Super Bowl XLVIII may be held at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford and Media Day may have taken place at the Prudential Center in Newark, but this is a New York City Super Bowl. The Jets and Giants have never worn a big 'NJ' on their helmets and all the pre-game events are in the Big Apple. So, get over it, New Jersey.
Peyton Manning might be afraid to cross the river, in fear that de Blasio might blitz him like a Seattle linebacker and slap a tax on him.
Now even Sen. Cory Booker, a big New Jersey politician who isn't in trouble these days, gets into the act about his state not getting enough love for a Super Bowl he still thinks is being shared by Jersey and New York City but really isn't.
'I passed miffed a while ago,' Booker said on Channel 5 the other day. 'Every time they talk about the Super Bowl you hear, 'We'll see you in New York.' Well, they're not playing in New York, they're playing in New Jersey.'
You can see that Booker, the former mayor of Newark, is new to throwing his weight around in Jersey, just by his use of the word 'miffed.' It's frankly a long way from there to one of his aides sending out an email about how it's time for traffic problems in Fort Lee.
It is an absolute fact that Super Bowl XLVIII is being played in New Jersey, MetLife Stadium, 6:30 Sunday night. And the two teams have been put up in hotels in Jersey City. And Media Day was held at the Prudential Center in Booker's old city, Newark, on Tuesday. This is still a New York City Super Bowl. The city gets all the real action of Super Bowl week, which happens to be the whole wretched glitzy overpriced corporate ballgame until the real game is finally played .
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This doesn't mean that Booker's state doesn't have a huge fun factor going for it lately, because it does, just going off Chris Christie's staff alone. And the way things are going with the new mayor of New York, Mr. de Blasio, Peyton Manning might be afraid to cross the river, in fear that de Blasio might blitz him like a Seattle linebacker and slap a tax on him.
But the Super Bowl is here because of New York City, even if the game is being played over at the place the late Sonny Werblin, when running the Meadowlands and enticing the Giants across the Hudson, used to call '13th Avenue.'
To say that Jersey and the city are 'sharing' this week is like suggesting that San Francisco will be 'sharing' Super Bowl L with Santa Clara in 2016 because the 49ers have moved there from Candlestick Park.
I like Cory Booker a lot, but the reason that the country thinks of this as a New York City event is because it is. New York Giants. New York Jets. New York Super Bowl.
There it was for you to see the past couple of days in Times Square, all the final preparations being done for what will officially become Super Bowl Boulevard on Wednesday. You could stand right next to the statue of George M. Cohan on 46th St., that statue built over 60 years ago, Cohan still facing south, the best way to see everything happening in front of him, down to where there will even be a toboggan run at 44th.
I ran into a television reporter from Seattle, the ABC affiliate there, Eric Johnson, interviewing people on the street. Johnson was asked if he was excited about the Seahawks getting to play the first New York Super Bowl.
'Are you kidding?' Johnson said. 'The last time (the Seahawks) made it to the Super Bowl, it was in Detroit. This time they make it to Broadway.'
But everybody has to know the deal here: The NFL didn't want this game here because of that big gray bowl where the Giants and Jets play their games. They wanted this game here because of New York.
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And before all the fancy, hot-ticket parties of the weekend, it really was all around you Monday and Tuesday in Times Square, last-minute preparations being done at the top of Super Bowl Boulevard there, the miniature football field across from the Walgreens, an information tent still being built in front of Sephora, a Fox TV set just behind the statue of Cohan that looked big enough to be a theme park.
A five-minute walk north, in a ballroom at the Sheraton New York, members of the host committee stuck to the party line at a press conference Monday, going on and on about all this amazing cooperation between two places that in reality get along about as well as the Yankees and the Red Sox.
'I think from the beginning we recognized that the Super Bowl wouldn't be here but for the assets of both states,' Alfred Kelly, the committee chairman, said.
It all sounded right. And did not change the facts of the week leading up to the big game. It always starts with what the two host teams still call themselves: New York Giants, New York Jets, New York Super Bowl. Look at it that way and it really does line up as neatly as traffic cones.manning
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