New York Jets, Giants belong to New Jersey

New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers will someday be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

He will, however, go in as a Green Bay Packer, not a New York Jet, as he hasn’t been in the New York area for very long. He knows very little about the history of how the two New York teams ended up playing on the west side of the Hudson River.

In his latest of a long stream of dubious sound bytes, Rodgers claims the Jets and Giants for New Jersey.

Aaron Rodgers: “We are the New Jersey Jets. So are the Giants.”

Insanely refreshing to hear for NJ people.

And as a Jet fan from NJ this is basically porn pic.twitter.com/cA3n1qVPUC

— Matt_NJD (@matt_NJD) July 22, 2024

The facts are as follows:

The Giants moved to Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey in 1976 after playing home games in New York since 1925 with the exception of the year and a half they played in the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut (1973-74).

They did not take the “NY” logo with them, changing their logo to “GIANTS” instead, to appease their fans in all three states. They did, subsequently, keep the “New York” in their name.

“It always has been and always will be the New York Giants,” late co-owner Wellington Mara said at the time.

Case closed. Mara also mentioned the Giants were still maintaining their offices in Manhattan.

Late Jets owner Leon Hess had no intention of changing his team’s name, either. That mindset has carried over to current owner Woody Johnson.

Not so fast. Over the years, several groups on both sides of the Hudson have sued to have the names of the Giants and the Jets (who moved to Giants Stadium in 1984) to New Jersey to no avail. Again, case closed.

Both teams are not dumb. Changing the name to New Jersey could open the door for a third team to crop up in the New York Metro marketplace. That is possible thanks to the precedent set by the area’s three local NHL franchises.

By keeping New York in their names, the Jets and Giants claim the New York Tri-State marketplace as their own.

There’s a thing called territorial TV rights, which keeps the lights on in NFL stadiums. Do not mess with the golden goose.

Rodgers will learn quickly how vast both teams’ fan bases are. Fans come from all over to attend games — all three of the Tri-States and several more such as Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Delaware, and beyond.