NFL: Patriots at Jets

Covered my first regular season NFL game, and as far as early regular season games go, it was a big one, as the New England Patriots rolled into town to take on the New York Jets in East Rutherford, NJ. Since I'd only done a few preseason games, the first thing that got me was the amount of people on the sidelines compared with the preseason...crazy. Secondly, on the field, it's just plain LOUD! It was a big advantage for the Jets today, as you can see in the main image, Tom Brady had a ton of trouble hearing anything.

Beautiful day at Giants Stadium today, sunny and warm and a clear blue sky...perfect. Set up and headed out to the field to watch a bit of warmups, a few celebs and former athletes on-hand, like Curtis Martin, Wayne Chrebet, Tyson Beckford and the guy in the photo below, actor Michael Douglas.


Snapped a few early pics, Jerricho Cotchery leading the Jets to the sidelines.


One of Mark Sanchez getting loose that I liked the tightness on, and might work for stock down the road.


Caught a nice one of Dustin Keller saying a prayer before the start of the game with a 16-35mm and a tighter one with my 300mm.



I mentioned the blue skies right? Here's one of a jet flyover before the start of the game, kinda blew this shot, had it framed since I knew it was coming, but got caught up with something else and had to grab my wide angle quickly and messed it up...oh well.


Offense was pretty much non-existent in the first half, but managed to get a few decent frames, and a few for stock of key players like Brady, Sanchez, and Thomas Jones.






While the offense stalled, the Jets 'D' was on...here Kerry Rhodes breaks up a potential TD throw to Randy Moss.



After the first half, headed to transmit, ran a bit late and missed the Jets first drive of the 2nd half (of course it was the only TD of the game), most of the photogs were still inside though, it happens.

Here's a few other random snaps from the 2nd half.

Blew the background out on this one, but thought it created a pretty good image of Brady, he kinda pops out...



Jets dynamic duo...


Jets Smash!!!


Here Brady appears to think I'm open and sends one my way, thankfully a Patriots receiver stepped in front of it, but I think I could have pulled it in.



A few necessary NY Jets Flight Team shots (my daughter who is 7 and in her first year of cheerleading makes me bring some of these home to show her, I swear...That's my story and I'm sticking to it)

This first one was great, just happened to be focusing on her when an apparent Jets TD was overturned on video review. She obviously did not agree at all.




Strange and unsettling moment, a NJ State Police/Homeland Security helicopter hovers over the stadium in the 4th quarter, appears the officer has a rifle of some sort, just snapped a quick one.



Just another random snap of an official picking up a flag.



and of course the post game runoff...didn't get the coaches handshake, as Bill Belichick barely acknowledged Rex Ryan after the game, and apparently Brady ran right off as well...



Still feel like I'm finding my way around while shooting football, but at least my first regular season game is out of the way. Of course not without incident, as I lost my 1.4x teleconverter during the game, must have somehow fallen out of my ThinkTank modular belt...sucks...Next week I'll be shooting the Jets-Titans game, so I get right back out there.

Couple of quick web usages...


ESPN.com