Titans superfan Ballin reveals new plan for viral Nissan to MetLife walk after Jets loss and it honors Chris Johnson
After the Titans’ loss to the Jets sent his pledge viral, Ballin says he has donated $2,300 and now is working on a revised stadium-to-stadium trek to raise money for ALS research in Chris Johnson’s honor.
The walk is in fact happening. Tennessee Titans superfan Ballin is game planning his next moves after a tweet from August exploded across social media, promising that if the Titans lost to the Jets in Week 1, he would walk from MetLife Stadium all the way to Nissan Stadium nonstop.
That tweet blew up. Then the Titans blew up against the New York Jets, losing 23-10 on Sunday. And now, with a post sitting at well over 4 million views, Ballin has been blowing up across media and social media alike.
So what’s going to happen here?
I talked to Ballin, and the walk is going to happen, under one condition: this is now a fundraiser for ALS Research in honor of Titans legend Chris Johnson.
But it can’t actually happen the way that everyone thinks or wants it to happen. This is not Forrest Gump. He cannot walk across the country, especially from the two stadiums, because there is no route that doesn’t involve interstates to get there, and it’s against federal law to walk on the side of the interstate.
If you go to Apple Maps, the walking directions are not available. Less than 24 hours after his original viral tweet, Ballin followed up with a reply on Aug. 24 that has not gotten anywhere near the same amount of attention.
“I didn’t think this was going to blow up like it did. According to Apple Maps, this walk apparently isn’t possible, so here’s what I’ll do: if the Jets beat the Titans, I’ll donate $100 for every Jets point scored to a local charity in the New Jersey/New York area.”
He told me the donation is already complete. That’s $2,300 donated to a New York/New Jersey charity. So the bet has been paid off on that front.
The Titans are helping make this happen
Ballin is actually meeting with the Tennessee Titans to make this happen, and there is a working plan in place for Ballin to physically travel from Nissan Stadium to MetLife Stadium. Not by plane.
The details are not quite set in stone, but there will be a trek of some kind from one stadium to the other.
The timing works out perfectly because the Titans’ Week 3 opponent on Sept. 27 is the New York Giants, who share MetLife Stadium with the Jets. After Tennessee hosts the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday in Nashville, the idea is to start this trek to MetLife in some form or fashion with help from the Titans from a logistical planning standpoint (with plans subject to change).
The curse of unpaid fan bets
As most on social media have pointed out, this is about the curse of fans who make bets they don’t want to pay off when their team loses.
Florida State is still going through it. Back in 2024, when the Seminoles were near the top of the sport, one of their fans said he would eat dog poop if Florida State did not beat Boston College. They did not win. He did not eat it. Florida State became the fifth preseason Top 10 ranked school to start 0-2.
Florida State fired its athletic director Monday, and everybody in the college football world expects head football coach Mike Norvell to also be fired shortly after. The Seminoles have been one of the biggest laughingstocks in college football since, and then the power shut off for their first game of the season on Labor Day night in Tallahassee last week.
So what would have happened if that Florida State fan ate the dog poop? I don’t know, but Ballin doesn’t want to take the chance of the Titans being cursed.
Florida State was at the top of the sport at the time while the Titans are at the bottom of the NFL currently with the worst record over the last three seasons. But he doesn’t even want to mess with any potential curse because it can always get worse.
The walking route ideas and the Chris Johnson ALS connection
Ballin floated two ideas to me for covering the 800-900 miles between Nissan Stadium and MetLife Stadium.
One was to run on a treadmill one mile for every point the Titans defense gives up. I don’t think the defense is going to be bad enough for that to work because that would have to average 50 points per game allowed to reach the mileage across the season. In my opinion, probably not the smartest idea considering what that could do to his knees and his body.
The other idea was to do laps around Nissan Stadium. According to his math, around 1,500 laps around the stadium would equal the distance to MetLife.
Those were the two ideas he was kicking around before talking with the Titans and trying to figure out the final plan. The expectation is for walking to be involved along with the necessary motor transportation to make the trip possible.
There are technically about three different routes from Nashville to MetLife Stadium. A couple go north through Kentucky into Ohio and across Pennsylvania. But the one I think would be the best case scenario, especially because of the Chris Johnson ALS fundraising goal attached to this, is a route that goes through Knoxville towards the very northeast of Tennessee, up through I-81, through Roanoke, Virginia, all the way up to Maryland, through Baltimore, and then through Philadelphia.
This route involves all of the Titans’ first four opponents this season. The Jets and Giants both call MetLife home. Tennessee hosts the Eagles in Week 2. The Titans go to the Baltimore Ravens in Week 4. And because of the Chris Johnson connection, with Ballin saying he’s going to wear a Chris Johnson jersey the entire time, Derrick Henry being the future Hall of Famer still toting the rock in Baltimore with a close relationship with CJ2K and his own 2,000-yard season to his name . . . I think it would be a really cool route to have Baltimore, Henry, and the Ravens be along this path to honor Chris Johnson.
The walk is happening. That’s for sure. We’ll find out more details as they get paved out.
