NEW YORK -- Who's ready for some football?

Jon Bon Jovi is. He stood behind the stage in the middle of Broadway and West 43rd, bouncing on his heels like a player would before jumping onto the field, football in hand. At around 4:30 p.m. on this bright September afternoon, the whistle blew and Bon Jovi bounded onto the stage, grinning like a No. 1 draft pick.

He planted himself in an imaginary pocket behind Richie Sambora, as if his guitarist was his left tackle, and whipped a pass into the crowd that sent the tens of thousands who packed the streets into a frenzy and the NFL season into motion.

So the pass wasn't pretty -- it's rare that anything from New Jersey is. Bon Jovi joined Eve, Enrique Iglesias, Alicia Keys and some past and present NFL stars in celebrating the NFL Kickoff Party in Times Square.

As they launched into It's My Life, Bon Jovi not only got the audience dancing -- he got the celebs on stage to join in. Deion Sanders shook like it was 1996 and he'd just returned a pick for a TD, and Dan Marino danced as well as anybody with that many knee surgeries can. Even Phil Simms jiggled a little.

Upstairs, on the eighth floor of the Marriott Marquis, as the post-party party was bubbling, one man sat quietly in a booth overlooking Times Square. It was Terrell Davis. As he looked out onto the crowd, he looked like a man who wants to be the life of the party again.

In a few minutes, Terrell would go on stage with Marcus Allen and a contingent friom the NYPD. Before he got up, I asked him if there was any chance he'd be in uniform next season. "Yeah, there's a a small chance," he said. "I'm having surgery in two weeks and then we'll see. The party in Denver was a good way to say goodbye to the fans, but I'm not sure I'm done."

Back down on the ground, nobody would have noticed if he'd raced out of the Marriott in full uniform. People were so into the music, screaming and singing, that Lawrence Taylor went unrecognized as he tried to push his way through the crowd. Lawrence Taylor! In New York! Most of the human traffic jam seemed to be women who came to hear Enrique Iglesias and Bon Jovi for free. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

"Did I come here because the season was starting?" said Genee Carrella, a twentysomething New Yorker. "Oh, no. Just for the music. My mom didn't know what the NFL stood for. She thought it was basketball. I just came for these guys."

Bon Jovi was playing Wanted, Dead or Alive.

Seth Wickersham covers the NFL for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at seth.wickersham@espn3.com.