When A Plan Comes Together

Lost amidst the amazing video of the roof collapsing in Minnesota is the fact that the NFL has really managed to screw this situation up. Obviously, because of the damage to the stadium, the game between the Vikings and the Giants had to shift locations. And, since the Giants didn't bring any cold weather gear with them, they needed to play in another dome. Ultimately the game is going to be played in Detroit tonight, meaning the stands will be filled with pro-Lions (and therefore anti-Vikings) fans. Suddenly what was supposed to be a home-field advantage for the Vikings has swung the other way and favors the Giants. Also, the tickets are going to be free and general admission to the public, but preferential seating will be awarded to those people who had tickets to the game at the Metro Dome. I'm not quite sure how it's going to work, but allow me to enter a guess: not well. I've been to sporting events where everyone had assigned seating and fights still broke out. I'm positive the people who routinely sit in the nosebleeds are going to be itching to sit in the lower bowl for once in their lives and there are only so many of those to go around. It could get ugly. The good news is that, because Monday Night Football has exclusive football rights for the night and they are committed to another game, no one will get to see it.

Here's why this is such an issue with me: The NFL had time to put contingency plans in place. Following the attacks of September 11th, the NFL cancelled that weekend's slate of games and made the decision to simply push everything, including the Super Bowl, back a week. However, because the Super Dome had an event scheduled for the week after the Super Bowl was originally scheduled, it ended up costing the NFL millions to get the other event to change venues. After that the NFL immediately started scheduling a bye week between the Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl to avoid having to pay that kind of money ever again. Boom, done - issue resolved. A couple years later, after Hurricane Katrina ransacked New Orleans, the NFL faced a similar situation of having to scramble to find a location to play. They ultimately decided to play the Saints/Giants game in Giants Stadium, except they claimed the Saints were the home team, despite playing in front of a crowd that was 95% Giants fans. (Weird that both of these weather issues have favored the Giants). As you would expect, the NFL was roundly criticised for how they handled that. Now, luckily I can say the following statement: this country has a lot more weather issues than terrorist attacks, yet the NFL is ready for one and not the other. You would think reality would lend itself to the NFL taking the five years since Katrina to have cancellation plans in place for every team. (Especially Minnesota, considering this is the fifth time the roof there has collapsed since the place was built in 1982). But, clearly they don't. So, allow me to give the NFL a heads-up now - long-range forecasts are calling for snow next Sunday night when the Packers play the Patriots. Perhaps you should be aware of that now so these two teams don't end up playing in Atlanta.

-While we're on the subject of the NFL, let me just say that if you are a Jets fan the most disturbing thing to come out of yesterday's game was not that Mark Sanchez played terribly, but that your strength and condition coach tripped an opposing player during the kick return. For those of you who didn't see it, the Jets' coach was standing on the sidelines with a group of inactive players and subtly (but not subtly enough), stuck his knee out and took down a Dolphin player who was running down the sidelines. Here's why it's such a bad sign for the Jets: the strength coach is always the most plugged-in guy among the coaching staff. They know every player on the team and are seen more as a equal and buffer to the staff than a coach. So, if this guy was so frustrated that he would risk severe penalty (and even his job) to step onto the playing field, that says a lot about the frustration level of the players. I get that they were coming off one of the worst performances of the year, but if they really were still as confident in themselves as they maintained they were after the Patriots game then the coaches wouldn't be stepping in to try and take down players from the other team. It looks like a huge crack in the bravado, which was what made the Jets so good the first half of the season. I think Sanchez is going to be fine, but when you see what the coaches are doing you have to wonder if the rest of his teammates feel as strongly as I do.