For New York, It’s Sort of a Tunnel Super Bowl : All Roads Lead to New Jersey for Weekend’s Jet and Giant Playoff Games

Never mind that they play in New Jersey, that the “NY” has long since vanished from their helmets. This weekend is New York’s Super Bowl.

For only the second time in the 26 seasons they have coexisted, the New York Jets and New York Giants are in the National Football League playoffs in the same year, creating the same kind of Big Apple frenzy that accompanied baseball’s New York Mets and Yankees through last September’s pennant races.

Normally, the two wild-card games would be played on the same day, Sunday. For the first time, however, the NFL had to reschedule one because both teams occupy the same field, Giants Stadium. The Jets drew Saturday, with a 4 p.m. starting time against New England, and the Giants will play the San Francisco 49ers Sunday at 1 p.m.

It’s not the first time the starting times or dates of playoff games have been shuffled around. Last year both wild-card games were on the West Coast. To avoid a television conflict, Seattle’s game against the visiting Raiders was moved to Saturday, a shift that Al Davis, owner of the Raiders, protested in vain. L.A. lost the game, too. On Sunday, the Giants beat the Rams in Anaheim.

The Empire State Building, the World Trade Center and a few of New York City’s other landmarks can be seen on a clear day from the Giant and Jet home at East Rutherford, N.J.

The Giants have played there 10 years, the Jets two.

The Giants have been urged by Vincent Tese, chairman of New York State’s Urban Development Corporation, to change their name. “It’s inappropriate for them to call themselves a New York team, because they’re not in New York anymore,” he said.

He didn’t include the Jets, perhaps because the UDC has approved a proposal that could result in the construction of a domed stadium in New York and, with it, the possible return of the Jets.

Edward Yandich, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said Tuesday the weekend forecast calls for “no major storm. Anything that comes through is going to be like we’ve been getting for the past week or so--short bursts of snow or rain, not much more than an inch or two if it is snow.”

“But it’s going to be colder than normal, in the 30s during the day and below freezing from the late afternoon on. Anybody going to the Jet game had better be prepared.”

Several hundred tickets to the Jet game, at $22 apiece, and about 2,500 for the Giant game, at $22 and $25, could be bought at the box office. Jet tickets can be bought immediately; Giants seats go on sale Friday.

But better seats were going for a better price on the sidewalk--about $125 a pop.

Restaurants and bars catering to sports fans, some of the establishments with 10-foot TV screens and a profusion of other televisions, were making plans for the “Super Weekend,” unconcerned about weather forecasts.

Manny Cimiluca, owner of Manny’s Restaurant in Moonachie, N.J., said his place would have Saturday and Sunday brunches at $15 plus a bus ride to the stadium for another $6. “We’re going to have the brunches before the games and a victory party after they’re over,” Cimiluca said. “Our bartenders wear their Jets jerseys on Saturday and then put their Giants jersey on Sunday.”

The place is loaded with pictures of the Giants. “We’re even thinking of switching the pictures for Saturday’s game and putting up some Jet pictures,” he said.

He called it “the New Jersey Super Bowl. We’ll have the big screens and we’ll show the second round of the playoffs here the following week.”

At The Sporting Club in New York, where large-screen televisions abound, owner Bill Rose said he expected to have T-shirts, hats, rooting sections, banners, an electronic message and scoreboard and a special menu, along with “special concoctions (drinks) in honor of the Giants and Jets.”

Because of the two games, the Meadowlands canceled its thoroughbred racing card on Saturday night and pushed back the start of the New Jersey Net-Washington Bullet National Basketball Assn. game at adjacent Byrne Arena two hours to 9:30 p.m. Saturday night.

In 1981, the only other time New York’s two NFL teams made it beyond the season and into the wild-card round, the Jets still called New York their home, playing in Shea Stadium.

The Giants, who at one time or another had occupied the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, the Yale Bowl and Shea, had already fled across the Hudson River to their new home, built on a swamp diplomatically called the Meadowlands.

On that Dec. 27, the Jets lost and the Giants won. The Jets fell to Buffalo, 31-27, rallying from a 24-0 deficit only to lose when Richard Todd was intercepted by Bill Simpson on the Bills’ two-yard line with 10 seconds to play. The Giants defeated fumble-prone Philadelphia, 27-21, then were beaten, 38-24, the following week by San Francisco, the eventual Super Bowl champion.