What the world looked like the last time the NY Jets made the playoffs

It's been 14 long years since the NY Jets have last appeared in a playoff game. That's 13 seasons, to be exact, and pretty soon it will be 14. It is currently the longest-running playoff drought in North American professional sports.

It was January 23, 2011, when the Jets lost to the Steelers in Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship Game. This ended their 2010 season along with their second Mark Sanchez/Rex Ryan-led Cinderella run. This was the last time a Jets player set foot on a football field during the playoffs.

It is crazy to think how much has happened since then. A whole decade of life came and went with no Jets playoff game. I personally never witnessed a Jets playoff game in my 20s. In order to have any memory of that last playoff run, you have to be over the age of 18. No child on earth can honestly say they remember the Jets playing in the playoffs.

Putting it all in perspective is truly mind-numbing. Let's take a deeper dive into how different a world it was when the Jets last made the dance.

Former President Barack Obama was still in the middle of his first-term

It's nuts to think about, but we were still a term and a half away from any notion of a Donald Trump presidency. We weren't even into President Obama's second term yet. The political world was completely different.

In the time since the Jets last made the playoffs, the man who would go on to change the landscape of US politics went from non-existent, to president, to impeached, and back to president. All of that happened since the Jets lost to the Steelers in the AFC Championship Game in January of 2011.

For better or worse, the name "Trump" is now engraved in all our minds forever. When the Jets stepped onto Heinz Field to play their last playoff game for over a decade, no one even had an inkling of a Trump presidency. Now, he basically owns the entire US news cycle and has for eight years. Wild.

Technology was in a different stratosphere

Technology as a whole was just so much different. I can remember back then everyone commenting on how we were "living in the future" with all the new-found technology. But we didn't have a clue of what was yet to come.

Everyone thought smartphones were the craziest invention to hit mankind. And they were, sort of. But the iPhone 4, which was the newest edition back then, would seem like a fossil if you handed it to a 13-year-old today.

Snapchat, a pillar of social media for over a decade now, didn't even exist. Twitter, now called X, was just beginning to blow up. Instagram, perhaps as big as any of them, was released in October of 2010 — just ahead of that last Jets playoff run.

We are so used to casually speaking to our digital devices like they are people nowadays, telling our Alexa, Echo, and Google Assistants to play music and turn off the lights, but the first of the voice-assistant technologies that started this rise, Siri, hadn't even been debuted by Apple yet.

And what about artificial intelligence? Forget about it. If I explained to people in 2010 what AI is, they would look at me like they were "seeing ghosts" (sorry Sam Darnold).

Top Songs, Movies and Shows

The entertainment landscape, like everything else, was also very different. We were just being introduced to superstars like Justin Bieber, Drake, and Ed Sheeran. The top song of 2010 was none other than "Tik Tok" by the great Kesha.

TV shows like Dancing with the Stars, The Bing Bang Theory, and Two and a Half Men were dominating the airwaves. The No. 1 rated show of 2010 was American Idol, appointment television for many Americans back then.

The highest-grossing film of 2010 was Toy Story 3, followed by Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, and Inception. Other notable movies from that year include Iron Man 2, Despicable Me, Shrek Forever After, and Eclipse of the Twilight Saga. What a time to be alive.

Companies like Amazon, Netflix and Tesla were just sleeping giants

These are household names now. Everyone on the planet, for the most part, is extremely familiar with all three of these companies.

But if you asked someone about Amazon back then, they would say, "Oh, that's the bookstore." If you asked someone about Netflix they would say, "Oh yeah, they mail you movies once a week." And if you asked someone about Tesla, they would probably just stare at you blankly and say, "What?"

In January of 2011, Amazon was selling at $9.53 per share on the stock market. Today, they are selling at close to $200 per share. Netflix sold at $26.14 per share. Today, they are just a hair below $900. Tesla could be purchased for $1.60, while today you can get them at over $339.

The Jets have been irrelevant throughout these companies' rise to fame. Oh, and just for fun, Johnson & Johnson went for $42 per share back then. Today they are floating around $155. Yup, Woody Johnson and his family have somehow profited massively throughout all this failure. Thanks, Woody.

Uber and Lyft weren't around

It sounds trivial, but what would life be today without ridesharing apps? Imagine not being able to summon a ride anywhere and have it at your door within 10 minutes. It sounds like living in the Stone Age now, but that was life in 2010.

Sure, there were taxis, limo services, and your kind friend who picks you up from the bar, but nothing like accessing a ride at your fingertips the way we can today. The official public launch of the Uber app in 2011 changed the way we travel for the better. We are safer and more secure as a result. We didn't have that luxury back then.

The sports world was a different place

Of course, EVERYTHING was different in the sports world, but it's just nuts to say out loud. When the Jets went on that playoff run in 2010-11, Aaron Rodgers hadn't even won his Super Bowl yet. That would come in two weeks after the Jets' loss to Pittsburgh.

Brett Favre was just wrapping up his career. Peyton Manning was still with the Indianapolis Colts. Tom Brady hadn't even won half his Super Bowls. The No. 1 overall pick was Sam Bradford, who would go on to win Offensive Rookie of the Year.

LeBron James had just made his infamous "Decision" in July of that year, taking his talents to South Beach. Kobe Bryant and the Lakers had just won his fourth championship. The San Francisco Giants just won the first of their three World Series championships in five years.

Duke beat Butler in the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship, just barely escaping Gordan Hayward's failed half-court heave. Cam Newton dominated college football, winning the Heisman and National Championship at Auburn.

Bronny James was only seven years old. Today, he is playing alongside his father. Sports were definitely just different.

Life was just different as a whole. Everything was different. It's rare that a franchise goes so long without a playoff appearance that they fail to evolve with the times, but that's what the Jets have somehow managed to do.

Here's hoping that in 14 more years, I'm not writing another piece about how it's been 28 years since the Jets have been to the playoffs. Unfortunately, it almost feels like that is somehow bound to happen. Until further notice, the curse lives on.

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