Jersey Bowling

A quick word about the 2014 Super Bowl being awarded to Northern New Jersey...

That word is... Idiotic.

I get that many people aren't thrilled with the way the NFL keeps the SB in warm weather climates only. There's clearly no reason to give this game to Jacksonville, or Houston, or many of the places that it's been. They aren't particularly fun places to go, the infrastructure isn't up for handling the stress, and there's something just kind of irritating about the idea of some warm-weather and/or dome team having the advantage. Football fans, it is said, can stand being outside in the cold, dammit.

Football fans, by the way, do not go to the Super Bowl. Or, at least, not very often.

No, the people who go to this game are the well-connected, the lucky, or the people making a once in a lifetime move that's going to set them back thousands of dollars. And of all of those people, the only ones that anyone should give a damn about are the last group...

And those are not the people who should be sitting outside in northern New Jersey in February, paying New York prices for everything from food to lodging to entertainment, and having what might be the definining moment of their lives as football fans happen with a more than fair chance of exceptional cold, wind, rain, snow and misery.

Oh, and here's another fine little wrinkle... what happens if, and there's more than a small chance of this, the Patriots, Jets, Giants or Eagles are in the game?

Right, it's a de facto home game. For fan bases that don't exactly need any help -- at all -- for their fan bases in the first place. In a game where a home field advantage has never really existed, and really, never should. (And I'd feel the same way if the game were in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago or any other city you want to name.)

The plain and simple fact is that this game should be in the one place in America that the majority of football fans can all agree on. A place that doesn't have a team, with ample lodging, with a wide range of entertainment options and price levels.

Vegas.

Permanently.

San Diego's lovely, but the stadium is out of code (this being California). Florida's got a ton of teams and a strong home field advantage possibility. Putting the game in Dallas just feeds the greedhead ego that is Jerry Jones. All of these other locations aren't fun to visit.

So let's hope that the game's a nightmare, and that the league gets taken down a much-needed peg or six. It's necessary, really. Much more so than a game that could be a train wreck. Here's hoping.