There are times when New York's tabloid culture adds that little extra bit of spice to life and enhances the experience of living in the city.
And then there are times when they are a more embarrassing part of life as they stretch to try and turn the slimmest of things into a controversial story.
The run-up to Saturday's preseason game between the Jets and the Giants is turning into one of those times.
There are plenty of actual storylines to follow going into the game. The Giants are trying not to lose any more of their players before actually playing a game that counts and the Jets want to keep growing on offense so that their season doesn't end two weeks before the Super Bowl or earlier.
Those stories aren't sexy enough for the papers, however. So they are conjuring up a feud out of thin air between Justin Tuck and Santonio Holmes.
Tuck was asked about the stadium being redubbed MetLife Stadium and responded by saying that it will always be Giants Stadium to him. That response was passed along to Santonio Holmes, who said that they played in the Meadowlands, "home of the New York Jets."
This pair of innocuous comments somehow wound up making it into multiple papers on Thursday morning and gave the Daily News the subject for their back cover. That's not particularly surprising given the tabloid habit of turning nothing into something, but you do have to wonder why they'd bother digging so deep for a preseason game.
Neither guy said anything remotely antagonistic nor were they saying anything that wasn't the truth. It will always be Giants Stadium to just about every Giants fan and to every Jets fan it will be the Meadowlands (and it is the home of the Jets), which means both players were being about as controversial as sugarless gum.
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As an aside, MetLife might want to think about branding things that aren't already well known by other names. There are still plenty of people in New York who refer to the Pan Am building even though it has been a really long time since their name was on the Midtown icon that now wears the same name as the football stadium.
Getting back to football, what's the point in trying to hype up a game that doesn't matter in the standings when the two teams are going to play on Christmas Eve? We don't get to see the teams play games that count all that often and it is even rarer to see them play a game that will likely have a great impact on both seasons.
That's the time to bring out the long knives and spend extra time sniping at one another about which team holds the mythical key to the city.
Doing it for a preseason game is a waste of everybody's time.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.
