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The Jets would win the Super Bowl and write one of the great stories in modern American sport. They were 1-15 when Bill Parcells took over, and two seasons later they were in the 1998 AFC Championship game in Denver, leading John Elway and the defending champions 10-0 in the third quarter.
It wasn’t just about reaching the Super Bowl for the first time since January 1969 and returning to South Florida, where Joe Namath had honored his guarantee by toppling the mighty Colts. The Jets had beaten the Falcons by 25 points in the regular season. They weren’t going to lose the rematch in the big game.
So every time the Jets play against the Broncos, images of that lost day at Mile High Stadium come alive in the minds of those who were there. The 1998 Jets had two 1,000-yard receivers, Keyshawn Johnson and Wayne Chrebet; future Hall of Fame running back Curtis Martin; a defense that allowed 16.6 points per game, the lowest in the league; one-year Pro Bowl quarterback Vinny Testaverde; and two of the best coaches of all time, Parcells and defensive coordinator Bill Belichick.
Team owner Leon Hess, known to have lined up loser after loser, was finally spending his day in the sun. It was his year… until it wasn’t. Until his Jets were blown away by the swirling winds of Mile High.
“This is perhaps the most disappointing loss I have ever had,” Parcells told The Post on Friday. “Sir. Hess was getting older and I was really hoping we could do something for him. That was really the essence of my sadness. I knew he didn’t have many opportunities to do it anymore.
Before that game, after watching the Falcons stun the Vikings for the NFC title, the Jets knew they were 60 minutes away from football from a Super Bowl winning proposition.
“We all felt we were better than Atlanta, there was no doubt about it,” recalls cornerback Ray Mickens. “It was a shocking loss for Minnesota so we thought Denver was our Super Bowl.”
The Jets largely dominated the Broncos in the first half, passing them by 120 yards. Testaverde completed his first 13 passes while Elway started 1 on 8 for 6 yards. But the Jets couldn’t complete their practice and settled for a 3-0 lead at halftime.
“We felt good about our chances to get into the second half,” said Mickens. “Belichick hardly had to make any adjustments because we were playing so well defensively.”
Early in the third quarter, Blake Spence, the Jets’ third-string tight end, blocked a punt that led to Martin’s 1-yard touchdown run and a 10-0 lead. The crowd of over 75,000 began to moan and hoot. But on the first play of the next possession, Elway became Elway again. He found Ed McCaffrey for a 47-yard gain that suddenly changed the mood of the game – permanently.
Two plays later, Elway threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Howard Griffith. The winds, which were blowing at up to 40 mph, altered Jason Elam’s kickoff, bouncing it away from the Jets’ Dave Meggett and into the hands of the Broncos. It was a worrying sign of things to come. Denver snatched 20 unanswered points in 11:38 of the third quarter, and the Jets couldn’t recover. They lost 23-10 as they had four fumbles among their six turnovers, including one from rock solid Keith Byars.
“He hadn’t groped for nine years,” Parcells said.
To punctuate his last home game, Elway did a little lap of honor on the field. Parcells looked like a broken man in the Jets locker room.
“We helped them fight a bit,” he recalls. “It was a very difficult day. It’s a results business, and the results weren’t what I had hoped for.
Mickens, now the owner of airport restaurants in the Dallas area, said he remained haunted by a pass break on Denver’s Rod Smith who he said should have been a six pick.
“The fact that you are talking about it is driving me crazy again,” he joked over the phone. “Parcells and Belichick had prepared us so much that we basically called the Denver plays before they performed them. I just wish we could do it. It would have solidified everything for this team.
Instead, on the rebound, Testaverde blew his Achilles tendon in the first game of the 1999 season.
“It felt like a piece of each of us was carried off the field with him,” Martin said that day.
Parcells quit after the Jets were 8-8 in 1999, Belichick ran his quick break at Foxborough and, well, you know the rest.
All those non-championship seasons later, the Jets return to Denver on Sunday.
“I can still hear Parcells talking to me, sitting on my shoulder,” Mickens said. “Her favorite line for me was, ‘It’s almost not good enough.’ “
Almost 23 years ago at Mile High, for fans of the Downed Jets, “almost” was pretty darn good.
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