NEW YORK, NY – AUGUST 26: Coach Rex Ryan of the New York Jets attends the MetLife Stadium celebration in Bryant Park on August 26, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Bennett Raglin/WireImage) (WireImage)
The NFL and Giants stared into the eye of Hurricane Irene last night and thankfully blinked.
Just because they built it, doesn’t mean they should play it.
The announcement yesterday that there will be no mass transit after noon in New York and New Jersey to the 2 p.m. Jets-Giants game meant the potential for a storm surge of mass chaos and hysteria for you, the fan. And grave danger.
The NFL and the Giants and Jets huddled, and after further review, they got it right when they postponed the game to Monday night at 7:00.
They kept you, the fan, out of harm’s way.
“Along with the NFL office and the Jets, we have closely monitored the hurricane and the forecast and it’s potential impact on our area for the past several days,” said Giants president and CEO John Mara. “After conferring with [New Jersey] Governor [Chris] Christie, [Jets owner] Woody Johnson and [NFL] commissioner [Roger] Goodell, we have have determined the best course of action for the safety and well-being of all is to move the game to Monday night.”
Even Vince Lombardi would have understood: winning isn’t everything, and it isn’t the only thing when public safety is involved.
Better safe than sorry.
It would be nice if refunds were given to season-ticket holders now, but let’s celebrate this triumph of reason first, shall we?
The NFL would have had blood on its hands if tragedy had befallen even one fan. The roadways, logjammed if not waterlogged, would have been a nightmare, congested with panic-stricken drivers heading to and from the supermarkets and Home Depots and Lowe’s, not to mention evacuees. And what would have happened if the outer tentacles of Hurricane Irene reached up and grabbed us unexpectedly early this evening, and next thing you know, they close down access to the bridges? Or the Garden State Parkway?
The NFL has bent over backward to improve player safety. Today was all about fan safety — and should have been all along.
Rex Ryan and Tom Coughlin will be forced to play their starters longer than usual in the preseason finale and make snap evaluations of players on the bubble.
These hardships pale in comparison with what would have blown in with frightening fury if they went ahead and decided that the show must go on.
If the NFL can postpone by two days a regular-season game in Philadelphia last season because of an impending blizzard, “due to public safety concerns,” according to league spokesman Greg Aiello, if it can move a Giants-Vikings game to Detroit a day later because of a Metrodome roof collapse, it was a no-brainer they act in the best interests of fans now.
A steady rain is expected sometime in the afternoon today. That’s just the opening kickoff for Irene. Then come the high winds. Torrential rains. Flash flooding. The threat of a spawned tornado. Downed trees. Downed power lines. Power outages. Flying objects.
Is a preseason football game worth it? Is any football game worth it?
This should be a good trial run for that 2014 New York Super Bowl, in the event of a crippling blizzard on Super Sunday that would force a reluctant NFL to postpone its crown jewel.
But the NFL must never put its fans in harm’s way.
That doesn’t only go for the Super Bowl.
It goes for the MetLife Bowl as well.
MetLife hosted a Jets-Giants event at Bryant Park yesterday hours before Mayor Bloomberg announced that the only Subways open past noon today would be the sandwich shops. Everybody fawned over the trophy, on top of which a Snoopy replica sat, that is to be awarded to the winner of the first MetLife Bowl. To the victor belongs $50,000 worth of spoils to be given to its designated charity.
“It really does add a little something to the preseason game. It’s not like we needed anything else anyway,” Ryan said.
“As Rex said, the trophy going back and forth to the winner of the preseason game, is a nice added addition to our already-competitiveness with regard to this great city and the two teams that do represent,” Coughlin said.
Because if they played the game today, the Jets and Giants would have been playing for the WetLife Trophy. Inside a morgue they would have been calling WetLife Stadium.