Jets' 'New York Sack Exchange' back in spotlight with ESPN 30 for 30 documentary
The Jets' defensive line known as the New York Sack Exchange, from left: Joe Klecko, Marty Lyons, Abdul Salaam and Mark Gastineau on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on July 1, 1982. CREDIT: Ronald C. Modra (Photo by Ronald C. Modra/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images) Credit: Sports Illustrated via Getty Ima/Ronald C. Modra
James Weiner had been trying to get a film about the “New York Sack Exchange” made since he joined NFL Films in 2001.
They were in his fandom wheelhouse as a kid from Port Washington not yet born for Super Bowl III but old enough to say his first live NFL game was Joe Namath’s last as a Jet — a 42-3 loss to the Bengals at Shea Stadium on Dec. 12, 1976.
Then it finally happened, and just in time.
“The window for this to get done, literally, was about 18 months,” said Weiner, co-director of “The New York Sack Exchange,” an ESPN “30 for 30” documentary on the famed Jets defensive line of the early 1980s that will premiere at 8 p.m. on Friday.
The first step was Joe Klecko getting elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in early 2023, which bolstered the notion that the film could have national appeal.
The urgency on the other end was the declining health of Abdul Salaam, an original Sack Exchange member with Klecko, Marty Lyons and Mark Gastineau.
Weiner already had had to cut short one interview with Salaam in Cincinnati when he fell ill and landed in the hospital.
Then this past April, NFL Films sent a driver to Cincinnati to bring him and his family to New York. He was able to join his old linemates for a group interview on the floor of the exchange and to recreate an iconic photo there.
Salaam died on Oct. 8 at 71 of diabetes and other health problems.
“Amazing,” Lyons told Newsday. “James was trying to get this thing made for, like, 25 years, and then finally gets it done, and a few months later Abdul had passed away. If Abdul is not in the film, it’s not the same.”
Lyons broke up with emotion as he recalled Salaam.
“He was a tremendous player, but he was a larger-than-life friend,” Lyons said. “It takes a piece of you . . . It was good to know that he got recognized as part of that group.”
Salaam was the least heralded of the four, but the key role he played is evident in the film. His name translates to “Soldier of Peace,” and that mandate was tested repeatedly, from the 1980s all the way to that interview in April.
“His name was ‘Soldier of Peace,’ and that’s exactly what he did: He kept peace between the four of us,” Lyons said.
Those interpersonal dynamics are at the core of the film. There is no shortage of vintage footage that will warm the hearts of fans old enough to remember those days.
But what stands out is the animosity between the Klecko/ Lyons alliance and Gastineau, who true to his reputation from his playing days comes off as immature and wildly unpredictable. That often did not sit well with the more old-school souls Klecko and Lyons. The ill will was mutual.
In the film’s most shocking scene, Gastineau verbally attacks his two old mates yet again during that session at the NYSE. These are men in their late 60s and early 70s.
“After 40 years, I think if any of us had any resentment or animosity or jealousy, we need to let that stuff go,” Lyons said, “because that eats you from the inside out. You could see that Joe and I and Abdul have moved on, and we’re still waiting and hoping and praying that one day Mark does.”
Weiner nearly got Gastineau to sign on to the film in 2013, but that fell through. Once he agreed to do it this time, the project was on. Gastineau sat for a pair of two-hour individual interviews.
“Mark doesn’t really identify himself anymore as a guy who played football in the ’80s,” Weiner said. “He’s a much different person now, in his mind. However, if you bring up the ’80s and the Jets, he reverts right back to that guy.
“It became a fairly confrontational interview. But that being said, he answered all the questions, and it made for an entertaining watch.”
The peak Sack Exchange era was 1981 and ’82.
The Jets started 0-3 in 1981, then snapped that streak with a victory over the Oilers in which they recorded eight sacks. They rallied to a 10-5-1 record and a playoff berth. They totaled 66 sacks that year.
In the ’82 strike year, they went 6-3, beat the Bengals and Raiders in the playoffs, then lost the AFC Championship Game to the Dolphins in heavy mud in Miami.
A fan gave the defensive line its name in a Jets publication seeking the team’s version of front-four monikers such as the Fearsome Foursome, Purple People Eaters and Steel Curtain.
It caught on quickly.
The four visited the Stock Exchange in November to ring the opening bell and shoot the image that Weiner and his colleagues reconstructed.
Weiner made sure to inject the film with Long Island flavor, including narration by Method Man, the musician from Hempstead.
Now his ode to his childhood football heroes is ready to be shared.
“Part of me doesn’t believe it that it finally happened,” Weiner said. “It’s been a long fight right up until the end. It’s been a long fight, but it’s very rewarding.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
