Score the opening play for the New Meadowlands Stadium a touchdown.

That was the word from Jets and Giants fans who attended last night’s preseason opener at the $1.7 billion sports palace.

“This is the Roman Colosseum,” said Jets fan and season-ticket holder Parker Yates, 50, who attended with stepdad Fred Swartz, 82, a Giants season-ticket holder who has been going to Big Blue games since 1939.

“I’m glad there is no roof on it. We want Peyton Manning here in the playoffs. Let him play in the wind and the cold.”

Joseph Sommers, 45, a Giants fan from Manasquan, NJ, who attended the game with his son, Joseph Jr., 6, proclaimed, “The food is so much better” than at the old stadium. The Jets are calling it the Home Food advantage, real food for real fans.

There’s the Great Hall Club and the Touchdown Club. There’s the Martini Bar, Johnnie Walker & Sons and the Wine Bar. And there are endless food choices: everything from pepper and eggs to fried clams to sushi to boardwalk fries to turkey chili to the Food Network’s Greek salad.

But despite all that, fans will always tailgate. The Big Blue BBQ was out in parking lot J.

Greg Scharfstein, 34, who owns two sets of Giants tickets, did not have seats for last night’s game, but came to barbecue with his buddies.

He’s been here for other events and at first didn’t like the industrial look of the stadium, “but it grows on you,” he said. “The sight lines are great.”

Gerry Craven, 49, said, “I had buyer’s remorse when I bought my seats, but now that I’m here, I have no more buyer’s remorse. It’s a great stadium.”

Still, not everyone was thrilled.

Kevin McQuade, 44, of Long Island, had to move out of his corner seats in the upper tier because, he said, they were too far from the action.

“I hate it,” he said. “I’m never going back up there. It hurt my eyes.”

Last night, the stadium was all dressed up in Jets green, since the Jets were considered the home team.

The stadium will be equally as blue when it’s a Giants home game.