Peter King is at war with Jets fans
I would generally leave this one alone and allow my esteemed NFL writing colleague Peter King of Sports Illustrated battle it out on his own. 
But PK, who took a shot at Jets' fans in his Monday Morning Quarterback for not showing up in droves for Brett Favre's preseason debut on Saturday night against the Redskins, poured some more gas on the fire with a retort to the fans' criticism of his take.
I'll leave you to make your own judgements.
I will say two things on the subject, however.
1. I would never criticize a fan for not showing up to a preseason game, even if he/she has already paid for a ticket. The games are meaningless, people's time is valuable, and if there is something better to do on a warm summer night than drive four hours round trip, spend $60 in gas, another $100 in food and other expenses - especially in this economy - then it is that person's right. Regardless of whether it's Brett Favre or Joe Montana or Johnny Unitas. To question his/her loyalty to the team over not showing up is simply not an issue.
2. I very rarely get into bashing fans, because without them I would be doing something entirely different with my life and, I daresay, something far less enjoyable. The only time I do criticize is when their behavior at games is vile, dangerous or otherwise inappropriate. Case in point: When Chad Pennington suffered a sprained ankle in the regular season opener and lay on the field, you could hear several Jets' fans actually cheering. Now THAT was a disgrace.
(And, by the way, it is not my intention to get into a war of words with PK, whose friendship and work I have enjoyed immensely over many, many years. This is all about fans and preseason games.)
You can return to your regularly scheduled programming now.
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Comments (5)
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, although PK should be aware that Jet fans are more than likely going to go KSK on him.
if you need help re the reference Best is a long shoot, LaMonica is the chalk.
Anyone pushing people toward meaningless games in East Rutherford is a dolt. Money and time to see 10-15 snaps in the middle of the summer? No.
King's original rant was questionable.
His response to Jet fan complaints was a head scratcher. It did nothing to strengthen his original point and only dug his hole deeper.
Further proof that just as baseball pitchers in this day and age are kept on a tight leash via a close watch on "pitch counts", so too should modern day sports writers be kept on a "word count".
Just my opinion, from two time zones away.
Thanks for your support Mr. G. See if they can give Boland a raise so he can replace that weird futon he keeps talking about. It must make the office staff uncomfortable.
I appreciate the support for Jet fans, Bob (seriously I do in this case) but...
do you really distinguish this from a game in december, when your team is clearly out of the playoffs and you can actually make some money selling tix to steeler fans?
What Mr. King obviousy does not realize, is that a SIGNIFICANT portion of the the Jets fan base is from Brooklyn/Queens and LI and that trip is not an easy one.
Maybe it's Jets management, who have decided to uproot the team and move them to NJ (today is the last practice ever at Hofstra), that should be taken to task.
Afterall, there are over 3 million people on LI alone. A new team/stadium in Queens would be sold out in hours if they moved another franchise into the area, but the Jets and Giants, "NY's teams" would never allow that.
It's not suprising that PK would not understand the difficulty/cost involved in travelling to preseason games - afterall, he's from NJ - the state with 2 NFL teams.