Zero For Philly

If the New York Jets are going to continue their run towards the postseason this Sunday, they are going to have to change the history of their franchise. In a twist of "same old Jets" irony, the team will play a must win game against an outfit they have never beaten in their history.

That's right, boys and girls. The New York Jets have never defeated the franchise known as the Philadelphia Eagles. Zero wins, eight losses. Four of those contests have come in the City of Brotherly Love, where the upcoming game will take place.

A quick look at the history books yield the following final scores over the years:

Sunday, December 9th, 1973: Eagles 24, Jets 23 - Six turnovers, seven fumbles, and 21 mph winds probably made for a miserable day at Veterans Stadium!

Sunday, December 18th, 1977: Eagles 27, Jets 0 - Six turnovers, seven fumbles, and an interception by future Jet coach Herm Edwards highlighted what seems like an ugly football game.

Sunday, November 12th, 1978: Eagles 17, Jets 9 - Six turnovers, six fumbles, and less combined passing yards than Aaron Rodgers averages in a half. Sheesh.

Sunday, December 20th, 1987: Eagles 38, Jets 27 - Four turnovers, eight fumbles (sensing a trend here), and eighteen penalties totaling almost 200 yards. At least the fans got to see Randal Cunningham, Reggie White, Chris Carter, Mark Gastineu and Al Toon all on the field in one day.

Sunday, October 3rd, 1993: Eagles 35, Jets 30 - Five turnovers, five fumbles, and 17 Bubby Brister passes. How did the Jets lose this one? A 94-yard interception return for a touchdown by Eric Allen as they tried to ice the game after blowing a 21-point lead.

Saturday, December 14th, 1996: Eagles 21, Jets 20 - Nine turnovers, six fumbles and Glenn Foley vs. Ty Detmer! The game that ended the Rich Kotite era of NFL coaching. Days after this atrocity, Kotite mercifully departed the sidelines for good, leaving behind a 1-14 team for Bill Parcells to turnaround.

Sunday, October 26th, 2003: Eagles 24, Jets 17 - Only four turnovers and two fumbles, making this the cleanest game played in decades between these two pretend rivals. This was the second of nine consecutive wins for Philadelphia, propelling them to the NFC Championship Game. As for these Jets? They followed up their AFC East Title of 2002 with far too many underwhelming performances like this in '03, on route to a 6-10 finish.

Sunday, October 14th, 2007: Eagles 16, Jets 9 - Six field goals and one touchdown...hopefully you saved your ticket stubs from this classic! 156  total yards from Brian Westbrook carried Philly. On the other side, Chad Pennington's meek performance was a precursor to Brett Favre replacing him the next summer.

The silver lining for the 2011 version of Gang Green? They had never won a game in the state of Pennsylvania until they defeated the eventual AFC Champion Steelers in a must win game just about one year ago.