Ignoring everything that happened after 1pm, yesterday was a tremendous success. We had over 1000 Dolphins fans sit together, threw one hell of a tailgate and raised a TON of money for charity. I just wanted to quickly thank everyone who came out especially our volunteers and everyone who helped us get stuff on and off the busses. The day went very smoothly right up until the moment the game started.

Huge shout out to Urban Tailgate for their help with the party. We had a few tiny hiccups (the Jets wouldn’t lets us park our busses by the tailgate!) but overall it was amazing. We had some complaints about the cost before the tailgate but I didn’t hear a single complaint afterwards. I have a feeling we are not gonna have any trouble selling tickets next year.  This tailgate was fairly last minute and I can’t wait until next year because we are gonna up the game on everything. Next year should be epic.

Thanks to DJ Tropic for playing music and Solo D and DWA for playing a few songs and keeping the crowd going long after the performance.

Thanks to Joe Rose and the team at Cup Of Joe for taping their show live at our tailgate.  Nat Moore and Tom Garfinkel were guests on the show and hung out a bunch. Thanks to Jason Jenkins who helped put that together and has been at pretty much every Takeover. He’s a huge supporter of what we do. Jim Jenson came by the tailgate too just to hang out. That was pretty amazing. Thanks Crash!

And finally thanks to our liquor sponsor Sailor Jerry. They have sponsored the last few tailgates and we really appreciate the love. I think they actually have a bar at Hard Rock Stadium.

I am sure I am missing some people but we will thank them all in the wrap up video. We will also have an update of all the money we were able to donate to charity thanks to this weekend, but I should mention that the Cam Wake signed helmet raffle raised nearly $1800 alone for the Miami Dolphins Foundation and we donate $500 to Kiko Alonso’s hurricane fundraiser after the raffle we did at the party at Slattery’s Saturday night.

I gotta be honest and tell you that after the tailgate last year I was completely burnt out and ready to never do this again, but this year I am just sunburnt and ready to start planning the 2018 Takeover!

Phins up, Jets still suck, check out all the pictures below!

This season has obviously been disappointing and Sunday was pretty much a disaster on the field but off the field we had a hell of a time. It’s hard to explain to someone who has never been to a #MetLifeTakeover but there is truly no better experience as a Miami Dolphins fan. Obviously I am a bit biased but when you get to tailgate with hundreds of fans and then all walk in and sit with 1000 Dolfans and make so much noise that you can hear us on TV even in a disaster of a game it’s the greatest feeling in the world.

In the fourth quarter we were getting killed and for some reason most of the Jets fans had already left the game. A lot of Dolphins fans had left too, but our section was still filled with a ton of die hards. The Dolphins scored and we sang the fight song as loud as we could. We then recovered and onside kick and were cheering like crazy. Then, the Dolphins being the Dolphins, we fumbled the ball and the few remaining Jets fans started laughing at us. I turned to our remaining crowd and started chanting “Let’s Go Dolphins” as loud as I could. The rest of crew joined me and all you could hear was “Let’s Go Dolphins” despite just turning over the ball on the fourth quarter of a blow out. It was one of my proudest moments as a Dolphins fan.

It’s easy to be a fan when you are winning. It takes something special to root for your team when you are terrible. Reshad Jones Tweeted “When you winning, everyone is your friend, it’s easy to be on the wagon, so a SPECIAL shout-out to the ride or die fans!!” and we showed everyone we are out here riding for our team!

Now, about the tailgate!

We had a blast! Our four busses made it to the tailgate by 9am so we had hours to party. DJ Tropic DJ’d the whole thing which really upped the game from the last few years. Solo D and his Miami Sports Music/ DWA crew perform. We had a catered tailgate and Pabst Blue Ribbon donated 600 beers! We had water from AqauHydrate and Sailor Jerry Rum & cider. We are so lucky to have such rad sponsors.

We raised nearly $3000 through donations and merch sales which when you add to the money we made at the #MetLifeTakeover Pre-Party was close to $5000 that we can donate charity for the weekend not including the money we made from ticket sales. Plus we had a ton of people bring toys to continue the toy drive we did from the night before. Really amazing. Thanks so much everyone!

We had some cool guests at the tailgate as well. Dolphins legend Nat Moore and CEO Tom Garfinkel showed up at the tailgate which is always awesome. They have been big supporters of what we do up here. We also had Andrew Abramson from the Palm Beach Post and Brent Grimes infamous wife Miko show up as well. Miko has come to all our tailgates and this is Andrew’s second one so I appreciate the support from them. We even had some Jets fans come by to talk some smack. But they are the guys responsible for flying banners over the Patriots practices to troll them so I guess they aren’t so terrible.

Anyway, it was a terrible game but another amazing experience. Let’s just hope next year’s Takeover isn’t on Thanksgiving so we can bring out even more Dolfans and get another win. Since the first big #MetLifeTakeover this is our only loss so I think we are doing pretty well overall. Phins up!

Now check out all the photos from the tailgate!

Okay we get it. The Dolphins aren’t good at football. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy the football season. We had a fantastic weekend here in NYC even if the last three hours of it were really terrible. Our weekend started off with a party at our bar Slattery’s Midtown Pub on Saturday. We invited our normal crew plus anyone who was in town for the game to a three hour meet and greet kinda thing and it was a ton of fun. We had people there from Indonesia, the UK, Canada and of course TON of people from Florida. It was a great turnout and we raised a lot of money.

We had DJ Tropic DJ and Solo D perform and of course we had a big raffle where we raised about $1000 for charity. On top of that we did a live auction to benefit the Dan Marino Foundation where we had a Marino signed ball go for $400 and a Cam Wake signed mini-helmet go for an insane $310. We decided to round up and we will be donating $1000 to the Dan Marino Foundation to help people with autism and other disabilities.

Lastly I just wanted to thank the Miami Dolphins, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Dolfans NYC member Rambo for donating items for the raffle and of course our volunteers for helping out! You guys rule.

Now check out some photos from the event! If you want to save an image you just have to double click it in the gallery and it will take you to the actual page on Flickr.

Last weekend we headed down for Miami for a convergence of two events. First we had the annual Web Weekend which is a conference of people who run Miami Dolphins web sites that has been hosted by the Dolphins for the last 12 years. Michelle and I became friends there so the birth of Dolfans NYC came out of that event. The second event is the Dolphins Fan Club Weekend which is a gathering of fan clubs from around the country
for a home game. Unfortunately since we are part of both weekends we can’t go to all the events but we had a great time anyway. Oh and the game was pretty good too…

Let’s see if I can give you guys a quick rundown of the event.

FRIDAY:

On Friday we went to the team training facility and got to listen to a bunch of people talk and we did a little Q&A with everyone. The highlight was of course Coach Campbell but we also got to talk to Matt Darr, Rishard Matthews and Mike Tannenbaum which was pretty awesome. Darr might have been the most interesting speaker actually because he talked a lot about what it’s like being an undrafted free agent with almost no hope of making the team, but it was all pretty great. Fortunately our resident journalist, Alex Kramers, wrote up the Campbell talk and he got a few moments to himself with Rishard Matthews!

SATURDAY:

Web Weekend on Saturday always starts with a community service event with the Dolphins “Special Teams”. This particular Saturday we helped Feeding South Florida pack up expired but still good food to give to families in need. And by “we” I mean everyone else because I slept 90 minutes the night before and was dead to the world. Luckily we made a $250 donation Feeding SF so I feel a bit less guilty.

Saturday afternoon was our chance to tour the practice faculties, check out the Nick Saban Memorial Bubble, and eat in the team cafeteria. After that we had the Miami Dolphins Webbie Awards that are given out by the team and voted on by other Miami Dolphins sites. For the third or fourth year in a row we won the Eddie Jones award for community service which is what we strive for. So I want to thank everyone who has helped us raise money for charity ever year. Speaking of which we donated $5000 to the Miami Dolphins Foundation which was a great thing to be able to do. Thanks again! (Oh we also won the Webbie for best use of social networking which I got to keep cause I run all that stuff! Woo!)

Between Webbies we got to talk to some more people including CEO Tom Garfinkel (who is always incredibly interesting to talk to) and Dolphins legend Tony Nathan who has a movie in theaters now about his life! I cannot wait to see Woodlawn now that I know it’s about him. Tony was wearing an Alabama hat so we had to give him a Dolphins NYC hat and he actually wore it to the Dolphins game the next day when has an honorary captain! Amazing! The webbies ended with a media roundtable where we got to ask  of Dolphins journalists a bunch of questions. The roundtable featured Adam Beasley, Andrew Abramson, Andy Cohen, Alain Poupart and Dolphins great Kim Bokamper. Afterwards we gave Kim a Dolfans NYC shirt which makes up for the time that he let me take home a menu from his restaurant… speaking of…

After the webbies we went over to Bokamper’s to meet up with the Fan Club Weekend crew. We had about 25 people in Miami for the game so it was good to see Crazy Uncle Billy and the crew. We just missed Solo D’s performance but I think he is gonna play both the #MetLifeTakeover AND the Takeover preparty so I wasn’t too upset about it.

SUNDAY:

What can I even say about Sunday? It was the best first half I have ever seen in my life. There was even an insane storm during part of it but I just stayed in my seat and got wet. What a blast that was. The second half wasn’t quite as exciting but it was still a great time and honestly I thought I was going to pass out if I had to sing our fight song again!

So yeah, amazing weekend and it was awesome to see everyone and be in Miami. Big extra thanks to Scott Stone and Sergio Xiques for throwing the Web Weekend and Fan Club Weekend for us.

Oh and see you guys tonight at Slattery’s for Thursday night football!!!

Last weekend I headed down to DC with a van full of Dolfans NYC members to support our brothers to the south. NOVA Dolfans and The Valley Finatics were doing their best #MetLifeTakeover impression in Washington called the DC Shutdown. After the NOVA Dolfans came to our takeover a few years ago they were really inspired and spent nearly two years planning this thing. Dolfans NYC did all we could to help them with this thing but they really killed it last weekend and I am glad we had a bunch of our crew there to support them.

Saturday night there was a party at the Mellow Mushroom in Herndon, VA. It’s the NOVA Dolfans home base and although a hippie pizza place is an odd choice for a sports bar, it was a blast. Solo D did his thing and our buddies Paul Picken and Stephen Daniels hosted the event all night. Even OJ McDuffie showed up! It was great.

The next day there was a huge tailgate but Dolfans were EVERYWHERE. DC only gets a Dolphins game every 8 years and it’s an easy drive from NYC all the way down to North Carolina. Ever Phins fan on the east coast seemed to be there and we actually ended up tailgating with a totally different crew because they let us use their grill (the NOVA guys had a catering company). Of course we still made our appearances and partied with those guys for a while.

The game itself left a lot to be desired but in the end we got a win and Dolfans totally took over the game. The DC Shutdown crew was in one end and then all the Dolfans that bought tickets on their own seemed to be on the visitors sideline lower level. The combination of these to huge packs of Phins fans with the hundreds of other Dolfans there created a lot of noise and you could hear us clearly on TV. The whole thing was a blast.

I thought I was going to take a ton of photos during the party and the tailgate but I ended up doing none of that. I did get a big group portrait at the Mellow Mushroom and a nice shot of my friend Kathleen doing a selfie with OJ McDuffie so I figured I would post those two shots but that’s really all I got.

Anyway, see you guys on Sunday at 4pm at Slattery’s Midtown Pub! I can’t wait to get back to our bar! Phins up!

Normally spending 10 hours outside in the freezing rain is not my idea of a good time, but on Monday it was a blast. I got to MetLife Stadium about five minutes before the gates open and we rushed to Lot L. We found the nearest empty section and parked under the L8 pole. 15 minutes later we had Phins fans surrounding us. About a half hour later the Jets L8 tailgate showed up… I guess L8 stands for late because they had to take their party down the block. The Takeover had already begun.

Bryan and I set up our merch table and put out a bunch of  free AquaHydrate water and Sailor Jerry rum. Someone showed up with a 30 cup coffee pot and we filled it with hot apple cider. The Sailor and cider was a huge hit and we didn’t even need ice for the AquaHydrate! We had palm tree coolers and someone hung up a Jets piñata and we had people cooking food on either side. We were ready to rock!

Unfortunately the rain started to fall and everything got a little bit miserable. The grilling stopped and the palm trees got blow sideways and a lot of people spent some  time locked in their cars. But the northeastern Phins fans carried on and just started drinking to keep warm. Chants of J-E-T-S Suck Suck Suck and the Dolphins theme song rang out into the semi empty parking lot. There seemed to be a lot more Dolphins fans than Jets fans… certainly in our lot.

By the time Michelle and the four charter buses arrived from Slattery’s we had amassed a huge crowd of Phins fans. The Dolphins showed up with a camera crew and got some great shots as did our in house camera guy. It was a pretty great party despite the weather.

We handed out 200 inflatable palm tress and the 600 Dolfans NYC rally towels that AquaHyrdrate sponsored  and sold some of our warm DolfansNYC hats to those who forgot what NYC in December feels like and I took a bunch of pictures.

Unfortunately the rain deterred some of the Dolphins brass that was planning on attending but we had Brent Grimes’ hilarious wife Miko Grimes stop by again as did Andrew Abramson from the Palm Beach Post.

The game itself was pretty awful and the stands were freezing but I was really impressed with our crew who screamed on every third down and chanted Let’s Go Dolphins throughout the whole game. You could hear us chanting DE-FENSE on TV and the announcers mentioned the Miami crowd several times. Jarvis Landry was specifically asked about us after the game and coach Philbin mentioned us in his opening statement in his post game press conference.

Overall it was a fantastic #MetLifeTakeover and I have pictures to prove it! If you want to download a picture just double click it and it will open Flickr in a new window.

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What a great few days we had! On Sunday we threw a #MetLifeTakeover pre-party at Slattery’s Midtown Pub because we knew a lot of people weren’t going to be able to tailgate because of their day jobs. Monday Night Football is an awesome time but it’s not very convenient! It worked out really well considering the freezing rain Monday night and we had a lot of fun!

Sunday was a great opportunity for everyone from out of town to meet each other and check out Slattery’s. It was also a great way for us to get a lot of the logistics out of the way. We handed out bus passes and gave out info about the tailgate and practiced some cheering. We also gave out a bunch of the Dolfans NYC #MetLifeTakeover rally towels that we had thanks to the support from AquaHyrdrate.

We had some special guests as well! The Miami Dolphins sent two of their staffers Sergio and Hayle (Hayle’s dad is a Dolfans NYC regular) and they brought former Dolphins QB Jay Fiedler. He was just supposed to be there for an hour signing autographs and taking pictures but he ended up sticking around a lot longer and even introduced our other special guest Solo D. Solo D did a short set including the new Dolfans NYC anthem!

As you probably know a big part of Dolfans NYC is our charitable donations so we had to have a HUGE fundraiser for the #MetLifeTakeover. The Dolphins sent us a ton of stuff to give away (including 150 shirts!) so we did free giveaways, a raffle and a live auction! The raffle was a big success and we raised over $1200 the biggest prize of the night was a Ryan Tannehill signed helmet and that clearly went to the right people. Check out the amazing video they recorded when they gave the helmet to their kids. It brings a tear to your eye!

The live auction went amazing as well! We had some game used cleats sell for $70, a playbook signed by Jarvis Landry go for $50 and a signed Mike Wallace helmet went for an incredible $550! With those items plus a few extra donations we ended up raising $750 for Darryl Talley the former Bills linebacker who is going through some very hard times as a result of brain injury from a career spent chasing Marino all over the field. Former ESPN AFC East blogger Tim Graham told Talley’s heartbreaking story and we are so glad we were able to help a former enemy. As much as we hate the Bills, we all love football and it’s moments like this when we an come together for something bigger.

When you add the auction and the raffle and all the Dolfans NYC merch we sold we raised over $3000 that will go into the Dolfans NYC war chest so that we can throw bigger and better events and most importantly make charitable donations like the $5000 we recently donated to the Miami Dolphins Foundation. I have a feeling that Ride DCC will be getting a donation in the near future!

Now before I get up all the photos from the actual #MetLifeTakeover I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out to the pre-party. I especially want to thank the Miami Dolphins, Jay Fiedler, Solo D, Slattery’s and AquaHydrate for making it one hell of a party. I also wanted anyone in the tri-state area to check out Jay Fiedler’s Brookwood Camps. The Fidler family runs a summer sports camp that combines normal sleepover camp fun with sports camps and is worth checking out. Always great to support a former Dolphin… especially one from New York!

Now check out the photos below! If you want to download one, just double click it and it will open in a new window!

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This past weekend was amazing. Not only did we help organize a group trip for fan clubs around the country but it was also the Dolphins annual Web Weekend a conference of Miami Dolphins web masters that I have attended 11 years in a row.  Also the Dolphins played one of their most dominant games in the history of the franchise so that was nice too.

Dolfans NYC was founded because of Web Weekend. Michelle and I both ran Dolphins fan sites and realized we both lived in NYC and started watching games together. A few years later we abandoned our former sites and started Dolfans NYC. This is the 6th time we have attended as Dolfans NYC and the weekends keep getting better.

This year we donated $5000 to the Miami Dolphins Foundation beating our $3000 donation last year after giving $1000 in both 2011 and 2012. That’s $10,000 to the Foundation thanks to you guys. To celebrate we are holding a FREE raffle this week at Slattery’s Midtown Pub for the Lions game. All you have to do is show up and you get a ticket! We should have some cool prizes including a Dolfans NYC shirt signed by AJ Duhe.

Speaking of AJ Duhe, he and Chris Chambers came and spoke to us during Web Weekend. We also had GM Dennis Hickey and CEO Tom Garfinkel in attendance as well. It was pretty great. Plus Jordan Tripp, Michael Thomas and the Finsiders joined us at a party on Friday. Coach Philbin was supposed to speak with us but unfortunately he was out of town because of the death of his father. As always Michelle stepped up and bought a condolence card that we all signed.

The last event of the weekend (aside from the game!) was the Dolphins Webby Awards which are given out to Dolphins Websites. It means a huge amount to me that we have now won the Eddie Jones Community award all three years of its existence. This club has become as much about giving back as it is about football and so that award means a ton to me. We also won the social networking award which I take a bit of pride in considering I do 90% of the social networking for Dolfans NYC. Our third award was the “Most Informative Site” award which is kinda silly considering I haven’t updated this site in a month. That being said our Twitter account and Facebook page serve as great newswires and it still means a great deal because the awards are voted on by our fellow web masters.

Anyway, check out the pictures in this Flickr gallery below. I took all the pictures with our logo watermarked on the images. The other shots are courtesy of the Miami Dolphins. See you guys Sunday!

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Yesterday was amazing. Not only did the Dolphins TROUNCE the Patriots but we had an amazing first day at Slattery’s Midtown Pub. About 400 Dolphins fans showed up to our first meet up of 2014 and it was a blast. We had some technical issues to start the day with DJ Tropic’s DJ set up not quite working as planned and the upstairs TV’s looking like the Dolphins were wearing the Detroit Lions jerseys in the first half but DJ Tropic managed to kill it despite his limitations and the TV’s got fixed before the second half. Things are only going to get better from here!

We have a lot more planned this year and hopefully the Dolphins will keep winning so that you guys will keep coming back in crazy numbers like yesterday. It was so much fun and we raised over $1000 for charity through the massive raffle and t-shirt sales and that doesn’t include our cut of the bar tab. We aren’t going to have a raffle every week but between our weekly events and the #MetLifeTakeover our plan is to donate over $10,000 to charity this year.

Now about the game! Can you believe the Dolphins beat the Patriots by double digits despite giving the ball up three times, settling for four field goals, playing without three starting linebackers, Mike Pouncy, Reshad Jones and Dion Jordan, and getting mediocre QB play? Obviously we are going to have more injuries this year and we already lost Ellerbe for the season, but this team is just going to keep getting better. Even Tannehill haters know he can pretty constantly play better than yesterday. With this suddenly powerful run first offense Tannehill can be a game manager and still succeed. The Patriots look worse than ever, the Jets looked pretty bad despite the win and I still don’t think the Bills can be competitive with EJ Manuel.  This season could be a lot of fun if yesterday wasn’t a fluke.

Time for some photos! I took a bunch of photos before and after the game. I was way too panicked to do anything during the game despite an appearance from Michelle’s son Charlie! Also, despite being a professional photographer I took EXTREMELY mediocre photos. Oh well, such is life. You guys will probably dig them anyway.

So check out the photos below! Phins up!

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Yesterday was one of the best days of my life and I have a feeling that another 750 or so people feel the exact same way after the amazing day we had yesterday at the Meadowlands. We rolled very deep taking four busses of fans from Slattery’s Midtown Pub to MetLife Stadium where a ton more Dolphins fans joined us. As a group we bought 760 tickets but there were a lot more at the game and I feel like most of them came to our tailgate!

The tailgate was catered for the first 300 people who signed up but a bunch of people brought their own food and set up around us. We also had beer and rum provided by PBR and Sailor Jerry and I can’t thank them enough for sponsoring our tailgate free of charge. The tailgate featured some Dolfan guests when team CEO Tom Garfinkle and Nat Moore showed up and posed for pictures with fans. While it wasn’t quite the Fergie appearance from last year Sun-Sentinel reporter Omar Kelly showed up and he was voted one of South Florida’s sexiest TV newsmen. (I actually had to google “Omar Kelly sexiest” to find that link. I hope the NSA isn’t judging me.) We also had a pretty awesome performance from Miami Dolfan Music’s own Solo D who recorded a #MetLifeTakeover song for the occasion. The Dolphins sent us a MASSIVE flag that we broke out at the tailgate. I had to climb on top of an RV to get pictures! I was also told Brent Grimes’ hilarious wife Miko showed up to the tailgate late but I missed her.

I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off so I barely had time to talk to anyone for more than a minute, but it was really amazing to meet all the Dolphins fans who came from all over the northeast for the game. The York PA Dolphins Fan Club and the Northern VA/DC club made group trips up and I hope it becomes a tradition. I love meeting fan clubs from all over and Michelle and I really want to do what we can to help grow these clubs around the country. Dolfans NYC has been successful partly because there are more than 10 million people living within an hour of us but I also think some of our marketing efforts have worked pretty well and I hope we can help other clubs do similar events at other Dolphins away games.

The game itself was of course amazing and our sections were ROCKING! We gave out 750 rally towels at the tailgate and they were in full force throughout the game. Marv Albert mentioned how loud we were on the TV broadcast after Brian Hartline scored a TD and pointed to our section with the ball. You could hear our LET’S GO DOLPHINS and DEFENSE chants in the background on the telecast but our Seven Nation Army chants were really audible in the fourth quarter. The Jets made a huge mistake by playing the song before a Dolphins third down and we kept coming back to it after that. It was pretty hilarious to use that against them.

Aside from the camaraderie and the huge win it was awesome to feel like what you were doing made a difference on the field. I think we all felt like we were making a difference in the game and giving our team energy and I don’t think we were alone in that. A ton of Dolphins Tweeted thank you messages to the crowd including several of them mentioning Dolfans NYC by name. We should have a list of all those Tweets on the blog tomorrow or whenever Alex gets a chance to do the post.

So check out all the photos I shot at the tailgate below and both MiamiDolphins.com and our crack team of video reporters were on hand so there should be some pretty cool videos coming soon! I also will be posting these pictures to our Facebook group so tag yourselves in them! Phins up!

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