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Bring back Fireman Ed


joewilly12

Do you want Fireman Ed back leading the J-E-T-S chant?   

45 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you want Fireman Ed back leading the J-E-T-S chant?



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I love the chant. Something almost unique among NFL teams. Reminds me of being on Martha's Vineyard in 2012 watching a Jets-Colts game in a local sportsbar. A bunch of other Jet Fans came in. I enjoyed playing the role of Fireman Ed, leading the chat.

Particularly fond memory since the Jets crushed the Colts. Luck had nothing on us that day.

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3 minutes ago, Flushing Roots said:

Don't do it joewilly!

You and SAR's jousting is the best entertainment we've had in Jet Land all year.

 

Need a break from him he wished death on me, so I took the high road I'm a lifelong diehard Jets fan I can do without him in my life primary reason he has season tickets is to be able to brag he has them no other reason. 

He despises tailgating and fans cheering at the game he's part of the problem at MetLife not part of the solution. 

 

 

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7 minutes ago, joewilly12 said:

Need a break from him he wished death on me, so I took the high road I'm a lifelong diehard Jets fan I can do without him in my life primary reason he has season tickets is to be able to brag he has them no other reason. 

He despises tailgating and fans cheering at the game he's part of the problem at MetLife not part of the solution. 

 

 

Understood.

A death wish over a Fireman Ed thread is a tad strong.

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1 hour ago, SAR I said:

You need to stop trying to bring someone back who doesn't want to come back because his two or three other comebacks were an epic disaster.

You forget that Fireman Ed left because things changed in the new stadium and people weren't paying attention to him. And since he was there for the recognition and the attention it became embarrassing for him to try to rile up a group that had no interest.

The apex of this situation occurred in 2011 or 2012 when there was a heavily publicized pregame event called "The Worlds Biggest J-E-T-S Chant" was held. About 1000 fans were on the field spelling out JETS. It was supposed to be this big thing to pump up the team as they came out of the tunnel. Ed started to chant, and no one in the crowd responded. Ed did it a second time. Again, no response. He eventually grabbed a microphone, stood up on a podium, and said "LET ME HEAR YOU!" "LET ME HEAR YOU!" It didn't work. He didn't attempt it again, it fizzled out, he walked off tail between legs. My buddies in my section were hysterical at first and then started checking their phones.

His last "comeback" was on September 15, 2015 where he returned to lead the chant and hand it off to new chant leaders.  Fans in the stands don't care, they barely make a sound.

Like I said, this was a slow death of a passing fad like the Wave or the Macarena accelerated by the fact that the person leading this pro-Jets chant was decidedly anti-Jets and walked out on us in a time of need.  Give it up already.  Get a dog.

SAR I

IMO, I think you have the argument skewed the wrong way.

you seem to emphasize that it slowly faded with The new stadium, then add that he also bailed on the team after the butt fumble.

i think the bailing on the team incident sealed his fate much more so than the slow fade. 

My opinion? I want him back. 

Reality? Not gonna happen

shot in the dark? Somewhere down the line, we go 10-0 and fans are suffering from the irrational exuberance that blinds us, then he, and the chant, has a little playoff run. 

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3 hours ago, Shadetree said:

IMO, I think you have the argument skewed the wrong way.

you seem to emphasize that it slowly faded with The new stadium, then add that he also bailed on the team after the butt fumble.

i think the bailing on the team incident sealed his fate much more so than the slow fade. 

My opinion? I want him back. 

Reality? Not gonna happen

shot in the dark? Somewhere down the line, we go 10-0 and fans are suffering from the irrational exuberance that blinds us, then he, and the chant, has a little playoff run. 

The chant was in trouble from the moment MetLife Stadium opened in 2010, it faded by 2011, and it's apex was that "World's Largest Jets Chant" event that the Jets heavily publicized and promoted that no one participated in and left Ed on the field in humiliation.  Link is up there.  250 Jets fans on the field spelling the word "JETS".  Ed makes a speech about how they called us clowns.  No one was paying attention.  He started begging "Let me hear you!  Let me hear you!  Show them we aren't clowns!"  It was terrible.  You ask me, that was the straw that broke Ed's back, the bathroom incident two months later sealed the deal.

Note that the people who let Ed down the most that day were the very people who miss him and the chant here in 2017.  They couldn't be bothered to leave their tailgates and get into the stadium 10 minutes earlier than normal to show the guy some support. 

SAR I

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5 hours ago, Jet9 said:

Better fan experience? How about not charging $40 to park your ******* car? Let's start there and we can work our way inside the morgue...I mean stadium.

Fixed.

Better fan experience? How about not charging $125 to park your ******* RV?

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21 minutes ago, Maxman said:

Fixed.

Better fan experience? How about not charging $125 to park your ******* RV?

You wealthy RV people give Jets fans a bad name with your expensive motor homes and your luxury parking and your refrigerators stocked with Grey Poupon and your power steering and your toilets scented with lavender.

I miss the old days, I miss the times of a dozen Jets fans piling into a rusty VW van, sharing a single can of Piels Real Draft, drinking each other's urine just to stay alive.  Those were real fans.  Those guys really knew how to chant.

SAR I

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30 minutes ago, SAR I said:

You wealthy RV people give Jets fans a bad name with your expensive motor homes and your luxury parking and your refrigerators stocked with Grey Poupon and your power steering and your toilets scented with lavender.

I miss the old days, I miss the times of a dozen Jets fans piling into a rusty VW van, sharing a single can of Piels Real Draft, drinking each other's urine just to stay alive.  Those were real fans.  Those guys really knew how to chant.

SAR I

You should lay off the banana daiquiris.

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I sat in the seat behind Ed in a miserable rainy game against MIA, I wanna say it was 2011 or 2012. It was the beginnings of the complete unraveling, we couldn't score, we couldn't do squat. But what was most disheartening and embarrassing was the "mechanical" Fireman Ed I saw that day. Security standing right next to him with an earpiece, queueing him to start the chant. It wasn't some organic chant started by him from emotion or any of that, he was being told when to do his schtick. And kind of like an old tilt-a-whirl at a traveling carnie show he would slowly get up grunting and run through the whole scheme, and then shut down into his seat when it was over. Speckled in between were some moments of him quickly taking a picture with the lucky folks that made it past the security guard (mostly younger women lol). I wished I never sat there to be honest because it totally ruined the magic and luster of the chant for me.


Sent from my iPhone using JetNation.com mobile app

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1 hour ago, Snell41 said:

I sat in the seat behind Ed in a miserable rainy game against MIA, I wanna say it was 2011 or 2012. It was the beginnings of the complete unraveling, we couldn't score, we couldn't do squat. But what was most disheartening and embarrassing was the "mechanical" Fireman Ed I saw that day. Security standing right next to him with an earpiece, queueing him to start the chant. It wasn't some organic chant started by him from emotion or any of that, he was being told when to do his schtick. And kind of like an old tilt-a-whirl at a traveling carnie show he would slowly get up grunting and run through the whole scheme, and then shut down into his seat when it was over. Speckled in between were some moments of him quickly taking a picture with the lucky folks that made it past the security guard (mostly younger women lol). I wished I never sat there to be honest because it totally ruined the magic and luster of the chant for me.


Sent from my iPhone using JetNation.com mobile app

Bummer. Like learning (SPOILER ALERT!) that there's no such thing as Santa or the Easter Bunny.

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Jets Super-Fan Fireman Ed Explains Why He Hung Up the Helmet

 

 
 

Jets-Fireman-Ed.jpg
AP
Fireman Ed Anzalone cheers at a Jets game.

Ed Anzalone never wanted to hang up his helmet.

The Jets super-fan known as Fireman Ed simply grew tired of the increasing harassment in the stands at MetLife Stadium. Some cursed at him. Others spit on him. Beer was also tossed his way.

 

"It was just guys who decided, 'Hey, we're going to mess with the fireman,'" Anzalone said.

The tipping point came on Thanksgiving night in 2012, when the Jets were getting romped by the New England Cheaters. Anzalone went to a rest room at halftime and two men confronted him. Sensing a bad situation brewing, Anzalone took off before it escalated in a phone interview with The Associated Press. "I said, 'If it's got to come to that and we're getting to that point, it's over.'And just like that, Fireman Ed was no more.

The familiar face of the fan base, the leader of the J-E-T-S chant, was G-O-N-E.

"I've still got plenty of energy and plenty in my tank, but it was for the best," Anzalone said. "We had a nice time, I had a great run and I didn't want to go out in a negative manner. I didn't want to end up on the front page of a newspaper."

Top Sports PhotosAnzalone became a fixture at home games, leading the J-E-T-S chant for 27 years — from Shea Stadium to Giants Stadium to MetLife. He would climb on the shoulders of his brother Frank, and later his buddy Bruce Gregor, silenc"It was an honor and I was humbled by it," he said. "As much as there were haters, there was nine times more love. It was all because I spelled out four letters. If they had me spelling Buccaneers, I would've been out of business."

 

His absence as Fireman Ed has been felt. Anzalone, who turns 55 next month, was approached by the Jets about returning, but declined. The Jets recently announced that they're holding a contest to find eight chant leaders. Season ticket holders are being asked to submit videos of themselves leading the J-E-T-S cheer, and fans will be able to vote for their favorites on the team's site.

In a sense, it's a search for the next Fireman Ed.

 

"I'm happy they're doing something because I want to see it go on," he said.

Anzalone and his brother are entering their 40th year as season ticket holders, and they still attend Jets games. They sit in a different part of the stadium, though, and Anzalone is no longer decked out in his familiar Fireman Ed garb — his firefighter helmet and, for years, a No. 42 Bruce Harper jersey before switching to Mark Sanchez's No. 6.

His absence has angered many fans, who accuse him of quitting on them and the franchise, despite Anzalone writing an open letter published in Metro newspaper in 2012 announcing his reasons for stepping away.

"All these years, I never left until there were four zeroes on the clock," he said. "You can't be the leader and leave. You have to stay. So, there was a reason why I left. I didn't quit. That's what bothers me."

 

Anzalone, who once got into it with a Giants fan during the 2010 preseason, thinks the introduction of personal seat licenses — or PSLs — helped contribute to the negativity.

"I feel like the fans felt like they were entitled," he said. "It just changed the whole attitude. It was tough."

Anzalone, a retired New York City firefighter, grew up rooting for the NFL teams he saw on TV: mainly the Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Dolphins. He has caught grief for years about the high school yearbook photo in which he is wearing a Dolphins sweatshirt.

That all changed in 1975 when his brother bought Jets season tickets and asked him to come along.

"I went to Shea and I just fell in love with them," he said, laughing. "And, I've been suffering ever since."

The J-E-T-S chant wasn't started by Anzalone. It was fans in opposite end zones who would chant back and forth. In 1986, an excited Anzalone was running up and down the aisles at a game and trying to get fans fired up in the lower tier when he got on one of the railings.

"The next thing I know, I almost fell over," he said. "My brother grabbed me, pulled me back up and says to me, 'Get on my shoulders!' Slowly, as the years went on, it started to build."

That's how the legend of Fireman Ed was born, and he became part of the in-game experience. He was even included in an exhibit at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, in 1999. Visits with sick children and die-hard fans became regular occurrences.

"I was very lucky," Anzalone said. "It was a wonderful time."

While Anzalone will never be Fireman Ed on a regular basis, he is open to the idea of a cameo appearance — to lead one more J-E-T-S chant.

"If the time is right and the fans wanted it and it worked out, I would do it for old times' sake, of course," he said. "I would never turn my back on the Jets. It was never about not loving the Jets. It was about the good of my name.

"I love the Jets. It's just in my blood and always will be."



 

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Fireman Ed Dropped One Of The Most Cringeworthy Speeches Ever Before Yesterday’s Jets Game

http://www.barstoolsports.com/newyork/fireman-ed-dropped-one-of-the-most-cringeworthy-speeches-ever-before-yesterdays-jets-game/

Fireman Ed’s speech should have been something like “When the Giants beat the Jets four years ago and sent the franchise into a tailspin, it was rough.  So rough that I put my tail between my legs and stopped going to games after the Butt Fumble game.  But I slithered back this season when it looked like the Jets were ready to be competitive again.  Would I be making a speech if the Jets had lost last week?  Doubtful.  Would I have ‘retired’ again if the Giants pulled that game out in overtime?  Probably.  But that’s just how us human mascots roll.”

SAR I

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