On Thursday, the battle of New Jersey will take place as the New York football Giants take on the New York Jets at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey, during the NFL’s preseason opener.
The Giants-Jets preseason game is traditionally played during Week 3 of the NFL preseason. But this year, because of convoluted intra-division scheduling, the NFL chose to have the Giants and Jets square off during Week 1 of the preseason.
This, frankly, sucks. Because let’s face it, the NFL preseason is an exercise in terrible football, terrible officiating, and praying your star Quarterback or wide receiver doesn’t get injured. It’s honestly just not that compelling.
But the Snoopy Bowl, as the Giants-Jets Week 3 preseason game is known, was something else. Typically, teams play their starting players very few minutes in the preseason opener, then somewhat more in the 2nd game, and in the 3rd game of the preseason the starters play the most they will play.
When Rex Ryan coached the Jets from 2009 to 2014, he made it a point of stressing how important it was to beat the Giants in the Snoopy Bowl, and one year he was even known to have kidnapped the famed Snoopy stuffed animal prize from Giants headquarters.
The other crucial factor about Game 3 of the preseason, The Snoopy Bowl, is that starting Quarterbacks, the linchpins of the team, play the most minutes they will play all August.
For the Jets, there’s not much drama at Quarterback this year, as 2nd-year man Sam Darnold looks to build on an uneven but solid rookie year.
The situation for the Giants is completely different. Eli Manning, the Giants’ presumptive starting quarterback, is now 38 years old. He led the Giants to two incredible Super Bowl Championships, in 2007 and 2011.
But with the 6th pick in the 2019 NFL draft this summer, the New York football Giants selected Daniel Jones, Quarterback, from Duke University.
Many, many Giants fans and NFL observers around the League were skeptical when the Giants selected Jones at #6 out of Duke, which is in no way traditionally known as a college football power.
Nevertheless, Jones is seen as the heir apparent to Manning. Observers have already speculated that he will replace Manning partway through this season, just as a young Manning replaced a still-capable Kurt Warner at quarterback in 2004.
What really burns me up is that we didn’t get to see this NJ-NJ matchup in Week 3 of the preseason, when NFL teams play their starters the most. Then we might have seen a grisled Eli Manning take on a young Sam Darnold for control of the Northeast Corridor.
Instead, we get a Week 1 preseason matchup where few starters will play and even fewer people will care.
Great job, NFL.
You really know how to ramp up rivalries and bring eyeballs to the sets.
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