Critics say the Boston-New York sports rivalry is overhyped and of little interest to those outside the Northeast Corridor. This is technically true, but no two cities have ever made a more stronger case that their teams really truly hate each other. Much of the credit for this should go to the New York Post sports section, with its fondness for covers that refer to the Patriots as the "Hatriots", the Red Sox as "Fenway Punks," George Steinbrenner as Pedro Martinez's "daddy," and, finally, Martinez as an actual baby.

Still, none of these past hits could prepare us for the cover the paper lined up in anticipation of Sunday's Patriots-Jets divisional playoff game:



For the record, that's Patriots head coach Bill Belichick as Darth Vader, Jets head coach Rex Ryan as Han Solo, Mark Sanchez as Luke Skywalker, Jets center Nick Mangold as a weirdly shrunken down Ewok, Rex Ryan's wife as Princess Leia, Jets offensive line coach Bill Callahan (or maybe Joe Namath, we're not sure) as Yoda, Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Tom Brady as Tom Brady.

Not to be outdone, the cover of today's Boston Metro used the foot-fetish controversy currently dogging the Ryans as its inspiration for this cover:


We're torn on which one we like better. On the one hand, "footy fun in the Hub" is a quintessentially perfect piece of tabloid phrasing. On the other hand, that's a whole lot of feet.

(H/T to Kevin Negandhi and the Newseum)

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Ray Gustini