While a new surface was installed at MetLife Stadium this offseason out of concern for player safety, the New York Giants took it as an opportunity to put their stamp on their home field by replacing the NFL shield at the 50-yard line with their primary logo.
The Giants have shared a stadium with the New York Jets since 1984, and neither team painted a logo at midfield for the first two seasons of their arrangement. That changed in 1986, when a a red circle featuring “New Jersey Meadowlands” and the state outline appeared at the 50-yard line.
That design remained until 1997, when the Meadowlands introduced a refreshed logo that included a black circle with purple, orange and green flags, though it lasted just one season, as the Giants replaced it with the NFL shield above a Giants Stadium wordmark in 1998.
The Jets, meanwhile, began painting their primary logo at midfield in 1998, their first season with a new logo that featured “NY,” “Jets” and a football inside of a dark green oval. Both teams then placed the NFL shield at the 50-yard line in 2000, as Giants Stadium switched from turf to natural grass.
Aside from a few kickoff games from 2001-05 and 2008, which is also the same year the league honored longtime NFL Players Association executive director Gene Upshaw with an on-field tribute, the NFL shield has stood alone at the 50-yard line at Giants and Jets games ever since.
In fact, MetLife was the last stadium to display the NFL shield at midfield on a weekly basis after the Washington Football Team swapped the mark for their primary logo midway through the 2020 season. Of course, that doesn’t include Super Bowl or international games.
There was a brief period of time after the teams moved from Giants Stadium to MetLife in 2010 that they considered a tray at midfield that would allow the team to swap their logos like they do end zones, but a season-ending knee injury during the first practice in the venue quashed that idea.
Now, the grounds crew will simply wash the paint off the 50-yard line and end zones following the Giants’ games – just like they do at SoFi Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Chargers and Los Angeles Rams – to make room for the Jets’ logo and wordmark (and visa versa).
The “NY” logo will make its regular season debut when the Giants host the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Night Football on Sept. 10 (8:20 p.m. ET on NBC). They’ll need a quick turnaround, too, as the Jets play the Buffalo Bills on Monday Night Football (8:15 p.m. ET on ESPN).
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