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[Gabe]

Broadway Joe and His Super Jets
By Larry Fox
Amazon link
Coward-McCann, 1969
Hardcover (255 pages)



Countdown to Super Bowl
By Dave Anderson
Amazon link
Random House, 1969
Hardcover (247 pages)

Description: Dave Anderson’s Super Bowl journal follows the New York Jets from their plane flight to Miami, covers their week of preparations, and concludes with the Jets’ victory over the Baltimore Colts. From the first moment, Anderson captures the confidence and determination of the entire team, citing punter Curly Johnson’s statement, “A chicken is just a bird.”



Gang Green: An Irreverent Look Behind the Scenes at Thirty-Eight (Well, Thirty-Seven) Seasons of New York Jets Futility
By Gerald Eskenaz
Amazon link
Simon & Schuster, 1998
ISBN-10: 0684841150
ISBN-13: 978-0684841151
Hardcover (336 pages)

Amazon.com (editorial review): Two quick trivia questions:
1. Which was the first American Football League (AFL) franchise to win a Super Bowl?
2. What is the only team since the 1970 NFL and AFL merger never to win a divisional crown?
If you answered the New York Jets to both, you've suffered enough. You're probably too deep into therapy to appreciate how deep into futility veteran New York Times writer and longtime Jets chronicler Eskenazi can descend in this irreverent history. The Jets saga is certainly a surreal one. "The Jets I came to write about," Eskenazi observes, "were like life as Kafka or George Carlin might have pictured it--only more so. They led an existence based in the everyday reality so many of us faced, one of small victories offset by large losses." Dubbing them the most famous bad franchise in sports, he makes a fumblerooski of a case. Other than the 1969 Super Bowl miracle engineered by Joe Namath, the Jets have been constantly sacked for losses. They are the only professional sports team without a single coach who can boast a career-winning record as a Jet. They played in the first game ever suspended due to lightening. The longest play in their history--a 90-yard run from scrimmage--failed to produce a touchdown. Their starting quarterback broke his toe--watching TV. Their star linebacker fell for Sly Stallone's wife. And they're the only pro football team to play its home games in a stadium bearing the name of the other team in town. Of course, the Jets' losing ways could end with the hand-off of the helm to Bill Parcells, a coach Eskenazi intriguingly characterizes as more obsessed with not failing than just winning. Then again, management--just in time for the 1998 season--did decide to bring the old uniforms back. Yes, the Jets won Super Bowl III in them. But they found ways to lose big in them, too. --Jeff Silverman



Joe Namath and the Other Guys
By Rick Telander
Amazon link
Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1976
ISBN: 0030173965
Hardcover (247 pages)

Description: Chronicle of the Jets’ disastrous 1975 season. Following the Jets’ strong finish in 1974, the team entered the season with high hopes only to finish with a franchise worst 3-11 record. By season’s end, head coach Charley Winner was fired and Joe Namath, once renowned for his play-calling expertise, had been reduced to receiving, without protest, plays sent in from the sideline.



The Last Season of Weeb Ewbank
By Paul Zimmerman
Amazon link
Farrar, Straus And Giroux, 1974
ISBN: 0374184623
Hardcover (326 pages)