ny giants and jets win bid for 2014 superbowl!!

it's official - the nfl owners voted late yesterday afternoon to hold the 2014 superbowl at the meadowland! the ny giants and jets submitted their joint bid for the game three weeks ago (competing against tampa and south florida). while the giants and jets were favored, it took 4 rounds of voting before they clinched a majority of the 32 votes.

superbowl XLVIII (48 for roman numeral challenged) will be the first time the game is played at at a "cold weather" location. the coldest superbowl (in 1972), in new orleans, had a game time temperature of 39 degrees. unless a rogue heatwave rolls into town, it's a good bet that an early february football game at the meadowlands will shatter that record!

as mayor bloomberg observed at the announcement yesterday: "if it snows, it snows. this isn't beach volleyball. it's football!" weather aside, one caveat worth noting - no home team has ever played in the host city superbowl. the giants will have to break that record too :D

ny giants and jets bid for the 2014 superbowl game!!

yesterday the giants and jets teamed up in a bid to bring the 2014 superbowl to the meadowlands! eli manning and mark sanchez were on hand to add a little star power to the announcement. while not quite a long shot, it would have been an outright hail mary if not for the backing of nfl commissioner roger goodell. a superbowl at the meadowlands would be the first one held at an outdoor stadium during the winter!

also bidding are tampa and south florida (classic warm weather sites). the decision is expected in two weeks, on may 25th, when the owners vote on the choice. if none of the three bids receive three quarters of the votes (24 of the 32 owners), the city with the fewest votes is dropped. the winner will then be decided by a simple majority of the second round vote.

go meadowlands!!
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Update: and, the 2014 superbowl goes to the ... meadlowlands!! woo hoo!!

brett favre retirement redux: to leave ny jets after only one season

brett favre, via his agent, who in turn made it official via an email to the jets, has seemingly announced his retirement this morning. all so suddenly (but probably expected) that the jets are hastily putting together an official announcement right now. in the wake of sacking mangini at the close of the season, and his replacement mapping out strategy for the upcoming season, it is decidedly the right thing to do (if, albeit, lamely executed). the 16 game favre era of the jets has come to a close!

not only does it free up 13 million of salary cap dollars that can be applied in the search for a new quarterback, it kicks off the start of the search for a replacement. this is a much better scenario for jet fans than watching favre anguish, hamlet-like, over the decision for the entire off-season. no doubt he still has of supporters, not the least of which happens to be the team's owner. but the unfavorable side by side comparison with his predecessor in the season-ending finale with miami is more informative.

as great a quarterback favre was (and he's headed straight to the hall of fame in canton), he just didn't seem into the game for the second half of the season. the jets need a young quarterback that will develop in tandem with the new coach and his staff.

the news broke on espn, but here is a link the daily news story that goes into the future quarterback question as well.

stay tuned: i'll update this when the jets make a formal announcement later today (scheduled for noon).
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no major news from the conference calls. looks like kellen clemens will come off the bench as the presumptive choice until we hear otherwise.

jets win superbowl - 16-7 upset over baltimore colts 40 years ago today!!

how fitting is for us new york giants fans to wake up the day after big blue crashed and burned yesterday - and celebrate the 40th anniversary of jets superbowl victory (another team dressed in green). on january 12, 1969, the jets pulled off one of the biggest upsets in nfl history when they beat the heavily favored baltimore colts, 16-7, in miami.

almost as impressive as the win itself, quarterback joe namath had "guaranteed" the victory to an astonished press corps - despite the jets going into the game as 18 point underdogs!

so instead of deconstructing yesterday's ugly, ugly, ugly (and feel free to add as many uglys here as you see fit) giants collapse, or daydreaming about what could have been... we have this really cool - and ironic - green tinted anniversary to celebrate :D

jets fire mangini in wake of season collapse!

in the wake of yesterday's 24-17 loss to miami, which capped off an embarrassing late season collapse, the ny jets fired the head coach, eric mangini, this morning. in a swift and unusual move, the team held a 10 a.m. press conference with the team owner, woody johnson, to make the announcement. it's way too soon to speculate on his successor.

from a mid-season high water mark where the jets beat the previously undefeated titans (and new england for good measure), with an 8-3 record, they then lost the last 4 out of five games and found themselves out of the post-season. amazingly, the jets 9-7 record is a dramatic improvement over their 4-12 performance in 2007! under different circumstance, mangini could have been talking about a contract extension!

it wasn't too long ago that an 8-8 tom coughlin in 2006 got a one year contract extension from the giants. that was in the face of wholesale fan sentiment not only against an extension, but for his outright firing! in hindsight, the extension paid off beautifully since the giants proceeded to win the superbowl in 2007! that was a storybook turnaround in the fortunes of coach coughlin (and, of course, the giants).

but the mangini story had a dramatically different conclusion. how else could it end when, however premature, all the talk was that the 8-3 jets would go all the way to the superbowl. with such overblown expectations and such ridiculously poor team play over the last 5 games (and they lucked out against buffalo, otherwise it would have been 0-5 instead of 1-4), the jets didn't even get a wild card slot - much less a division title (which they sat atop)!

the talk, speculation, recrimination, and prognostication has gotten underway. the chatter will be even hotter if chad pennington takes miami to more wins in the post-season! gotta love karma - even when it's a bitch. mangini unceremoniously jettisoned pennington in favor of favre, and now the wheel has turned and the consequences played out.

update: brett favre announced his retirment (2/11/09), thus giving the jets a completely fresh start to the 2009 season.

jets inch past patriots in overtime, 34-31: take sole possession of first place!

forgive me father, but i've watched two jet games since i had a giants game on the screen! last weekend i caught the jets historic blowout victory sunday afternoon. but i had to miss the giants game sunday night because rob and i went to see the dso concert in peekskill. then, last night, the jets game took over thursday night t.v. (with a brief switchover to the new episode of "it's alway sunny in philadelphia")! and what an intense 60 minutes of football:

the jets opened up a 24-6 lead over the patriots - in foxborough - by the second quarter. then the pendulum swung - it was foxborough, after all - and the jets let new england put up 18 unanswered points to tie up the game in the forth quarter. but, apparently that tie score reignited the offense and the jets marched down the field, and thanks to a ridiculous holding call against the patriots, followed by a legit holding call in the next series, had 3 sets of downs to punch it in for 7 - instead of settling for a field goal.

amazingly enough, that 7 point score wasn't enough to put it away! miraculously, with one(!) second left on the clock, the patriots scored a touchdown. this certainly put a new spin on cliff hanger. luckily, the jets won the overtime toss - and the rest is, as we say, history after grinding down the field and putting the ball through the uprights! awesome. even more awesome, the game took place on new england's very own turf. the jets paid back the patriots, with interest, for the week two loss, and take over sole possession of first place.

now we will so see the inevitable comparisons to the giants creeping out into mild mannered conversation... but let's not get crazy!

speaking of giants, after a self-imposed 48 hours of penance, the planets will realign and world order restored. sunday afternoon, i'll have the right team - and color - back on the screen :D

GO BLUE!!