New Jersey Red Dogs

Arena Football League (1997-2000)

Tombstone

Born: 1996 – Arena Football League expansion franchise
Re-Branded: December 28, 2000 (New Jersey Gladiators)

First Game: May 3, 1997 (W 33-32 @ Anaheim Piranhas)
Last Game: July 22, 2000 (W 57-52 vs. Florida Bobcats)

Arena Bowl Championships: None

Arena

Continental Airlines Arena (19,040)¹
Opened: 1981
Closed: 2015

Marketing

Team Colors: Red, Black, Gray, White & Brown²

Ownership

Owners: E. Burke Ross, Jr., Carl Banks, Jim Burt, Harry Carson, Bruce Harper & Joe Morris

Background

This long-gone Arena Football League entry was notable mainly for its celebrity ownership and and its naming rights agreement with a briefly popular beer of the late 1990’s, Miller Brewing Company’s Red Dog lager.

The Red Dogs touted a quartet of retired New York Giants pro bowlers from the Super Bowl XXI championship on the team’s ownership masthead: defensive stalwarts Carl Banks, Jim Burt and Harry Carson and running back Joe Morris. Former Jets defensive back Bruce Harper was also part of the ownership group. The money man was private equity investor and radio station operator E. Burke Ross, Jr.

Ross also owned another team gimmicky sports promotion at Continental Airlines Arena during the 1990’s, the New Jersey Rockin’ Rollers of Roller Hockey International. But the Roller Hockey team closed its doors in late 1997, not long after the Red Dogs finished up their first season.

In Competition

The Red Dogs best season was their debut in 1997. The team won eight of their first nine games under Head Coach John Hufnagel, en route to a 9-5 record and a playoff berth. The Dogs’ late season slump carried over into the playoffs and the Orlando Predators handed New Jersey a 47-35 defeat in the opening round.

The Red Dogs never returned to the playoffs.

Canadian Football League veteran Rickey Foggie held the starting quarterback job for the most of the Red Dogs’ first three seasons from 1997 to 1999. His back-up in 1997 and 1998 was Aaron Garcia who would go on to set the Arena Football League’s all-time record for passing yards, passing touchdowns and interceptions during a 19-year career in the indoor game.

During the Red Dogs’ final season, former NFL 1st round draft pick Tommy Maddox unseated Foggie for the the starter’s job. Maddox would later return to the NFL for five more seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers (2001-2005) and earned that league’s Comeback Player-of-the-Year Award in 2002.

Put Down

Ross and his partners sold the Red Dogs to Miami attorney Jim Ferraro following the 2000 season. The Miller Brewing sponsorship apparently wound down around the same time. When the franchise returned to the floor during the spring of 2001 it was under a new identity: The New Jersey Gladiators.

The Gladiators played two more poorly supported seasons in East Rutherford and then moved to Las Vegas in late 2002.

The Arena Football League went endured bankruptcies in 2009 and 2019 and closed its doors for good in late 2019.