The New York Jets are basically a Rorschach test for NFL fans. If you’re a die-hard, you see a history of gritty legends and a Super Bowl ring that changed the sport forever. If you’re anyone else, you probably think of a playoff drought that has now stretched into a staggering 15-year odyssey. Honestly, looking at new york jets records is a bit like looking through a scrapbook that starts with a glamorous wedding and ends with a bunch of receipts for car repairs.
But here is the thing.
The numbers don't lie, even if they sometimes hurt to look at.
The Passing Records That Just Won't Die
Joe Namath is still the king. It is wild to think about. We are sitting here in 2026, and a man who last threw a pass for the Jets in 1976 still holds the franchise record for career passing yards with 27,057. Think about how much the game has changed. Broadway Joe threw 4,007 yards in 1967. That was the first 4,000-yard season in pro football history. It took decades for anyone else in a Jets jersey to even come close.
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Aaron Rodgers gave it a serious run in 2024. He put up 3,897 yards, which is actually the third-highest single-season total in team history, falling just short of Ryan Fitzpatrick’s 3,905-yard magic trick in 2015.
Ken O’Brien deserves way more respect than he gets. He’s second on the all-time list with 24,386 yards. People forget he was the "other" quarterback from that famous 1983 draft class, but for a while there, he was incredibly efficient.
Then there’s the touchdown mark.
Fitzpatrick still holds the single-season record with 31 touchdowns.
In a franchise that has seen legends like Brett Favre and Boomer Esiason pass through, it’s "Fitzmagic" who stands at the top of the mountain for a single campaign.
Running and Catching: The Curtis Martin Era
If you want to talk about stability, you talk about Curtis Martin. He is the gold standard. 10,302 rushing yards. That’s the record. It feels untouchable.
Martin was a machine.
In 2004, at an age when most running backs are considering a career in broadcasting, he led the league with 1,697 yards.
Breece Hall is the current torchbearer, and while he’s been a bright spot—rushing for 1,065 yards in a tough 2025 season—he’s got a long way to go to catch Freeman McNeil (8,074 yards) or Emerson Boozer (5,135 yards).
On the receiving side, Don Maynard remains the GOAT. 11,732 yards. 88 touchdowns.
Maynard was doing things in the 60s that would make modern cornerbacks dizzy.
Brandon Marshall’s 2015 season remains the high-water mark for a single year, though. 109 catches. 1,502 yards. 14 touchdowns. It was a statistical anomaly that Jets fans still talk about like a fever dream.
Garrett Wilson is currently chasing these ghosts. He’s been consistent, but the revolving door at quarterback has made it hard to stack those 1,500-yard seasons needed to crack the all-time top three.
The Dark Side of the Ledger
We have to talk about the 2025 season. It was... something.
The Jets finished 3-14.
That’s their worst record since 2020.
But the real kicker—the stat that makes you rub your eyes in disbelief—is the turnover margin.
In 2025, the Jets' defense forced just 4 turnovers the entire season.
Four.
That’s a new NFL record for the fewest takeaways in a season since the AFL-NFL merger, "breaking" the previous low of 7 set by the 2018 49ers.
It’s hard to win games when you’re not taking the ball away.
Defensive Wall of Fame
When you think of the Jets' defense, you think of the New York Sack Exchange. Mark Gastineau still sits at the top of the sack mountain with 74 career sacks. His 1984 season, where he notched 22 sacks, was the NFL record for years until Michael Strahan (and later T.J. Watt) pushed the bar higher.
Then there’s the secondary.
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Bill Baird holds the career interception record with 34.
Darrelle Revis is obviously the name everyone knows—"Revis Island" was a real place—but he finished with 25 interceptions as a Jet.
His value wasn't in the picks, though. It was in the fact that quarterbacks were too scared to even look in his direction.
Scoring and Special Teams
Pat Leahy. 1,470 points.
He played from 1974 to 1991.
That’s a lot of field goals.
Nick Folk is second with 729, which shows you just how long Leahy was kicking around (pun intended).
In terms of weird records, the 2025 Jets actually tied a franchise record with 4 special teams touchdowns.
Between fake punts and return scores, the third phase of the game was actually the team's most reliable way to find the end zone for a while there.
The Super Bowl III Ghost
Every conversation about new york jets records eventually leads back to January 12, 1969.
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The 16-7 win over the Baltimore Colts.
Matt Snell’s 121 rushing yards.
Jim Turner’s three field goals.
The fact that the Jets are the only team to ever win a Super Bowl while scoring only one touchdown (until the Patriots did it much later) is a testament to how that game was won in the trenches and on the defensive side.
What to Do With This Info
If you’re tracking these stats for a fantasy league, a sports bar argument, or just because you’re a glutton for punishment, keep an eye on the 2026 draft. The Jets traded Sauce Gardner to the Colts in late 2025 for a haul of picks, including Indianapolis’s 2026 and 2027 first-rounders.
The record books are primed for a rewrite, but they need the foundation first.
- Watch the Young Guns: Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson are the only ones with a realistic shot at the career Top 5 in the next three years.
- Takeaway Watch: Expect a massive defensive scheme shift in 2026 to fix that "4 takeaways" embarrassment.
- The Drought: The biggest record is the 15-year playoff absence. Any win that chips away at that is the only stat that truly matters to the fans at MetLife.
The history of this team is a mix of legitimate greatness and head-scratching droughts. Whether it's Namath’s yardage or the modern struggle to find the end zone, the records tell the story of a franchise that is always one big "guarantee" away from turning it all around.
Check the current active roster stats on the official NFL site or Pro-Football-Reference to see how the 2026 season starts to impact these all-time rankings in real-time.