Every sports fan loves a good rivalry. Some of the most notable matchups in sports history involved Boston and New York franchises. In MLB, Red Sox-Yankees is unparalleled. The intensity of the NBA’s Celtics-Knicks feud is ramping up again. In the NFL, the New England Patriots and New York Jets strongly despise one another.
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Former Patriot wideout Julian Edelman discussed the Pats-Jets divisional battles on his Games with Names podcast. As a member of the more successful organization, he took a shot at Gang Green in conversation with Cameron Jordan.
“It was their Super Bowl, twice a year. But they actually had our number for a couple of years when I was young.”
From 2008 to 10, New York went 4-3 versus New England. The Jets’ most significant victory in that stretch came during the 2010 AFC Divisional, where they defeated the Patriots 28-21 to advance to the AFC Championship. New England (14-2) was the AFC’s No. 1 seed and a heavy Super Bowl favorite that year, but New York spoiled their title chances.
Since then, though, the Patriots have dominated the Jets. New England is 24-4 against New York over the past 14 seasons and won 15 consecutive faceoffs from 2016 to 23. The two rivals split this season’s meetings.
Cam Jordan: Other divisions have “too much shared hate”
In theory, most rivalries involve teams with comparable levels of success. However, in practice, the majority feature one organization who is perceived to be superior to an inferior foe. Yankees-Red Sox was this way for roughly 90 years. This dynamic is part of what made the Jets’ triumph over the Patriots in 2010 so sweet for New York’s fanbase.
To Jordan, each franchise should have one primary opponent that resides above all others. He believes that’s how the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons view their rivalry. While propping up their contentious affairs, he slighted the AFC North’s division-wide adversarial nature.
“[Saints-Falcons is] the only one that matters… the Pittsburgh Steelers will say, like the Cleveland Browns. But they also hate the Baltimore Ravens and they also hate the Cincinnati Bengals. That’s too much shared hate.”
For the AFC North in particular, Steelers-Ravens stands out from the pack as a typical “throw out the record books” confrontation. Pittsburgh and Baltimore will renew their hostilities in the wild card round on Saturday night. Their fifth-ever playoff matchup kicks off at 8:00 p.m. on Amazon Prime.
