Dear lord

Philly leads the Vikings 24-7 at halftime of the NFC title game. North Jersey is going to have to listen to South Jersey fawn all over the Eagles while North Jersey still and always detests the fucking Patriots.

Oy.

It's the Super Bowl XVLLMCLMMXVIICLMXVI open thread!!

Here you go football fans and here you go fans of the commercials, an all day, all night open thread to make comment on anything you see fit. Get here early, the pre-game starts at noon for a 6:30pm football game so there'll be plenty to talk about.

OK ad fans, Johnny's got an early peek at a Super Bowl ad. You'll see it tonight but now you'll see it here hours before.

Johnny is suspending his no advertising rule on this one because it's so goddamn funny.

So plan on spending some of your beer and nacho cheese filled day with the Jersey City Desk staff.

Oh, yes, the Fearless Forecast:

Seattle 27
New England 23

Sunday NFL open thread

We didn't think games could get shittier than the Giants vs the Washingtons but then one must only wait until 4pm to have to look at the Jets and Titans.

Days like this were made for NFL Redzone. Tell us what you're seeing and don't hold back.

This takes balls:

No tailgating at the Super Bowl

Because TERROR! Yep, security concerns have caused tailgating before a football game, the supposed biggest game of the year to be 86'd. From the article:

"...because space will be so tight in the parking lot thanks to all the security checkpoints and TV crews, even the lucky ticketed few might be banned from (literally) chilling in the parking lot pre-game."

So no tossing the football around in the parking lot before the game either. So no tailgating, no tossing the ball around the lot, no football-type actions of any kind.

"Children of Sombertown, your playing days are over!!"

Who the hell would want to go to this if your team wasn't playing? There's nothing football about this game. You do realize while you aren't allowed to grill a burger or eat a hot dog outside the stadium walls, inside the muckity-mucks will be enjoying the finest food and yes, some of it grilled on site. Again, you really want to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on this? If so you're not one of the fans sitting in snow and single digit wind-chills in Green Bay, Cleveland, the New Meadowlands, Buffalo, Baltimore and New England today. In essence, if you want to pay all that money for puffery and no real football feel, you're not a football fan Johnny wants at his tailgate.

Another day of playoff football awaits

Who ya got Jersey City? Will the Falcons finally shed the "playoff loser" mantle bestowed upon them by even the casual fan or will the Seahawks from waaaaay up there in Seattle stay on the hot ride they're on? Will pretty boy Brady be able to keep working his Foxboro in January magic now that a win ensures a rematch of last year's AFC title game with the Ravens? Can Houston gain some advantage in that it'll be in the mid-50's in New England today?

And where's the nacho chips? Are we out?

One more time with the Sanchez fumble from last night

Because it's just not often you see a highly paid QB get blasted into the turf by the ass of his own lineman, and then have the resulting fumble returned for a touchdown (New England scored 35 points in the second quarter while holding the ball for just over two of the fifteen minutes involved). This clip is an instant classic....of fail.

If you're kicked out of an NFL game peeps, get ready to go back to school

The NFL has decided that drunken louts, or maybe just regular louts need some schoolin'. Should a patron get kicked out of the New Meadlowlands (again, we're not getting paid to promote a corporate entity), or the Patriots home digs you'll need to attend a class and pass a test to be allowed the "privilege" of seeing NFL football live.

Look, we're all seen people who make us uncomfortable at sporting events. We've seen it again and again and again.

Is a class really going to make someone behave better?

But Johnny, the NFL says if you don't take the class you can't go to another game. Yeah, right, pull this one, it plays jingle bells. If you want tickets to a game yet you can't access your regular season tickets because the privilege of paying The Ballclub a personal seat license has been revoked there are a myriad of ways to get them, no class needed (hey a little joke there).

Again, the NFL uses fairy dust on a real problem and then tells everyone they are out ahead of said problem. No, they are not. Johnny quit going to NFL games at the end of 2008 after years of enduring years of loutish and drunken stupidity (In Detroit and Cleveland) which became so bad one afternoon in Cleveland Browns Stadium he physically had to punch out drunken toads who became violent after using racial slurs after pouring beer on Johnny, his wife and an African-American couple next to them. Getting to the point where you must physically protect yourself and your wife was the last straw. Think those group of guys who pulled that are having any trouble seeing Browns games?

It ain't worth it, class or not. The NFL has a horrible problem they refuse to address, booze inside the stadium after hours spent drinking outside. When you want to discuss THAT NFL then Johnny may consider going back to an NFL game. The inmates run the asylum at these events and threatening a fanbase with a bad behavior class will change nothing. It only gives the NFL a fallback.

It's a day filled with Giant fun

The Super Bowl champs will have their parade through Broadway's "Canyon of Heroes' starting at 11 am today (take the WTC PATH kids) and then the scene shifts back to New Jersey (where the Giants actually play) for a 3pm party/reception at the New Meadowlands.

The Giants' victory parade, which will begin at Battery Place and Washington Street and continue northbound to Wall Street, will culminate at New York City Hall.

PATH will be running trains on peak-hours schedules meaning every 5 minutes instead of 15 through roughly 3 pm. NY Waterways will also offer more-frequent trips across the Hudson River today to accommodate Giants fans.

Make sure to collect the leftover ticker tape as we're going to send it off in truckloads to Tom Brady's house so he and his oh-so agitated wife can see what they missed out on.

Giants football gameday -- SUPER BOWL Edition!!!!

Wow, Johnny's first ever Super Bowl edition of the Game Day post. Media Day the other day is well behind Johnny and he's ready to go, the stage and pressure do not phase him. This is no place for a nervous person.

The New England Patriots. They've been really good and won some incredible games but for the last three or fours years you just knew something wasn't right. "The homeless man" as Johnny's wife refers to the duds of Bill Belichick, or, "That jackhole who could win everywhere but Cleveland" as Johnny refers to him has been taking doll parts off of lesser dolls to patch up that really fine looking doll from 2004. Now it just kind of looks like this:

But Johnny you say, they ARE back at the Super Bowl with those parts falling off. Yes they are and they are a dangerous team. But just like the Giants weren't intimidated in 2007 they won't be today. That alone does not mean victory however...

The Giants offense is rolling along just fine thank you. Why change anything? The Patriots don't give up yards so much as they give up hectares (some science equivalency for our Canadian readers there). Just like the Packers got by with giving up a lot of yards but coming up with turnovers so too the New Englanders. The fact is the Giants just haven't been much in a giving mood this postseason so that just leaves the hectares. Belichick is no dummy. He can do a pretty good job at stopping one aspect of an opponent's offense. The Giants can win a shootout ala Green Bay, they can win a backalley fistfight ala San Francisco so again, advantage Giants. Unless Eli plays shockingly bad or the Giants fumble two or three times they should at the worst have a chance in the fourth quarter.

Tom Brady can put points up like a pinball machine, mostly because he has to. The Giants need to manage this. Killing it is near impossible but managing it is doable. Rob Gronkowski is going to play and most likely play well. The Super Bowl does that to guys not named Donovan McNabb or Fran Tarkenton. Max McGee, the MVP of Super Bowl I was incredibly hungover. Legend had it he was drinking because he was upset the Super Bowl committee had decided that afternoon all Super Bowls would have a Roman numeral after the name not the more conventional numbering convention used today. "I, nobody is gonna care about I...it should be 1 and only 1 and then 2 and then 3 and then 4 and then..." he was purported to have possibly said that night BUT the point is here the Pats offense can be managed. If the vaunted Big Blue pass rush can harass and or hassle Brady with just 4 you can plan the parade along the New Jersey Turnpike.

Special teams. The Giants special teams have been playing lights out. That doesn't mean squat. Special teams in playoff games are a game by game result. We really think of all aspects of football this one doesn't carry momentum. One fumble, one missed kick and suddenly they are bums. The kick coverage teams have been very very good. They need to be very good one more time. Lawrence Tynes needs to hit all his field goals one more time.

So, here we are, 12 hours from gametime and 11 hours of pre-game coverage to boot. You do get a cool Chelsea vs. Manchester United match from Stamford Bridge (Chelsea's home grounds) at 10:30 on FOX. All the prognosticating grows more intense, the bets get more serious, and the advertising becomes more cutthroat:


So come on back here all day and talk Giants and Patriots or Madonna at halftime or the ads or anything else Super Bowl related. Think of us as your online Super Bowl party.

One last thing...

Super Bowl Fearless Forecast:
New Jersey Giants 31
New England Patriots 30.9

A newsworthy news roundup on a Monday morning

*Super Bowl XVLIIXMCLVIILXXXCLMXIII will be Sunday February 5th at 6pm in Indianapolis. Your New York Giants will try not to give back the Super Bowl victory that knocked New England from a perfect season in 2007-08. No doubt Jersey Journal reporter Kate Kowsh will looking for "long lines outside Hoboken bars jammed with Giants fans" later today. Seemingly it's all she does.

Most New Jersey residents enjoy having their gas pumped. Only New Jersey and Oregon dictate that an attendant at the gas station pumps your gas. Personally Johnny would just like the option to self-serve.

PSE&G said roughly 100 Jersey City residents had to be evacuated yesterday because of a gas leak near Pacific Avenue and Ash St. No doubt this will be found to not be PSE&G's fault. We just have a feeling.

Port Authority police nabbed a 15-year-old jackass who had been targeting people on the PATH and stealing their smartphones from their hands as he would run off the train. Well done there.

Not well done there -- A Port Authority police officer ran over a skateboarder while driving intoxicated on Friday according to reports. Mark Legiec blew "over the legal limit" according to Berkeley Heights Police Chief Michael Mathis. Note that if this had been you Chief Mathis would have had no trouble plastering your reading in public.

We're not sure who we feel worse for, Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff...

...or his seeing eye dog. That was brutal. So Giants fans, New England is in and you are 60 minutes away from a rematch of some note.

And Billy Cundiff will have his lunch money taken from him on the Ravens flight home from Boston. And he'll be a free agent by this time tomorrow with no lunch money.

We think when the announcer is yelling "Look out, look out!" he means the fans in the corner of the end-zone to keep someone from losing an eye.

Big big NFL weekend on tap

AND we get a New York team added to the mix in arguably the most attractive game of the weekend (which is why it's the late game on Sunday). So without further ado, Johnny's fearless football forecast:

Green Bay at Atlanta -- Atlanta, a dome team is at home throughout. They have a great young quarterback in Matt Ryan who has a spectacular record at home. Almost unbeaten. That great record however was built in the regular season. The playoffs are a different animal. Aaron Rodgers has been playing whip smart and he too needs to establish some playoff credentials. Consider this the monkey off your back win between Rodgers and Ryan. Atlanta runs the ball well. The Packers can shut down that run AND when they do and force Atlanta to pass, well they've got that covered too. Upset call Packers 27, Falcons 17

Baltimore at Pittsburgh -- As a Browns fan whose team is regularly decimated by both these division rivals Johnny would rather chew foil while getting a Brazilian wax than see either team win. There are some days these teams play and Johnny hopes for a Hindenburg moment where the blimp crashes on the field while they play. At least Johnny deep down respects all the Stoolers have achieved by being a smart franchise whereas the raves are basically still the Browns. A STOLEN team shall gather no win today. Pittsburgh 21, Baltimore 17

Seattle at Chicago -- Bear down Chicago Bears. Seattle will now have to give their souls to Satan on their way out of Soldier Field Sunday afternoon for their upset win over the Saints last weekend. Johnny thinks Jay Cutler can be brutal but it's January outside in Chicago and that's worth something. Chicago 16, Seattle 10

New York Jets at New England -- Jeebus Rex Ryan, just shut up. Your entire team is so worked up over trash talk and imagined trash talk (So much trash talk in fact the Ravens Terrell Suggs decided to weigh in with his own in a game he's not playing in). It'll be cold, it'll be snowy, it'll be in Tom Brady's house. Now, the Pats can be had at home, see the loss to Baltimore last season. Hard running and stout pass defense stopped New England cold. This is a much better Patriots side however. It boils down to this; Right now Johnny has more faith in Tom Brady to win a big game than Mark Sanchez. Belichick 30, Sexy Rexy 20.

Jets and Giants gameday

Those brash talking, Super Bowl bound just ask us Jets are home today at the Meadowlands for 4:15 pm kickoff vs. the dreaded New England Patriots. It'll be a gorgeous day for football around these parts with partly cloudy skies and temps near 80º. The Jets really really really need some offensive absolution after the gigantic egg they laid last Monday night. Can Mark Sanchez move this ballclub? He faces another whip sharp defense today and New Jersey Jets fans should have a pretty good idea where this team is headed before heading home tonight.

The Giants are playing in the Manning bowl today in Indianapolis as Peyton hosts little brother Eli tonight in the 8:30 ESPN game. The Giants are 1-0 after a convincing win last week while the Colts, ever the AFC superpower is showing signs of chinks in the armor having a pathetic pre-season followed by an absolute dog of a game last week losing in Houston. Can the Colts bounce back at the G-Men's expense? That's why we watch now isn't it?