Jets coach Rex Ryan says a Meadowlands Super Bowl should happen

Jets coach Ryan says Super Bowl should be in NY

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Rex Ryan thinks it’s time for a cold-weather Super Bowl.

The New York Jets coach said Thursday there should be no question whether the NFL’s showcase event should be played at the new Meadowlands Stadium in 2014. The league’s owners are voting on the site next week at their meetings in Dallas.

“The game should be played here,” Ryan said, “and it would be a great Super Bowl.”

If the owners vote in favor of the joint bid by the Jets and Giants, it would be the first Super Bowl to be played outdoors in a cold-weather locale. Miami and Tampa, Fla., which have hosted 14 Super Bowls between them, also bid.

“I don’t see how it’s not played here,” Ryan said. “The weather, if your team is not built to play in those conditions, that’s too bad. I’d just as soon play all those games up north.”

The new $1.6 billion Meadowlands stadium, which both teams will call home beginning this season, does not have a retractable roof. The league still gave the teams the right to bid on the Super Bowl despite the traditional requirement that the host region have either a minimum temperature of 50 degrees or a stadium with a roof.

Ryan said a New York-area Super Bowl — even in February — would make sense for a number of reasons.

“We’ve got the best city in the world,” Ryan said. “I think that’s indisputable. We’ve got arguably one of the top stadiums in the league, a brand-new stadium and it helps two teams.”

While many of the Jets players have said they’d be in favor of a New York-area Super Bowl, wide receiver Santonio Holmes was a bit skeptical. He was selected as the 2009 Super Bowl MVP for Pittsburgh in a game played at Tampa, Fla.

“February’s not good up north,” Holmes said. “I’d rather play down south in the Super Bowl where the elements don’t have any type of factor into the game. I would prefer to keep all Super Bowl games somewhere in the South or somewhere where it’s warm. I don’t want to play in the cold. We’re out there enough during the season.”