Some aren't ready to jump aboard and talk of Subway Super Bowl
SAM FARMER / ON THE NFL
Potential matchup of the New York Giants and New York Jets generates speculation, but some caution about looking that far ahead in the unpredictable NFL. Still, it's tempting to look at possibility.
New York-New York for all the marbles?
Start spreadin' the news if you like, but not everyone in that city is gung-ho on the increasing chatter of the New York Giants and the New York Jets playing each other for the Lombardi Trophy.
Giants great Harry Carson would love to hear talk of a so-called Subway Super Bowl go away until the championship matchup is actually determined.
"It's very premature for anyone after 10, 11 games to look down that road," said Carson, a Hall of Fame linebacker.
"Fans have a tendency of looking ahead. It's not the first time people have talked about a Subway Super Bowl and were sorely disappointed."
Still, it's tempting to dip a toe in the bubbling hot tub of conjecture.
The Giants, defending Super Bowl champions, are 10-1 heading into today's game at Washington. The Jets, who play host to Denver today, have won five in a row and are coming off a victory over previously undefeated Tennessee.
"We're probably better than what people gave us a chance to be at this point," said Jets quarterback Brett Favre, whose 8-3 team is one victory away from its longest winning streak in a decade. "What that means for the future remains to be seen. It definitely puts us in a good position at this point."
Like the 2007 Giants, these new-look Jets got off to a painfully slow start. They lost two of three before winning seven of their last eight. A week after beating New England for sole possession of first place in the AFC East, the Jets knocked off the Titans to pull to within two games of them for home-field advantage in the AFC.
In a story that compares this Jets season to the one in 1998, when the team was 12-4 and lost to Denver in the conference championship game, the New York Daily News pointed out these curious similarities:
* The 1998 team also featured an older quarterback who reinvented himself as a green-and-white galvanizer: Vinny Testaverde. Favre is on pace to throw 29 touchdown passes -- the number Testaverde threw when he set the club record that season.
* The '98 team started 2-3, including a loss to the woeful St. Louis Rams. This season's Jets started 3-3, with a loss to the woeful Oakland Raiders.
* On Nov. 22, 1998, the Jets won by 21 in Nashville. Ten years and one day later, the Jets won by 21 in Nashville.
Then again, that Jets team didn't get to the Super Bowl, and there's certainly no guarantee this one will. Regardless, fans can dream, can't they?
