It doesn't get much uglier than for N.Y.
WE love to talk about “flyover” states around here, because it reminds us why we put up with what we put up with to live here, and it reinforces the notion — no matter how quaint — that New York and California are the Alpha and the Omega of American life and everywhere else in the middle … well, they’re the flyover states.
So maybe this is karmic payback.
Because at least as far as sports are concerned, for the next two weeks, we are a “rollover” state, a place where Amtrak’s Acela Express rumbles right on through on the way from Philadelphia to Boston with barely an acknowledgment that Penn Station ever gets in the way.
(And, when you think about it, who exactly was the rocket scientist who decided to name one of our two iconic train stations after PENNSYLVANIA, anyway? Why not just rename the Empire State Building the Ted Williams Tower while we’re at it?)
Yes, this is the worst-case scenario for just about everyone who calls our city, its boroughs and its suburbs home. If you are a Jets fan, you are soon to enter a second decade of Patriots Envy, being force-fed an unlikely dynasty in New England when, for the first 40 or so years of their shared existence, the Patriots were the Jets’ annual cousins in futility.
And, of course, Giants fans detest the Eagles in a way that’s almost hard to describe given the fact the Eagles haven’t won a championship in 57 years and the Giants have won four in the last 31.
Yes, Giants fans dislike the Cowboys and they abhor the Redskins, and take great delight in beating those two division ri- vals. But the Eagles are Philly, and Philly has those fans who essentially beg you on a daily basis, “Please punch me in the jaw.”
And, of course, the Eagles may not have a Lombardi Trophy in their collection — yet — but they do have an unhealthy collection of snapshots to lord over the Giants: Chuck Bednarik rejoicing over Frank Gifford’s limp remains, Herman Edwards chugging toward the end zone, DeSean Jackson tip-toeing along the end zone and then hurling the ball into the stands. To say nothing of the fact that two of the three playoff games Tom Coughlin lost were to the Eagles.
Put it this way: Giants fans loathe the Eagles so much, it has caused many of them to lose their minds and already declare the unfathomable: They will root for the Patriots in Super Bowl LII.
“Like they’re America’s Team,” one vowed to me Sunday night.
Look, we endured this before. It was after the 2004 season, and it was Eagles-Patriots, and that was pretty awful, no doubt about it. Still: The Giants had a Young Eli, and the seeds of a dominant defense, and were on the way up. The Jets made the playoffs that year and should have beaten the 15-1 Steelers in the playoffs but for two wayward field goals, and everyone figured the Pats were simply on a nice little run that would last another year or two — not for, well, eternity.
And our whole sporting landscape was different than it was on Feb. 6, 2005, when the Eagles and Patriots last met in the Big Game. The Yankees were about to play for an 11th straight time in the playoffs. The Mets had Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran, a couple of kids on the come named Wright and Reyes. The Knicks were in a rut, but certainly THAT wouldn’t last forever.
Let’s just say it’s hard to re- member a time when New York was so intently counting down the days — and, on some days, the hours and minutes, too — until pitchers and catchers — and that’s only among the Yankees-loving faction of the city. It’s been a pretty depressing sporting wasteland around here for a while.
There have been other root-for-a-tie-or-a-natural-disaster scenarios we’ve endured around here. Mets fans had that Phillies-Yankees World Series in 2009. Yankees fans had MetsRed Sox in 1986. Jets fans had a couple of hell-on-earth Patriots-Giants Super Bowls to survive. But this feels different. This feels worse.
This is the Acela Express rolling right over us. As the Gershwin brothers might have put it if they’d lived in our times: Eagles, Patriots? Tomato, To-mah-to. Let’s call the whole thing off.