How the 1986 Jets can give the 2023 Eagles a reason for hope

It’s happened before.

And it was actually even worse.

Let’s go back 36 years. 

On Nov. 16, 1987, the Joe Walton Jets won their ninth straight game, coasting past the Colts 31-16 at the old Giants Stadium. They were 10-1, the best record in football. Their average win came by 11 ½  points. 

They had five games left. 

They lost ‘em all.

By an average of 24 ½ points.

The Jets — with offensive coordinator Rich Kotite and defensive coordinator Bud Carson — had already clinched a playoff berth, thanks to their hot start, but the regular season ended with a 52-21 thumping at the hands of the Bengals in Cincinnati.

In the span of 28 days, they lost games by 14, 14, 21, 31 and 42 points.

Sound familiar?

“I would say if anybody in the AFC had a choice of who to play (in the playoffs), we’d have to be the unanimous choice,” Jets defensive end Barry Bennett told the New York Daily News in the visiting locker room at Riverfront Stadium, where Kotite’s Eagles coaching career would end seven years later.

“We’ve got momentum. It’s just in reverse.”

Bengals coach Sam Wyche offered this after his team piled up 621 yards – still the most ever against the Jets: “When you’re used to beating everyone and suddenly the roof caves in, it’s a lot bigger fall. It’s a lot tougher to get back up from 10-1 maybe than from 7-3.”

Carson, always honest, said this when asked what it would take to turn the season around: “It would take a miracle. We can’t get any lower than we are now.”

It really does sound familiar.

Those 1986 Jets and these 2023 Eagles — two teams separated by nearly four decades — are the only teams in NFL history to open a season 10-1 and fail to win their division. They’re the only teams in NFL history to open a season 10-1 and lose five games the rest of the season. And they’re among only six teams in history to lose five of their last six games and still reach the postseason.

The Eagles will face the Buccaneers, who went 9-8 but won five of their last six games, on Monday evening in Tampa. Thirty-seven years earlier, the Jets played a home wild-card game against a Chiefs team that went 10-6 but won seven of its last 10 games.

Those 1986 Jets — like these Eagles — said all the right things leading up to game-day in East Rutherford.

“I still feel we earned our way into the playoffs,” Walton said. “We beat New England in New England and Seattle in Seattle when they were going well and Denver when they were playing well. The (players) should feel good that they are in the playoffs. It ain’t easy. It’s a long season and you have to overcome a lot. We should feel damn good.”

You can almost hear Nick Sirianni saying the exact same thing.

Jets tight end Mickey Shuler, who would go on to play for Kotite in Philly, said words you could easily hear coming out of the Eagles’ locker room this week.

“We’re as good as anybody in the playoffs,” he told the Bergen Record. “Now we have to prove it.”

That Jets team fell behind the Chiefs 6-0 before scoring 28 consecutive points on the way to a 35-15 win.

“When you’re in a slide, you have to hit rock bottom before you start up again,” cornerback Derland Moore told Newsday after the game. “Last week was rock bottom. It was bad. Really bad.”

The Eagles have hit rock bottom, losing five of their last six, all five losses in horrifying fashion and even the one win in horrifying fashion as well.

But if you don’t think they have a chance to go down to Tampa and win a wild-card game, maybe those 1986 Jets can convince you otherwise.

A week after that win over the Chiefs, the Jets traveled to Cleveland to face a 12-4 Browns team that had won the AFC Central and was the No. 1 seed in the AFC. 

The game was tied 7-7 after the first quarter, 10-10 after the second quarter and 20-20 after the fourth quarter. The Browns won in overtime, but the Jets had put together two competitive playoff performances – a 20-point win and an OT road loss to a No. 1 seed – after finishing the season with five straight blowout losses.

Can the Eagles win a playoff game after their epic late-season meltdown? 

Stranger things have happened.

Just not very often.

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