“J-E-T-S Jets! Jets! Jets!” is the cheer led by iconic fan Fireman Ed at New York Jets home games, but NFL linebacker Bart Scott isn’t hearing that nearly loudly enough.
After the National Football League’s lockout over the summer, the full start of the long-awaited NFL season elates fans this weekend. With their first home game of 2011 this afternoon, Scott is taking his team’s fans to task. The outspoken defensive standout is telling Jets fans to put down their cell phones and pick up a megaphone.
Scott thinks fans in the stands are spending too much time during the game tweeting and texting and updating their facebook status rather than cheering on the players.
With the Jets beginning their second season in their new $1.7 billion stadium, Scott implied that the rowdy, loud fans of the old Meadowlands Stadium might not be able to afford tickets at the new luxury building. He thinks the more upscale fans who can afford the higher ticket prices may bring more digital gadgets than passion for the team with them to the game.
The NFL may share some blame for the tweets, since the league created its own apps for last year’s Super Bowl.
Pro athletes love Twitter. NBA great Shaq even announced his retirement on the site. LeBron James jabbed at his former Cleveland fans via Twitter.
Unlike a lot of NFL athletes such as Chad Ochocino and Arian Foster who fill the Twitter feeds with updates about their physical status or comments about what’s going on during their daily workouts, Scott has not tweeted on his account since three days before making his request to the fans to go silent in their digital world but to be vocal during the game.