Former New York Jets Kicker Jay Feely to Face Ex-Team Doctor Amish Shah in Arizona Congressional Race

A former kicker for the New York Jets is now set to face off against his onetime team doctor in Arizona in an only-in-America congressional matchup for an open House seat.

Two competing political dynamics at play in Democratic and Republican congressional primary races combined to engineer the faceoff between ex-Jet Jay Feely, a Republican running for office for the first time, and Amish Shah, a doctor and former member of the Arizona statehouse, who was once the Jets’ team physician.

Feely played for a total of seven NFL teams during his 14 seasons in the league. He and Shah both found themselves on the Jets in 2008 — Feely as kicker, Shah as an emergency physician on the sidelines. It’s not clear if the two ever met or interacted.

Now, Feely is running for Congress with zero political experience but one very powerful backer on his side: Donald Trump. He cleanly won the GOP primary on Tuesday, beating his closest opponent by 14 percentage points. Afterwards, he noted his past connection with Shah as he spoke to reporters at his victory party.

“If it ends up being Amish Shah, he and I were both with the Jets at one time together. I was playing, he was a doctor,” Feely told the New York Post.

“It’s an old relationship. But whoever [my general election opponent] is, I want to do this the right way. I want to run this the right way,” he told the Post. “I want to make sure that I give them respect, I listen to them and give them the respect that they’re due, but still continue to stand up for my beliefs and what I believe is best for my district and my country.”

Shah, meanwhile, is being buoyed by something else — the frustration with his party’s leadership and the continued spectacle on display in Washington, where Republicans are warring with each other and Democrats and issues like affordability continue to go largely unaddressed. He won his primary by a smaller margin, nine points, over a candidate backed by the Democratic Party’s House campaign arm, the DCCC, which more and more candidates are beginning to say carries a toxic association with voters this cycle.

According to Axios, Democratic Party leaders backed Shah’s opponent over him due to his preference for getting out into the field and meeting voters over making fundraising calls, as well as his distaste for negative ads, after he worked with them in 2024 and narrowly lost the race for the seat against the Republican who since vacated the seat to run for governor, David Schweikert, as Democrats suffered defeats nationally that year.

His victory is notable because aside from a few semi-prominent backers like Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Shah is not part of the left-wing anti-establishment wave backed in some cases by the Democratic Socialists of America across the country.

While not the DCCC’s preferred candidate, Shah’s campaign platform is comparatively moderate when stacked up against those of recently victorious Democratic candidates in New York and Colorado. But his freedom from association from party leadership still made him stick out to voters, and instead he won with the support of 314 Action, a group supporting medical professionals and scientists for office, and a slew of figures with statewide renown including Rusty Bowers, a Republican witness to the Jan. 6 committee.

Trump’s endorsement of Feely came on the eve of the primary. On Truth Social, the president wrote that the former Jets kicker was “a TOTAL WINNER, on and off the field” — the Jets, on the other hand, have endured decades of losing.

“A multiple-time winner of National Football League “Man of the Year” honors, Jay’s career was “loaded up” with Accolades and WINS. Jay has a great wife, Rebecca, and four beautiful children. In Congress, Jay will fight hard to Grow our Economy, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE, Keep our Border SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, Strengthen our Military/Veterans, Ensure LAW AND ORDER, Advance Election Integrity, and Protect our always under siege Second Amendment,” added the president.

Trump’s brand in Arizona is sagging, however, and sat at just 40% approval in a survey published in May.

“Having tracked Trump’s job approval through his first and second term here in Arizona, this is the lowest we’ve ever seen it in the numbers,” an Arizona pollster said at the time.