Even to John Mara’s 14-year-old ears, this sounded a little crazy.
This was late in the morning of Aug. 17, 1969, and the New York Giants’ team bus was negotiating the 18-mile path along I-95 from the team’s training headquarters at Fairfield University to New Haven, where that afternoon they would play the Jets in an exhibition game at 70,000-seat Yale Bowl.
Mara, the eldest of Giants owner Wellington Mara’s 11 children, listened as the players bided their time speaking of the 2 o’clock kickoff in primal terms, odd since this was an exhibition game and wasn’t supposed to count for anything other than local bragging rights between teams that didn’t even play in the same league yet.