A chuckle from Bill.

[Mark Farinella]

I got a chuckle out of Bill Belichick during today's press conference when the topic once again turned to the venue for Thursday's preseason finale, New Meadowlands Stadium.

A reporter who isn't one of Belichick's favorites -- if there's such a thing -- asked if things would be different going to Giants Stadium now that it's the new Giants Stadium (inaccurate, in that the old stadium is now a parking lot and the new stadium is not called that because the Giants and Jets are co-owners), and Bill sort of shrugged off the query by saying, "Well, that's the NFL. It's that way in Detroit, it was that way in Indianapolis, it was that way in Philadelphia, it was that way in Denver, so ..." -- his references being to cities where new stadium have opened lately.

So I asked, "Do you think they've figured out which doors to open yet to change the wind patterns?" and Belichick immediately started laughing. "I assume they're working on it," he said.

One of the many urban myths about Giants Stadium (other than that Jimmy Hoffa was supposedly buried in the concrete foundation) was that when Bill Parcells was head coach of the Jints, he and the stadium staff figured out that the interior wind patterns could be changed if certain exterior doors were left open during the games, affecting passing, punting and placements. That was never confirmed, and Parcells would only respond with an impish smile when asked about it.

Looking at the design of New Meadowlands Stadium, it's tough to figure out how anything could affect the wind patterns inside it. Its exterior surface is almost totally covered by aluminum louvers that will change color (blue for Giants, green for Jets, red for concerts) depending upon who's playing inside. The photo above is from my visit to the site last year; the ramps you see at the extreme left won't be there Thursday because the old stadium was taken down piece by piece over the summer, and now is just a memory.