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Study: Jets And Giants Nearly Lead League In Fan Arrests Per Game
By
David Colon
Published Oct 29, 2016
Modified Oct 29, 2016
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Steven Ryan/Getty Images
By
David Colon
Published Oct 29, 2016
Modified Oct 29, 2016
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The Jets and the Giants, are—how can we put this delicately?—not very good at football. They have a 6-8 record combined, both teams are in last place in their divisions and they both have negative point differentials. On the other hand, New York City football fans can at least come together to take pride in one thing Jets and Giants games result in more in-stadium arrests than almost every other teams in football.
The Washington Post took a look at arrest data for 30 of the NFL's 32 teams between 2011 and 2015 and found some interesting results. The amount of arrests per game trended upwards over the life of the study. Arrests increased when division rivals played each other, during games with later kickoff times and when the home team lost a close game. The violent reputation of Raiders fans is still valid, as arrests went up by 70 percent during away games the Raiders played.
Most relevant to New Yorkers, the Giants and Jets are numbers two and three, respectively, for most arrests per game, with 22.5 and 21.5 per game between 2011 and 2015. The San Diego Chargers were the only team whose home games saw more arrests than the Jets and Giants. During Chargers games, an average 24.6 fans were arrested per game.
On average, teams had 6.34 arrests per game last year, so hey, at least the Giants and Jets are outperforming the league somewhere.
The Jets, while slightly behind the Giants in terms of arrests per game, have played host to more high-profile mayhem over the past few years. There was the fan who brought a stun gun to a game and zapped some of his fellow paying customers, for one. There was also the notorious scene around Gate D at the Meadowlands, which involved men screaming at women to flash them as they walked the exit ramp and reacting with verbal abuse (or spitting or bottle throwing) if a woman didn't comply. And it wasn't a criminal matter, but who can ever forget the time that Brett Favre was sued for sexual harassment by two former Jets massage therapists, following revelations that he sexually harassed sideline reporter Jenn Sterger.
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David Colon
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