They hate us anyway, right? They detest us, and they envy us, and they made us sweat out four ballots of torture, they don’t only think of us as the root of all evil here in the Big Bad City, they think of us as Dr. Evil. So let’s embrace that. Let’s let it ride.
Let’s double down on our big win, on landing the Super Bowl, on hacking off all the minions across the country still waiting for their little-town blues to start melting away. There’s backlash to Greater New York getting the Super Bowl? Grumbling about that 78-inch blizzard everyone now expects to settle on Bergen County sometime around the first of February, 2014?
Fine. Let’s really embrace it. Let’s start rooting for the two things that will not only ensure that Super Bowl XLVIII is even more memorable than it’s already certain to be — because, let’s face it, even dreadful Super Bowls are memorable to someone— but will guarantee that it’ll be unforgettable to us, to New York, to a football populace that has earned the Big Game in our backyard:
PHOTOS: COLD WEATHER GAMES AT THE MEADOWLANDS
1) Bring that bad weather on. Let it snow. Let it blow. Let it rain. Hell, let it sleet, let it hail, let it fog. Let’s invite a swarm of locusts. The fouler, the better. And here’s a promise for you: I’ll cover that sucker outdoors, outside the press box, so I can commune with nature just like you.
2) Bring the Jets and the Giants. Hell, one of these years that’s going to happen, right? So why not that year? Why not send a festering ulcer to the rest of the country — that segment who today is lamenting the “purity” of Florida weather or Dome non-weather, that can roughly be described as residing north of Sullivan County and south of the Turnpike and West of the Delaware Water Gap and east of Hartford. Let’s make them even more miserable.
There might be bad weather for a New York Super Bowl? Here’s Jerry Kramer, talking to the Post’s Steve Serby the other day. Kramer only played in six championship games in his career with the Packers, winning five. He played in the Ice Bowl. He played in the ‘62 NFL Championship Game between the Giants and Packers at Yankee Stadium, a day so cold, Allie Sherman once recalled, that as the Giants’ coach walked the field before the game he tried to take a sip from his coffee only to discover it had instantly frozen.
“I remember going home afterwards, in the back of the plane playing cards, and Jimmy [Taylor] had a trench coat on and he was still shaking and shivering — two hours later! — heading to Green Bay,” Kramer said.
Must’ve been a horrid experience, right? Um, no.
“I loved to play in the elements. I’d love to see it just like the Ice Bowl, or at least a roaring rainstorm.”
Bad weather has given us the Ice Bowl, and the Tuck Game, and the Fog Bowl. The Packers and Browns left the ‘65 NFL title game caked in mud. Pat Summerall kicked the most famous field goal in Giants history into the teeth of a snowstorm in 1958. O.J. danced to 2,003 yards in the snow. The Giants went to the Super Bowl three years ago in minus-20 wind chill.
What has warm weather ever given us? Kellen Winslow getting dragged off the field? Please. The Giants and Jets — to say nothing of the Eagles, Steelers, Patriots, Bills, Ravens, Redskins, Bengals, Packers and Browns, to name, oh, a third of the league — play 16 regular-season games in elements and build their teams accordingly; where is it written that the Super Bowl should only accommodate the Colts, Dolphins and Chargers?
“I have no sour grapes,” Sherman said of having to sludge through the ‘62 title game, a game the Giants lost 16-7. “I mean, the Packers had to play that day, too, and they managed. Sure, it’s tough when you work all season and then, in the biggest game of the year, you have to deal with those conditions. But you’re football players. You have to learn to adjust.”
So Jets-Giants in Supe XLVIII would be perfect. No one else wants to play here? That’s fine. I know two teams, and a few million fans, who do, who’d sign up for it now. See you there. I’ll bring the flask.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com