05/25 — Sports Illustrated's Peter King has recently given NFL Europa a few nicknames, one of them being the "NFL Spring League That No One In America Gives Two Hoots About."

Perhaps that's accurate for many fans, but the teams that have players overseas and the followers of those teams certainly have a few hoots in them — not to mention some whistles and horns, just like the noisemakers the NFLE fans in Germany and the Netherlands are allowed to bring into games.

"It's crazy," Matt McChesney told me from Frankfurt, Germany, on Thursday. "In our home stadium, we had probably 35,000 at our last game, and honestly, that might be the loudest place I've ever played. They get opposing teams to jump offside two or three times a game — and they get us to jump offside once a game."

Come Saturday night, it'll be crazy again in Frankfurt's Commerzbank Arena when the Rhein Fire come to visit. As Galaxy head coach Mike Jones is fond of saying, "Das ist unser haus." This is our house.

And the game will be of passing interest to the most diehard Green & White fans. McChesney, Frankfurt's starting right guard, should literally run into Blake Costanzo, who's leading Rhein in tackles from his strongside linebacker spot.

"Yeah, they've got a little battle going," said Galaxy DT Zarnell Fitch, who roomed with Costanzo during the NFL Europa training camp and is now McChesney's teammate on two continents.

All of this is actually building to a promo, a Memorial Day tease. I talked this week with the Jets' Europa Four — McChesney, Costanzo, Fitch and safety Jamie Thompson, the Amsterdam Admirals' leading tackler. They're thousands of miles away and out of fans' minds for now, but they'll be back across the pond in a month and preparing to throw their hats into the ring for jobs at training camp.

I'll have a four-part series, one story on each of those players, running from Monday through Thursday and heading into the beginning of the Jets' Organized Team Activity practices, a.k.a. OTAs, at the end of next week. Until then, auf Wiedersehen.