1968 game program cover, depicting a Jets helmet during their AFL years. From the Heidi Game on November 17, 1968.
The history of the New York Jets American football team began in 1959 with the founding of the Titans of New York, an original member of the American Football League (AFL); they began actual play the following year. The team had little success in its early years. After playing three seasons at the Polo Grounds, the team changed its name to the New York Jets, and moved into newly built Shea Stadium in 1964. In January 1965, the Jets signed University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath to a then-record contract. The team showed gradual improvement in the late 1960s, posting its first winning record in 1967 and winning its only American Football League championship in 1968. By winning the title, New York earned the right to play in Super Bowl III against the champions of the National Football League (NFL), the Baltimore Colts. The Jets defeated the Colts in the game; in the aftermath of the upset, the AFL was deemed a worthy partner to the NFL as the two leagues merged.
Following the merger, the Jets fell into mediocrity; Namath was dogged by injuries through much of his later career. In 1981, New York qualified for the playoffs for the first time in the post-Namath era. They reached the AFC Championship Game in 1982; they were defeated on a rain-soaked Orange Bowl field by the Miami Dolphins. Beginning with the 1984 season, the team played in New Jersey's Giants Stadium. The team started the 1986 season with a 10–1 record, but the injury-plagued Jets lost their last five regular season games and relinquished a ten-point fourth quarter lead to lose in double overtime to the Cleveland Browns in the playoffs.
In the following eleven seasons, New York had limited success, reaching the playoffs only once and enduring a string of disastrous seasons, including a 1–15 record in 1996. The following year, the Jets hired two-time Super Bowl winning coach Bill Parcells. The new coach guided the team to its most successful season since the merger in 1998; the Jets finished 12–4 and reached the AFC Championship Game, in which they fell to the Denver Broncos. The team made five playoff appearances in the 2000s, their most of any decade. In 2009 and 2010, the Jets achieved back-to-back appearances in the AFC Championship Game, losing to the Indianapolis Colts and Pittsburgh Steelers. In 2010, the team began to play in MetLife Stadium, constructed near the now-demolished Giants Stadium.
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