This Sunday the New York Jets and New York Giants square off at MetLife Stadium in a game that is critical for both teams. While the two rivals meet every summer in the preseason, they only see each other once every four years in the regular season. And on those rare occasions when they do see each other in the regular season, sometimes the game doesn’t have a lot riding on it.

This week will be an exception.

For the Jets they stand at 3-3 and need wins to keep pace with Buffalo and Miami in the AFC East. The Giants (2-5) are only 2.5 out of the last wild card slot. There is plenty to play for.

Let’s go down memory lane to the best of the best: Jets vs. Giants contests.

• 2015 - Jets Win OT Thriller

  The last time the Giants were the designated home team in this series, the Jets pulled out an unlikely overtime thriller back in 2015. How have things changed since then? Well, the coaches were Tom Coughlin and Todd Bowles, and Eli Manning and Ryan Fitzpatrick were both under center for both squads.

  It looked like the Giants would run away with it, leading 20-3 in the second quarter before the Jets staged a late comeback. Fitzpatrick’s nine-yard touchdown in the corner to Brandon Marshall tied the game at 20 forcing overtime.
  In OT, Fitzpatrick guided the Jets on a time consuming 61-yard drive that resulted in a Randy Bullock field goal to make it 23-20.

  With one last shot Eli Manning tired to bring the Giants all the way back, and had Big Blue in field goal range, but Josh Brown missed the tying field goal. Jets win.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvQwIuvEPZc

• 2003 - Giants and Jets Avoid a Tie

  Back in 2003 neither the Jets nor Giants were really going anywhere, but on this October day they played one of their wildest games against each other. The two teams combined for more than 800 yards of offense as Kerry Collins and Chad Pennington were going back and forth with touchdown strikes seemingly all day. The Jets would force overtime when Pennington hit Anthony Becht for a touchdown, setting up an OT where all hell broke loose.

  The Giants missed a field goal that would have won it. Then the Jets had a field goal blocked. Finally with the clock expiring in overtime, the Giants finally nailed the game winner off the foot of Brett Conway. 31-28 G-Men.

  Ironically this was the last game the Giants won in 2003. Big Blue finished 4-12. the Jets finished 6-10.

• 1988 - Jets Sink Giants Playoff Hopes

  The date was December 18, 1988. The Giants needed just one win in order to clinch a spot in the NFC playoffs, and had to get it against the lowly Jets who would spend their Christmas and New Year starring at a fireplace while listening to Nat King Cole.

  But something weird happened on the way to the Giants playoff coronation: the Jets treated the game like their personal Super Bowl. Gang Green jumped out to leads of 13-0 and 20-7.

  Phil Simms had to bring the Giants all the way back with two late touchdown passes, one to Stephen Baker the Touchdown Maker and another to Lionel Manuel to give Big Blue a 21-20 lead.  In the game’s final four minutes Ken O’Brien guided the Jets downfield for the winning score, hitting Al Toon in the corner of the end zone with 41 seconds to go. Jets took the lead 27-21 and would win by that score. That was good enough to knock the Giants out of the playoffs.

• 1999 - Sean Payton's Welcome to the NFL

  In 1999 nobody really knew who this little known quarterback’s coach named Sean Payton was for the New York Giants.  Head coach Jim Fassel was the man who ran the offense. But in Week 13  of the 1999 season, in a game where both the Jets and Giants were still mathematically alive for the playoffs, the world found out. Fassel put Payton in charge of his struggling offense, and the Giants lit up Bill Parcells’ Jets 41-28.

  Kerry Collins threw for 341 yards and three touchdowns, and before anyone could blink it was 27-7 Giants at halftime. The loss was one of the most lopsided in the Parcells-Jets era. In fact Payton made such an impression on Parcells, he would eventually add Payton to his coaching staff in Dallas. The rest is history as Payton would later credit Parcells with him become a Super Bowl winning head coach in New Orleans.

• 2011 - Giants Salsa Their Way to the Super Bowl

  On Christmas Eve in 2011 the Jets and Giants arguably played their most significant meeting against one another. Both teams were alive for the playoffs. The Jets were coming off back-to-back AFC Championship Game appearances, and Rex Ryan — as he was apt to do — did plenty of trash talking about Big Blue going into the game.

  On one play everything changed. The Jets led 7-3 in the second quarter. The Giants had the ball at their own one-yard line, and Eli Manning dropped back to pass in the end zone. The protection was great as Manning hit Victor Cruz down the sideline in tight coverage. Cruz shook off his tackler and glided down field for a 99-yard touchdown to give the Giants a 10-7 lead. They would never look back en route to a 29-14 smackdown of the Jets.

  The game was the beginning of the end of quarterback Mark Sanchez with the Jets, and really the beginning of the end of Ryan’s tenure. As for the Giants, they rode the momentum from that win to a triumph over the Jets arch rivals, the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI.

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