The first game of the Saturday slate was the Cincinnati Bengals visiting the Tennessee Titans. Second year Quarterback, Joe Burrow, was starting in his second career playoff game against star Running Back, Derrick Henry, who was coming back from a nearly season ending ankle injury. 

The underdog Bengals were up for the majority of the game, and just when it looked like the game was getting away from them, an interception in the last few minutes of the game put them in position to kick the game winning field goal as time expired. Bengals win 19-16.

Longtime fan, David Bookheimer, was confident that they matched up well against the Titans. Bookheimer, of Cincinnati, went to the Wildcard Weekend game vs the Las Vegas Raiders, where the Bengals ended a 31-year drought without winning a playoff game.

“Paul Brown Stadium set an attendance record and all the fans brought a ton of energy and were eager to end our playoff drought,” said Bookheimer. “You can really sense that there is a new era of football in Cincinnati.”

David Bookheimer and his girlfriend at the Bengals Wild Card game vs the Raiders. Courtesy of David Bookheimer

The second game of the night was a matchup between the number one seeded Green Bay Packers and the number six seeded San Francisco 49ers. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers was trying to end a run of bad playoff fortune against the team that passed on him in the 2005 draft.

The Packers seemed to have control of the game, but a couple blunders on special teams gave the 49ers a chance to get back in the game, and with a chance to put the game away on the last play, kicker Robbie Gould, who has never missed a kick in his playoff career, sent it right through the uprights. 49ers win 13-10. 

49ers fan, Enis Jashari, 23, is one of the many people who are calling this the best weekend of football they have ever witnessed.

“This was the best weekend in football history,” said Jashari, “My brother, my dad and I were all watching the 49ers game while working at our pizzeria.”

Jashari has seen his team lose two Super Bowls in person, but he is hoping this year could be the year he finally sees his team raise the Lombardi Trophy.

“I was screaming as loud as I could as me and my family were celebrating another NFC championship title shot!” said Jashari.

On the other hand, Michael Rocca, of Columbus, Ohio, grew up as a big Packers fan, and he was surprised to see the Packers lose to the 49ers in the playoffs once again. Rodgers is now 0-4 against the 49ers in his playoff career, which are the most losses by a player against any opponent in playoff history. 

“Where I’m from, not loving football is not an option,” said Rocca, “I was excited for the chance to get back at the 49ers after many frustrating playoff defeats in the past decade.

It looks like Packers fans will have to wait another year for that playoff success they have been longing for.

The first game on Sunday was a battle between the Super Bowl Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the four seeded Los Angeles Rams. Tom Brady was looking to lead his team to another Super Bowl, but Quarterback Matthew Stafford, who was just coming off of his first playoff career win, had something else in mind.

The Rams took a big lead in the second half at 27-3, but Brady and the Bucs mounted a huge comeback after multiple Rams turnovers and tied it 27-27 with less than a minute to go. But a couple completions from Stafford to triple crown winner, Cooper Kupp, set them up to win the game on a last second field goal. Rams win 30-27

After the loss, there are now rumors that Brady might be considering retiring, but the 44-year old QB has definitely proven that he still has a lot left in the tank if he decides to continue his career. 

The final game of the weekend was an all-time great matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills. People were calling the Rams vs Bucs game the best game of the year, but they quickly changed their mind after watching the Chiefs vs Bills square up in the playoff rematch.

Tony Romo “this is the best football game in NFL history”

— Sun Min Kimes (@sunminkimes) January 24, 2022

The Chiefs had beat the Bills in the AFC Championship last year, so the Bills and their fans were out for revenge. It all looked like they would accomplish the feat as they took a three-point lead with 13 seconds to go after Quarterback Josh Allen and Wide Receiver Gabriel Davis combined for their fourth touchdown (an NFL record) of the game. But Patrick Mahomes showed once again that he is the greatest quarterback in the league by leading a drive that would tie the game in only 13 seconds.

The Chiefs would go on to win the coin toss and win the game in overtime, and this would lead to people all over Twitter begging the NFL to change their overtime rules, which allows for only one team to get the ball if a touchdown is scored on the first possession of OT. Chiefs win 42-36.

This is as good a time as any to remind everyone how much the NFL overtime rules suck.

There’s no way, after four quarters of this game, that you can tell me there’s ANY reason that both offenses shouldn’t get one possession MINIMUM in OT.

— Al Smizzle (@AlZeidenfeld) January 24, 2022

Grant Turner with his family at the Bills Wild Card game vs the Patriots. Courtesy of Grant Turner

Diehard Bills fan, Grant Turner, of Rochester, was devastated to see his team lose yet another heartbreaker.

“The game (against the Chiefs) was like a roller coaster, especially in the fourth quarter,” said Turner, “I was in shock at the end of the game, I could not believe that was it.”

But when talking about what makes the game so special to him, he was proud to acknowledge that he was a member of Bills Mafia. 

“I think it comes from how being a Bills fan is like being part of a big football family,” said Turner, “Seeing someone with Bills gear automatically makes them one of your best friends.”

 Fans will be glued to the TV’s next week as the Chiefs host the Bengals in the AFC Championship and the Rams host the 49ers in the NFC Championship. 

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As the city of Atlanta gears up for the 53rd Super Bowl, featuring the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams, bars in New York City have begun to stock up on beer, fried foods and NFL advertisements and decorations. But the biggest question these bars will have to answer, is will fans come for the big game?

For Brian Dodd a manager at the 13th Step, a Lower East Side bar, NFL fans presence for the Super Bowl has remained steady.

“I think it’s stayed the same,” Dodd said as he poured a customer a beer.

“I mean we’re a sports bar so we always show the Super Bowl, but I definitely haven’t seen a decline or a rise in viewership.”

Dodd is one of many NFL fans who has watched the sport religiously throughout the season. While 2017 left the NFL riddled with controversy, thanks in part to President Trump’s bashing of NFL players kneeling and the contention surrounding former quarterback Colin Kaepernick, 2018 held an upswing for the sport.

Colin Kapernick

The league brought back celebrations, allowed players to be more expressive and after a two year decline in viewership, the league’s TV numbers in 2018 rose 5%. Over 15.8 million viewers watched the NFL this season, with a ratings increase for each of the NFL’s TV partners.  

What was once nicknamed “the No Fun League” was back on the rise, that is, until an egregious missed call in last week’s playoff game between the New Orleans and now Super Bowl bound Los Angeles Rams.

“(It was) ridiculous – the hit was blatant and everyone in the stadium and watching on TV could have seen that it was pass interference,” said Tejas Jain, 23, of Manhattan and a lifelong Jacksonville Jaguars fan. “The player himself admitted that he committed the penalty!”

The play involved a missed penalty by the referees of a pass interference call. It would have put the New Orleans Saints in winning position, but instead lost them their chance to go to their second ever Super Bowl.

As a fan Jain understands that mistakes can happen, especially in real-time game situations, but this missed call was “shocking.”

“That call altered the outcome of the game and the referees should be able to throw a flag for a penalty after a discussion,” Jain said shaking his head. “The same thing happened in last year’s AFC championship, but I won’t get into that.”

Michael Kilmer, 32 of Queens, does not watch the NFL and will be going to a food festival instead of watching the Super Bowl. But even he agreed that the missed call was appalling.
“I only watch because it’s part of my job and I think [the missed call] was definitely bullshit,” Kilmer said. “I don’t agree with it at all and I think it may even set a bad precedent for future NFL fans.”

Kilmer said he was largely turned off from watching football mostly due to the Kaepernick controversy. He believes that the NFL did Kaepernick a major disservice and continues to dig itself deeper when it comes to player issues.  

Jain said despite last weeks misstep, he will still be watching the Super Bowl and he believes it won’t affect viewership. Dodd, who is also going to be watching the Super Bowl agreed, pointing out that this missed call wasn’t the first.

“I don’t think there will be a difference in viewership. There were terrible missed calls all season long,” Dodd said. “People are only discussing this one because it happened during the playoffs.”

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Like many people of color in New York City, Raheem Fayson, 35, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, comes into contact with law enforcement too often.

“I get stop-and-frisked on a regular basis,” said Fayson. As “a black man from inner-city Brooklyn, I be guilty by association. I can think of a million ways that racial injustice be impacting my community, but it’s all about what the masses is gonna do about it.”

Fayson joined thousands of others in Brooklyn Plaza, just below the Manhattan Bridge, for yesterday’s March for Racial Justice NYC. It was a demonstration aimed at bringing attention to issues affecting people of color, like gentrification, broken windows policing and immigration.

Many marchers voiced concern with recent tweets from President Donald Trump about NFL protests and his response to the hurricane in Puerto Rico.

One demonstrator in the crowd wore a Colin Kaepernick jersey. Protestors held up signs that read, “Kaepernick for President,” “Black Lives Matter” and “Respect Women of Color.”

Denisha Jingles, 29, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, said the fight for racial justice wasn’t just about her as a black woman. It was for everyone, including black people, women, LGBTQIA folks, Muslims, and “our Jewish brothers and sisters.”

“New York City is a place full of what the world sees as diversity, but people still have their individual struggles,” she said. “Children are being suspended from schools and they’re coming into contact with police officers more often.”

Jingles also raised concern at the thousands of people arrested annually for jumping the subway turnstiles. According to a report from the state of New York, 89 percent of turnstile jumping arrests in 2017 were African American and Latino men.

That’s a problem,” said Jingles. “New York is great for the different amount of people we see, but New York definitely has work to be done.”

Under the banner of “racial justice,” demonstrators drew connections between the struggles faced by people of color locally in New York City and the actions of the federal government, especially those of the last week.

Destiny Arturet, 27, a Puerto Rican woman from Crown Heights, holds a sign that says, “Respect Women of Color” at yesterday’s demonstration for racial injustice. Photo by Claire Tighe

Destiny Arturet, 27, a Puerto Rican woman from Crown Heights, said she was present at the march to support people of color, especially Puerto Ricans, who weren’t receiving the care they needed after Hurricane Maria.

“The way that Trump has reacted to what’s going on in Puerto Rico is heinous,” she said. “People are dying. We have people who are without homes, without water, without food. I don’t feel like our federal government is acting the way that it should. It feels a bit devastating.”

Christopher Jackson, 30, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, thought it was important to respond to the federal actions he felt were “promoting hatred.” For Jackson, racial justice was a long time coming.

“When you don’t treat a wound for a long time, it becomes infected and starts to kill the body,” he said. “I think that’s happening now.

As Kendrick Lamar’s song “We Gon’ Be Alright” started to blare from the speakers, Jerin Arifa of Elmhurst, New York, spoke about her experience as a Muslim woman who was almost run over after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“I look around the march here and see people of all races,” she said. “We’re only going to get through this if we’re together and if we really understand that (we are) very, very connected.”

The demonstration ended with a march across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall. A sister march in Washington D.C. drew thousands of protesters to the Capitol on Saturday.

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From mouthwatering sausage and pepperoni pies to blazing garlic parmesan chicken wings, New York City bars and restaurants are prepping to satisfy the thirst and appetites of hungry football fans this Sunday when the New York Giants take on the New England Patriots for the Super Bowl XLVI.

“I like the Super Bowl, it’s crazy,” said pizza maker Danny Asitimbay of Fat Sal’s Pizza on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. “I have no time to watch the play because it’s busy here, but I’m working hard.”

This year, specials at Fat Sal’s include a large pie and 10 wings for $21 or, for wings only fans, a bucket of 40 wings for under $26. Asitimbay, who has been working in the pizza business for the past seven years, said Fat Sal’s usually sells up to 2,000 wings on Super Bowl weekend alone. He added that the wings served at the pizzeria are “always fresh, never frozen,” and that extra ingredients had to be bought in order to prepare for the second biggest eating day of the year, following Thanksgiving.

Chicken wings take the spotlight as the most popular game-day food. According to a report from the National Chicken Council (NCC), Americans are expected to eat 1.25 billion chicken wings – 100 million pounds – this weekend.

By noon on Saturday, Atomic Wings already had 50 pre-orders for Sunday’s game.

“We regularly sell six to eight cases of wings a day,” said owner Christopher Lyn. “But for the Super Bowl, we’ll sell around 100 cases of wings – a substantial amount.”

With around 250 wings in each case, Lyn projects around 25,000 wings will be sold and devoured by consumers during the biggest wing-eating day of the year, despite a price increase on poultry. The NCC said wing prices always surge during the year’s fourth quarter, when eateries start to prepare for the Super Bowl.

Lyn added that the Giants, being from the Empire State, would impact Sunday’s sales because “we’re in a New York market.”

But while pizza and wings may be on the minds of most Americans this year, bars are also expecting a business boost. On Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg temporarily renamed Brady’s Bar in uptown Manhattan to Manning’s for the weekend, declaring it “the luckiest bar in New York City,” just as he did when the two teams battled on the gridiron in 2008.

“If I wasn’t going to be in Indianapolis, I would be spending my Sunday afternoon where I think a lot of you should spend it, and that is here at Manning’s,” Bloomberg said.

Owner Dan Brady, an avid Giants fan, said yesterday that altering the name of the bar is a fun change.

“We did it four years ago, and everybody loved it,” he said. “Everybody finds it to be a great thing. Hopefully it’ll bring the Giants good luck.”

The post Super Bowl XLVI: City eateries benefiting from big game appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Die-hard Detroit sports fan Jeffrey "Stu" Stewart cheers from his seat at Comerica Park during Game 5 of the American League Championship Series.

Something eerie is happening in Detroit. Like an old Twilight Zone episode in which cosmic forces abruptly bring about an alternate reality, the Motor City has had the vibe, in recent weeks, of a “parallel universe,” as one local journalist described the curiosity. The sports writer, Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press, characterized this “bizarre” phenomenon in the following fashion:

“It’s actually safe to call yourself a Lions fan,” he wrote, “without looking over your shoulder for the men in white coats carrying a straitjacket.”

Sharp was referring, in satirical terms, to the city’s pro football franchise, long an NFL doormat and national laughingstock, whose sudden burst of winning has shot ripples of excitement throughout greater Detroit. With five straight victories to start the 2011 season, this ordinarily woeful squad – that last made the playoffs in 1999 and has compiled an anemic 39-121 record in the past decade – is now a sizzling topic of conversation among sports fans nationally. And with the city’s baseball team, the Tigers, having penetrated deep into this year’s playoffs before being eliminated by the Texas Rangers Saturday, the collective mood here – in a city where optimism can be at a premium – is high.

“There’s a real buzz going on in the city,” said Jeffrey “Stu” Stewart, 31, sitting in box seats along the right field line of packed Comerica Park, the Tigers’ home stadium, during Game 5 of the American League Championship Series. Wearing a Tigers baseball cap and a Lions jersey, Stewart, from the suburb of Redford Township, Michigan, said he planned to “paint my face like a clown” for Sunday’s Lions-49ers game at adjacent Ford Field.

Outside the ballpark, Shawn Crawford, 28, wearing a dark blue Tigers’ cap identical to Stewart’s, said that the Lions’ and Tigers’ success is “bringing people together.”

“Even though it’s a down time in the city, the city’s very resilient and it’s gonna fight back,” said Crawford, a delivery truck driver who lives in Detroit. “Winning helps cure everything.”

Sports’ power to unite a racially fractured society around a common cause, and to bring joy to the masses during times of distress, is no mysterious notion. But perhaps nowhere has that emotional healing power been more vital than in Detroit, whose ills – unemployment, crime, illiteracy, racial segregation – are well-known.

Charles Pugh, Detroit’s City Council President, said that sports have historically been one of the lone “shining spots” for a city that’s been “in the doldrums.”

“[In a city] where sometimes things get pretty bad,” said Pugh, “Sports may be your only solace, may be the only source of joy.”

Over the past half-century, both the Lions and the city in which they’re beloved have chugged down similar tracks – although over time, both sets of rails have become increasingly rusty, broken, cliff-bound.

In the early to mid-1950’s, when Detroit’s car industry boomed and its population of nearly two million ranked it fifth biggest among America’s metropolises, the Lions were in the midst of a golden era, capturing three NFL Championships in six years. The Lions’ last NFL Championship, in 1957, came a year before a recession rocked Detroit, hitting its auto industry especially hard. The 1960s saw race riots and a white exodus from city to suburbs, just as the Lions were experiencing one of professional sports’ most prolific droughts, making just one playoff experience in a 24-year span.

By the 2000’s, Detroit’s woes, and the Lions’ misfortunes, had made the Motor City a go-to punch line for late night comics; a Conan O’Brien or Jay Leno could reliably follow any dud of a joke with a crack about the Lions or about crime in Detroit, and quickly re-claim the audience’s affection. (like when O’Brien named Detroit the globe’s fourth worst vacation destination). But the realities weren’t as humorous: illiteracy rates hovering around 50%, record levels of crime and school dropouts, entire neighborhoods becoming the scenes of chilling post-apocalyptic-looking abandon.

In 2008, the year that the Lions became the NFL’s first ever team to go 0-16, the city’s mayor, Kwame Kirkpatrick, left office in disgrace amidst a string of scandals and felony charges, including for perjury and obstruction of justice. He ended up in jail.

But the Lions’ sudden winning ways, said Pugh, have contributed immensely to the city’s collective psyche, not to mention the “residual capital,” such as an economic jolt, and positive media coverage that has aided Detroit’s image nationally.

Still, Andy Markovits, a Professor of Sociology and Political Science at the University of Michigan, who has written a book on sports’ effects on politics and culture, cautioned against over-valuing these teams’ impact on the community.

“If you wonder what the effects are in terms of long term structural [impact], they’re probably zero or minimal,” said Markovits, adding that positive news surrounding Detroit’s car industry is a much more significant development. Any long-term economic impact, added the professor, is similarly “very hard to assess and very dubious.”

But that isn’t to say sports aren’t influential, Markovits stressed. Sports, he said, can provide a temporary yet “unbelievable sense of collective euphoria.”

“This is a wonderful high [for Detroit],” said Markovits, “and that’s important in life.”

About 600 miles away, in a bar on Manhattan’s East Side, such euphoria was being shared among self-proclaimed Detroit “ex-pats,” who scrunched themselves into long, narrow “Tammany Hall” tavern for the Lions’ first Monday Night Football appearance in a decade.

“Detroit Lions fans love their team and have endured years of torment,” read a website promoting the event, entitled ‘From Motown to Midtown.’

Forming a sea of Honolulu blue, the Lions’ official color, the faithful wore shirts like “Made in Detroit” and “Motor City Pride.” They sang a Detroit Lions fight song after touchdowns, and expressed – whether they’d been raised in Detroit’s suburbs or within its city limits – an intense pride in their hometown.

Standing near the bar was Justin Stewart, 29, who works for a real estate company and lives in Manhattan’s West Village.

“I have to be up at 6 am tomorrow, but I don’t care,” said Stewart, wearing a Tigers’ cap and a t-shirt with multiple blurry ‘Detroits’ on it, as if his attire had been designed by an eye doctor. Stewart is from Bloomfield Hills outside Detroit, one of America’s most affluent suburbs, a place where giant mansions soar above bright green lawns. He said he’s been recruiting friends to move back to Detroit with him within the next several years. Increased excitement surrounding the Lions and Tigers, he maintained, has strengthened his sales pitch.

“What better place to be [than this]?” said Neil Steinkamp, 34, wearing a dark suit with a backwards Detroit Tigers cap. Steinkamp, a financial consultant who grew up in the Detroit suburb of Birmingham and lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, had driven to the bar directly from LaGuardia Airport, where he’d just flown in from a business trip.

“I think this brings people together,” said Steinkamp, as the Lions closed in on an impressive 24-13 win over the Chicago Bears. “It gives the city something to rally around.”

Back in Detroit, on the city’s West Side, in a neighborhood where rotting, boarded up homes outnumber healthy ones at least two to one, Juan Scott, 54, hobbled out of a house and onto his front porch, a cane supporting his weight. He said that he’s been out of work “because of an accident”, was once a chef, and, that he’s always been a Lions and Tigers fan.

Juan Scott, 54, stands outside of his home in West Detroit, on a block dominated by abandoned houses. Scott, who is out of work, is a long-time Lions and Tigers fan. Photo by Louie Lazar.

“When sports around here aren’t looking good, there’s a lot of trouble,” said Scott, a Detroit native. “But as far as the [Lions] looking up, everybody seems to have a different attitude about things.”

It was late afternoon, and filtered rays of sunlight illuminated peeling paint on nearby houses. Gusts of wind rustled through weed fields growing on front lawns; overgrown tree branches scratched against broken house windows. The block was empty of people, except for two young boys down the street, who tossed around a mini-football.

Asked whether he thinks the Lions’ success is making a difference in people’s lives here, Scott formed a slight smile.

“Yeah, you can tell the difference,” he said, shifting his cane from one hand to another. “There’s a buzz in the air.”

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