Something to watch JETS/BILLS WC game 1981

[jetfandreamer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNVBqZL-xII


I know it was a loss, but it was a very exciting game...tough result.....

especially for younger fans to see some of the guys they have just heard about

 

[Bigmoe]

Yup
Was in closed end of loweer end zone , on portable metal bleachers.
1st playoff game I got to see after having tx for 10 of the most horrible years you can imagine

 

[Fudbutter]

nice find, very nostalgic

Still consider this one of my favorite days at Shea despite the loss. If not for that interception, who knows what chapter in Jets history would have been written that year.

NFL channel is running a series of top 10 shows. Today, they had one for 10 greatest QB teasers, i.e. players who showed promise that never panned out. Jets had two on the list, Mr. Todd was #6 . Sanchez was #10 .

 

[Elias]

Greg Buttle, Mark Gastineau, Bruce Harper, Bobby Jackson & Wesley Walker Visit the Current Team

It was, in one regard, like many other pro sports teams' alumni gatherings. Five Jets of yore — Greg Buttle, Mark Gastineau, Bruce Harper, Bobby Jackson and Wesley Walker — came to the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center on Wednesday.

In the morning, they were invited by head coach Todd Bowles and general manager Mike Maccagnan to watch the Jets' OTA practice. In the afternoon, they sat in the boardroom signing 500 white and green mini-helmets each for distribution during the season through the Jets Rewards program. In between, they dined with the team as the 1982 highlight video played on monitors.

Yet upon further review, this was a unique confluence of great Jets. All five played for that team that launched a memorable run in that strike-shortened '82 season, all the way to the AFC Championship Game before losing in the mud of Miami.

In fact, all five played together on six consecutive Jets teams, from 1979-84. Further, each of the five spent his entire NFL career as a member of the Jets and no other team. Forty-eight seasons in all, and all spent playing for the Green & White.

"I'm very happy to be here today, and it's great to see what Todd Bowles is bringing to the table," Walker said. "We were all close then, but you lose those relationships. Hopefully the Jets will continue to try to develop that because there's history here."

That's the plan. I spoke with each former player to catch a reminiscence about that 1982 season. Here is some of what they said:
RB/KR Bruce Harper on the '82 Jets...

"We had a really, really good team, and it showed, especially at the end there. I think it was bittersweet. It was so sweet to play as well as we did, to get as far as we did, but so, so bitter to not win, not go to the Super Bowl. But we had the guys, we had the horses, and we played well together as a team. ... My goodness, we had it all."

WR Wesley Walker on the season...

"I don't think we were expected to be there, probably not even by ourselves. I just remember being on strike and we were having our own training sessions together, and then when we got back together it was a close-knit team.

Walker on if he remembered his seven-catch, 169-yard game in the playoff win at the Los Angeles Raiders...

"Oh, of course I do. I'm going against Lester Hayes and I just remember catching a pass that I was hoping was a touchdown to kind of turn the game around and we ended up scoring. But [linebacker] Lance Mehl had a great game to get those [two] interceptions and turn it around. We were just on a roll, and those are the kind of games you want to be in and you want to be a big part of."

CB Bobby Jackson on the feeling that those Jets were a Super Bowl team...

"That's what we thought after beating the Raiders out there. We felt we had beaten the best team in the AFC. And we beat the No. 1 offense in Cincinnati that first week — we blew them out. Unfortunately, none of us even saw that [Orange Bowl] field until it was time to play. The tarp rule came into effect because of that, but it was too late for us. My thought process was that Miami played on the same field we did so no excuses, they won. We had too many turnovers that game. We got a lot of turnovers, but basically we couldn't get in the end zone."

LB Greg Buttle on the season and their nemeses the Dolphins...

"It was a pretty stupid season because of the strike, but we came back, and it was like we almost couldn't do anything wrong unless we played Miami, because we lost to them three times. We had a really good football team, and I think that overall the Dolphins in the championship played better than we did and obviously it was a pretty good game going into halftime [0-0], but it is what it is.

Buttle on head coach Walt Michaels' style that season...
"It was a great run, and part of it was Walt Michaels. His comments to the team before and after the game were interesting and they were needed. There was no rah-rah stuff. He said, "This is your chance, a one-in-a-million chance for you guys. Let's do it." Walt had been to championship games before.
He knew what it was about and he wanted all the players to experience it."

DE Mark Gastineau, who led the defense with 10 sacks that season, including four in the three postseason games, on the disheartening end to the season and what it means to him now...

"You want to talk about that season? I wanted to forget about that one. That was a tough one. I really haven't watched any of it. I was more of a single person then, playing for myself, you know, selfish? Now I'm selfless. So you know, a lot of those memories I just use for kids today to tell them not to do the same things I did — and even these 'kids' out here [current Jets].

Gastineau on the optimism for the current team...

"We have so many members at our church now ask, 'How are the Jets?' I can say without a shadow of a doubt, they're great, I'm excited. Why? Because we've got something to be excited about."

http://www.newyorkjets.com/news/art...et-of-82/7a943f0e-cbe7-4074-8bb5-64cc601aa410