/2008 featured two seasons that should’ve ended in the postseason and instead ended in horrific collapses. 

2009 was supposed to be the year that the Mets had figured out what was missing. 

After multiple bullpen failures the year before, the Mets acquired Francisco Rodriguez and JJ Putz to fortify the bullpen. 

The stage was set for the Mets to get back to October. 

Except, it just didn’t happen. 

The team was ravaged with injuries throughout the 2009 season. 

A team that was picked by Sports Illustrated to win the World Series finished the season 70-92. 

It was also the moment you knew the core of the mid 2000’s Mets that flashed with so much promise and potential, sadly as a unit were never going to live up to it… 

1. 2024 New York Jets

Nope, I’m not being a prisoner of the moment here. 

Yes, I’m aware the season is not over quite yet. 

That said, can you believe this season has been this bad for the Jets! 

All of the expectations, all of the talent. 

3-8, with a coach fired and a future first ballot Hall of Fame Quarterback searching for answers. 

Why would the 2024 Jets fit the bill as the biggest disappointment of NY teams in my lifetime? 

The burden of the franchise. 

The Jets have the longest playoff drought in professional sports. 

Surely a first ballot Hall Of Fame quarterback would be able to end it right? 

The levels of pain and suffering for Jets fans extended into a new stratosphere in 2024. 

Sorry this ended up being such a painful homework assignment…