Tailgating

Sadly, as a JETS fan, the tailgating usually ends up being alot more fun than the game.

 

This is awesome. Great thread. Eventually will move this to Jet Life Forum but keeping here for a while for visibility.

Tailgating with friends is the reason I still go to games. Jets suck bad for the past 10 years and every year I end up going to 5-6 games just for tailgating.

Will chime in later for best and worst.

 

Lots of good memories going to games and tailgating especially. Me and my dad have been going to games since I was 5. I'm 30. So not many great games back in the day. My mom and sister have sporadically joined us through the years and I've been to games with my friends over the years, especially my adult years.

Best: My birthday, January 3rd 2010. (09 last regular season game to close out the old dump for the new dump). It was FREEZING. Wind was brutal. It was frigid. I had just turned 19. My dad got us tickets at the beginning of the season for this game on my birthday and for weeks before we thought it would be a meaningless game.. until we beat Curtis Painter the week before and then found out this game was going to be flexed, we knew it was going to be cold.. Something about it being my birthday and them dominating the game from start to finish to get into the playoffs, then saying goodbye to that shitter.. it was nice. emotional at the time.

I was at the 98 divisional game against the Jags. I remember how loud that stadium was.
2002 Colts game, too.
a bunch of other great memories tailgating like tailgating week 2 in 09 with my friends or a super super drunken tailgate party for the Dolphins game in 2013.

Bad ones...

The 2012 game against the Dolphins the day before Sandy hit. A brutal game and our grill broke during the tailgate.
2008 Favre against the Dolphins. ugh

 

That was the coldest game I have ever attended. I have a family friend who is a mechanic and just happened to be working on a party bus that week. He made a deal with the client, I'll do all the work for free but let me take it and use it for the weekend. There were about 15 of us in that bus watching the 4:00 pm games on the TVs inside and outside someone surprised the entire tailgate with an ice luge that had a Jets logo carved inside of it and put it in the back of their work van. I remember walking out of that bus thinking I was a bad ass how it wasn't that cold. You couldn't even hold a beer in your hand without a glove. My father somehow got us box seats for that game and I kept telling him that I wanted to be with the real fans and sit in our actual seats to really feel the atmosphere... after about an hour of tailgating you bet your ass I opted for the box seats

That wasn't my favorite game/tailgate though.

My favorite tailgate ever was the 2002 Packers game where we throttled them. I remember being 13 years old in the parking lot for that game. We had the dish hooked up for the tailgate & kept flipping back & forth between New England / Miami & Cleveland / Atlanta. After Cleveland won we all thought we were screwed. New England ended up throwing a TD pass to Brown and then converted on the 2 point conversation to Fauria. We normally tailgated with 15-20 people but as people walked into Giants Stadium they stopped by and I turned around from the cooler I was sitting on and it felt like 50+ were glued to our TV. We didn’t enter the game until Vinatieri kicked the GW FG and it was the loudest roar I’ve ever heard.. until beating the snot out of Indy the following weekend. Those two weeks were insanity as a 13 year old.

Damn man.. the good times.

 

Tailgating means something else to a van driver

But my favourite one was when some arsehead cut me up by pulling out of a side road whilst I was doing 55mph, making me have to brake extremely hard, I then followed him down the road 3 inches off his car for 10 miles or so.

Hopefully, that lesson will make him think next time he sees a wagon approaching at speed.

Anyway carry on stuffing your faces with food and ignore me

 

One Monday night game against Miami my buddy an I were going to get to the stadium at 3pm. We go to the liquor store all pumped up, tell the clerk we are going to the Jets/Miami game. Since it was around 2pm he asked, where is it in Miami?

We didn't bring anything else just two cases of beer. We get about 15 each drank, we are counting and arguing who is ahead. From across the parking light a guy had secretly been watching pur shenanigans the whole time. He points at me and says, "He's got you by 1".

For the Jacksonville playoff home game, it was so cold my wife took the metal folding chair and put it over the charcoal grill that was cooling off.

So many good memories.

 

Without a doubt the Jaxsonville playoff game in 1999.

3 of my college buddies and I were in the lot for several hours, we grilled some Filet Mignon and a drank couple of cases of Heineken, between before and after game.
I know it was cold that day, but I not once ever felt it.
Will never be topped if I do not get to see Jets in the Super Bowl.

 

You've been paying attention to American football long enough to know you have to "bend but not brake!"

 

Been to well over 300 Jets home games, and to this point of the thread, every game mentioned here. The Cinci night game was probably the most brutal cold wind-wise that I've tailgated in, but I remember a game against the Bills (on a Saturday) that was colder than that though not as windy. That day our "tailgate" consisted of two cars parked next to each other occupying three spots, with grills in between. I believe it was 6 degrees. I would venture out only to put food on, and take it off the grill, We ate and drank in the car. In the stadium our smuggled in Bud cans froze, and we'd pour beverages on the seats so it'd freeze-up for the Giants fans who had a game the next day. (My brothers and I still refer to it as "Giants Fans Appreciation Day") Both of these games still were not as bad as a windy, sleet filled tailgate for a Broncos Jets home game that we desperately needed, but Favre seemed to want no part of. What I remember most of that tailgate was that it was right about when the pop up canopies became a thing, and everyone brought one to that game. It literally was tent-city in the parking lot.

As far as individual tailgates, they are very hard to judge since the game itself that follows usually influences your memory of it. (and the blur into each other)

I'll throw in a great post game celebration memory. I went to Miami for the 1998 road Sunday night game against the Dolphins. Huge win (Chad Cascadden) and most of the traveling Jets fans stayed at the Ft Lauderdale Yankee Clipper Sheraton. The restaurant at that hotel was the only bar open at 1am when we all returned from the game. It also happened to be a Don Shula Steakhouse/ Sports bar. So, on a late Sunday/ Monday morning you had a rowdy Jets fan- filled bar, inside a restaurant fully adorned with Dolphins memorabilia. Those poor bastard bartenders and wait staff had to endure us, as we sang "Marino takes it up the a**, doo-dah-doo dah" each time the ESPN highlights showed him fumbling or getting picked off. As bad as any of us have had to endure rival fans, on that night, the tide was turned. It was glorious! Anyone else there that night?

 

I'm sure the staff was more interested in New York tipping customs than the game outcome at that time.

 

First ever was a trip to Bills the yearwe 'stole' Neil Odonnel' (remember him?). Snowy cold day...just me and my wif going into enemy territory. Ton of young Jets fans (maybe 30ish) in parkinglot all young,drunk, and harrasing Bills fans walking by. Too funny. No one wanted to mess with them.

A man (huge black guy) pushing shopping cart thru the lot picking up cans. Young drunk Jets fans pulled his Bills hat off his head anf thru it in bonfire. The rumble was on!

Of course we lost the game! Long drive home.

 

Well, they didn't look too happy about things at the time but you're right about that. There'd be no one at the bar otherwise.

 

Awesome post. Share more please