‘New York Sack Exchange’ Probes Football And Friendships

One can forgive fans of the National Football League’s “other” New York team their melancholy. For the franchise’s more than three-score years, the New York Jets’ major memorable moment came in the form of Joe Willie Namath wagging his finger in the air after the Jets upset the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III — all the way back in the waning days of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency.

But a new documentary in ESPN’s “30 for 30” series shines new light on another moment in Jets lore, which came over a decade after the franchise’s sole Super Bowl appearance. “The New York Sack Exchange” chronicles a brief era when the team’s defensive line brought a resurgence of success, if not another Super Bowl trip. But as with most things Jets-related, it did not happen without drama.

Stout Defensive Line

The film examines how the Jets’ defensive front four — tackles Abdul Salaam and Marty Lyons, along with ends Joe Klecko (a 2023 inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame) and Mark Gastineau — helped propel a team that started out 0-3 in the 1981 season to a surprising playoff appearance. One year later, the team reached the conference championship game, just one step away from the Super Bowl, but came up short against the Miami Dolphins.

At the height of their fame in the fall of 1981, the foursome posed for a photo shoot on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange — the site of their reunion interview in the documentary. Because they never reached the Super Bowl, the Sack Exchange doesn’t have its place in pro football lore like the Dallas Cowboys’ Doomsday Defense or the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Steel Curtain, but the dominance of the Jets’ front four helped lead the NFL to adopt the quarterback sack as an official statistic in 1982.

Player Drama

Much of the documentary centers around Gastineau, the recognized character of the group — for both good and ill. Portions of interviews discuss Gastineau’s sack dance, which teammate Klecko disliked as showboating, his desire for attention and fame, and how Gastineau quit the NFL entirely — without talking with his teammates — midway through the 1988 season. The film also shows Gastineau’s confrontation with former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre last year, when he accused Favre of “taking a dive” in 2001, which allowed Michael Strahan to break Gastineau’s single-season sack record.

In one-on-one interviews for the documentary, Gastineau candidly recounts the events that made him an attention-seeking player. Childhood teasing because of his weight, coupled with a rape he suffered as a 10-year-old boy, meant Gastineau felt himself missing something in his life. While he tried to fill that void with adulation and fame during his playing career, Gastineau claims he has found peace through faith and his third wife of 17 years, Jo Ann.

Friendly Teammates?

The group interview on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shows both the camaraderie and the tension that can accumulate in a locker room. The fondness associated with competing together in battle appears, but so too do the scars and traumas from decades past.

One wishes “The New York Sack Exchange” had gone beyond its hour-long duration to air more of this group interview — and air it unedited. Based on the spliced-together footage shown, the desire to forgive appears, as it should for a group of individuals entering the twilight of their years. (Salaam died in October, after the interview was recorded but before the documentary aired; Gastineau said he was first diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer’s in 2016.)

But almost as quickly as talk of forgiveness appears among the foursome, the old tensions caused by differing personalities reemerge. Salaam, whose Islamic name means “soldier of peace,” tries to replay the peacemaker role he did four decades ago, with varying levels of success. All told, the footage provides a poignant reminder that old habits of bickering brothers can die hard — and that one must seek forgiveness as readily as one receives it.

Beyond Football

Jet fans can forgive the Sack Exchange for not bringing home a Super Bowl title, as succeeding generations have found themselves similarly snakebitten. Last season typified the trend, whereby quarterback Aaron Rodgers, a heralded free-agent signing who pledged to bring new life to the moribund franchise, ruptured his Achilles tendon on the fourth play of 2023’s first game, ending his year — and effectively the team’s season — in the most New York Jets way possible.

For football fans, “The New York Sack Exchange” provides a look back at one of the most dominating, if slightly forgotten, defenses in the game’s history. In recounting that history on the field, it also offers illuminating lessons on the meaning of teamwork, friendship, and human relationships off of it.

“The New York Sack Exchange” will re-air on ESPN networks and is available on the ESPN+ app.