It's all well and good that this happened against Cincinnati, because the Jets won 26-14. Had it been any other team, the Jets would have lost 37-26. (Their defense wasn't great, and the offensive line was pretty terrible, with the amount of times Favre was pressured.) Had the Jets done what they should have on Sunday, they would have won at least 40-7. But they won, 26-14, and a win's a win. So that's that. They just need to look sharper in future weeks.
I'm here to revisit with you, though, the dopes in my section at Giants Stadium. You may remember that this put a damper on my last Jets game experience - please re-read the link to refresh your memory. We're talking about some of the same characters, but this time I have pictures.
The paper airplane guys featured prominently in Sunday's action. I'm saving them until last because there's a long story attached.
Let's start here...I forget if I ever mentioned it, but if I haven't it's time for a reminder. The Jets give the visiting team tickets about three sections to the left of mine. So in the drunken upper deck that's like a festering ground for fights. No different on Sunday - though things were pretty tame as far as fights. This picture was taken before the game, during warmups, so there's only a few Bengals fans, but they're there. The other thing that's notable is the girls in the front rows of this picture are all wearing Ryan Fitzpatrick jerseys, so I can only believe they must be family. Because who else has a Ryan Fitzpatrick jersey?
Item number 2: Fireman Ed jumped the shark when he started appearing in NFL commercials and stuff. But that stuff only happened when they started putting him on the big scoreboard at Giants Stadium. When I was growing up, it was cool that this guy got the whole stadium to cheer. Now any dope can do it.
Item number 3: Case in point - this is our section's "any dope". This guy (the one up front, with the "Sec. 337" jersey), for about the past 20 years, tries to lead our section in the "J-E-T-S" chant. I say he tries, rather than he does, because less than 50% of the people respond. Here's another thing - he blows a friggin' whistle any time he wants people's attention. No one should be allowed to bring a whistle into an NFL game - he blows it at inappropriate times too, like right before the ball is snapped.
Item number 4: The Jets now have cheerleaders. Notable because the weather was warm and they were dressed like cheerleaders you might see in San Diego or somewhere. I've only seen them live once before and it was in the middle of winter. They never show the Jets cheerleaders on TV, though, I wonder why that is.
Item number 5: I don't have pictures of this - after the Jets score, they shoot off fireworks at Giants Stadium. Here's why I don't have pictures - you can't really see fireworks in the daytime. I know that. The Jets don't seem to know that. So after the Jets score, there's just a huge 'boom'. I say only use fireworks during night games.
Item number 6: OK. Now the paper airplanes. So you can see in the picture below, I circled the middle-aged man's stack of white paper that he brought from home to make paper airplanes out of (click the picture to see it better):
They get to the game, and right away start with the airplanes. A guy one section over goes up to them, asks them pretty politely to stop. He says, "I once got hit in the eye with a paper airplane, I'd appreciate it if you stopped doing that." They pretty much laugh at him and curse at him. It was a nice effort by the guy trying to get them to stop, but it was sort of made laughable by the fact that while he was talking to the dopes throwing the planes, tons of airplanes are flying around the stadium, because everyone does it.
It would have been nice if it ended there, but it didn't. The old guys (paper airplane throwers) cursed at the dude (person who tried to stop them). The dude called them children - "What are you, 7?" They cursed back and forth. The rest of the game they pretty much ignored each other, and the old guys continued to throw planes.
Until the final five minutes, when the old guys decided to leave. One of them gets up, and wags his middle finger in the face of the other guy, who responds by (ironically, I thought) throwing a piece of paper at the guy. A couple of people stepped in to make sure there wasn't a fight. Then, and this was infuriating, the old guys pointed out the dude to security. Thankfully security did the right thing and didn't take the dude out, but the old guys got booed out of the section. Just horrible, though, that this is the type of thing that sticks with me after the game.
Item number 7: Finally, above is the bus lineup outside the stadium....or at least, about 10% of the line. My dad and I took the subway to Manhattan, then the express bus from Port Authority to the stadium, to avoid the mess coming out of the parking lot. It was pretty good going to the game - 1 hr., 15 mins. door-to-door. Going home, we spent 45 minutes just in line, waiting for the bus, before the bus and subway rides themselves (bad traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel skews the bus ride numbers). Total travel time, 2 hrs., 25 minutes.
Could've been worse, I guess. The Jets could have lost.
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