The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The Jets play their home games at MetLife Stadium (shared with the New York Giants) in East Rutherford, New Jersey, 5 miles (8.0 km) west of New York City. The team is headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey. The franchise is legally organized as a limited liability company under the name New York Jets, LLC.[6]
The team was founded in 1959 as the Titans of New York, an original member of the American Football League (AFL); later, the franchise joined the NFL in the AFL–NFL merger in 1970. The team began play in 1960 at the Polo Grounds. Under new ownership, the current name was adopted in 1963 and the franchise moved to Shea Stadium in 1964 and then to the Meadowlands Sports Complex in 1984. The Jets advanced to the playoffs for the first time in 1968 and went on to compete in Super Bowl III where they defeated the Baltimore Colts, becoming the first AFL team to defeat an NFL club in an AFL–NFL World Championship Game.[7] Since 1968, the Jets have appeared in the playoffs 13 times, and in the AFC Championship Game four times, most recently losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2010.[8] However, the Jets have never returned to the Super Bowl, making them one of two NFL teams to win their lone Super Bowl appearance, along with the New Orleans Saints, and making them one of four teams (along with the Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Houston Texans) to never win an AFC championship. Apart from the Browns and the Detroit Lions, who have never reached the Super Bowl (although both won NFL championships prior to 1966), the Jets' drought is the longest among current NFL franchises.