TOKYO – These days of East meets West in this rare NFL week in Japan have produced some bizarre and humorous moments – and the preseason game between the Jets and Buccaneers is still a day away.
Funny scene: It’s 9:45 in the morning Tokyo time yesterday and the elevator in the Tokyo Dome Hotel, occupied by a Japanese family of four and a groggy, jet-lagged sportswriter, stops at the 26th floor. The door opens and in saunters Jets rookie defensive tackle Dwayne Robertson, all 6-foot-1, 320 pounds of him, not including his full-pads uniform and helmet he’s wearing.
It was truly as if Godzilla had entered the elevator. The family of four ceased their conversation, pressed their bodies against the back of the compartment and gawked as the elevator heads down to the ground floor. This is the scene everywhere around here as Jets and Buccaneers players roam the premises after their respective practices as Japanese fans scurry about to see them and ask for autographs.
Imagine the gaggle of onlookers as Tampa Bay mouthpiece Warren Sapp and teammate Simeon Rice packed themselves into a tiny taxicab yesterday. The president of the United States gathers less attention.
How about enormous center Kevin Mawae representing the Jets at a noon-time tea party?
Everywhere you look, surreal meets real. There is a Sizzler steakhouse in the team hotel. Yes, that Sizzler, the one that costs 50 cents extra (or about 60 yen) for blue cheese and bacon bits on the salad.
“Hey, go with what you know,” said Mawae, one of the adventurous diners at Sizzler.
Robertson and fellow defensive tackle James Reed found a McDonald’s around the corner from the hotel and did some fine dining.
Jets’ nose tackle Jason Ferguson talked about wanting to “fill” his camera up “so I can show my wife I went all over Tokyo,” adding that he wants to bring some souvenir chopsticks home, not that he needed them at Sizzler, where he also ate on Wednesday night.
Of the two teams here this week, the Bucs corner the market on boisterous personalities, led by Sapp, who not surprisingly dominated the show during an hour-long press conference yesterday in a ballroom filled mostly with Japanese media.
When a reporter from Armed Forces Radio called Sapp, “Mr. Wapp” by accident, Sapp playfully reprimanded him, saying, “It’s Sapp, S-A-P-P,” while shaking his head in mock disbelief.
Meanwhile, Chad Pennington, looking the part of an ultra-polite choirboy, was the Jets’ player representative at the conference and he was no match, not that he tried to be.
“Whenever you have a guy like Warren Sapp on your team, as a quarterback you know you don’t need to be the spokesperson,” Pennington said afterward.
Meanwhile, toward the center of the long head table at the press conference there was a distinct convergence of disdain with Jets owner Woody Johnson sitting between Edwards and Bucs owner Malcolm Glazer, who unceremoniously fired Tony Dungy, Edwards’ closest friend and mentor.
Edwards looked slightly uncomfortable – these kinds of gatherings aren’t his idea of fun. At times he glanced at Glazer with a tight smile, though Glazer never once looked at Edwards.
After the press conference, a Japanese reporter approached Pennington and asked him, in English, if he would say a few words of encouragement into the microphone to a local flag football team.
While Sapp blew past people once he left the dais, Pennington, bless his heart, politely obliged.
It was that kind of day and been that kind of week so far – less about football and more about the international show and a change in culture.
