NFL stadium threat a hoax, FBI says

Good news for you Texans fans planning to attend this weekend's game: The FBI said the threat to blow up seven NFL stadiums, including Reliant, was a hoax. The online threat, you'll remember, made the news Wednesday after the Homeland Security Department put local officials and stadium owners in the cities named in the threat — Atlanta, Cleveland, Houston, New York, Oakland, Miami and Seattle — on alert. But it turns out the bomb threat was nothing more than a kind of duel between a 20-year-old Milwaukee man and a guy in Brownsville:

An FBI official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is still under investigation, said the Milwaukee man acknowledged posting the phony stadium threat as part of a "writing duel" with a man from the Brownsville, Texas, area to see who could post the scariest threat.

The Texas man corroborated the story during questioning today by FBI agents, the official said. Investigators also searched the Milwaukee man's computer, the official added.

The threat, which appeared on a website called The Friend Society, said dirty bombs would be delivered by truck to the seven stadiums and would detonate almost simultaneously during football games Sunday (you may be able to read the post from "javness," dated Oct. 12, using the Google cache). But the FBI and Homeland Security said there was no intelligence to support the possibility of the attack: "I don't think it was put out there to be real," FBI agent Linda Krieg told the AP. "Whoever put it out there is not in a position to actually carry through on it."

Now if we could only be sure the Texans wouldn't bomb Sunday, we'd be all set.