Game #95- Chicago Bears

Chicago Bears vs. San Francisco 49ers Soldier Field December 4th, 2016 Another business trip to Indy, so I decided to take advantage of my Southwest miles and head to Chicago for the weekend. When I booked the trip I knew there was a possibility for some undesirable weather. I mean it is Chicago in the middle of winter, but so far this year they have had very little rain let alone snow. About a week away I saw 0% chance of precipitation all week…except on Sunday, of course. But hey, what am I going to do, not go? Yeah right. The weekend started off right. I landed on Saturday night and hung out with a friend and former co-worker, Anthony Deangelis. I told myself all day, “just take it easy, you have a long day tomorrow. Slow your roll!”. That lasted all of 5 minutes. I had a Jack and Coke waiting for me and it only got worse after that. I guess the stop at Three Dots and a Dash, a Ticki “speak easy” for the strongest Mai Tai in my life didn’t help. Let’s put it this way, I walked about two miles back to the hotel that night at 3am in 25 degree weather, and the 12 hour hang over on Sunday summed up our adventures. Good times… As for game day, I did manage to wake up and head off to Soldier Field in a decent snow storm. My hotel was only about 1.5 miles from the stadium and most of the walk is through Millenium Park so besides the gnarly headache and sick to my stomach feeling, it was beautiful. Soldier is a very unique stadium, a space ship for lack of better words was literally placed right on top of the original field that was erected in 1924. I love the fact that the designers kept areas of the old stadium as it was the day it was built, just solid cement bleachers with the original columns. Around the stadium they have tons of old player pictures (the Ring of Honor), team murals, and statues. Such a stark contrast from the newer buildings being built around the country. It is also the second smallest stadium in the NFL only holding 61,500 so every seat in the place had great views. I knew this game was going to be fairly unexciting. Combining the fact that the weather sucked almost as bad as the two teams (Bears 2-9 and the 49ers at 1-10), if anyone scored a TD it would be a miracle. Turns out because Matt Barkley (taking over for Cutler) was able to hand off to Jordan Howard for 117 yards and a career high three touchdowns, Da Bears were able to smash SF for a 26-6 victory handing their opponents their 11th straight loss this year. Colin Kaepernick, more popular for kneeling during the national anthem than his play this year, was taken out of the game in the second half but that did little to improve their stats for the day as the 49ers only had 6 total yards of passing. That’s about all I can remember besides the snow and headache. I have to say the heavy snowflakes falling at an angle in a stadium made me feel like I was falling for 3 hours, that sucked. After the game I decided to roam around the park to take some snowy pictures at the famous water fountain and Cloud Gate “Bean” before getting on my flight to Indianapolis. Luckily I checked my flight status before getting onto the train because my flight was cancelled and I needed to stay in town for the night. Thank goodness…I was able to take some Excedrin and a nap! The other good fact is that I closed out all the games in the state of Illinois. Next time I head to the Midwest I will likely need to hit up Cleveland.

Game #94- Detroit Lions

Detroit Lions vs. Philadelphia Eagles Ford Field October 9th, 2016 Another Midwest work trip, another game. The choice I had to make this time was, should I deal with a five hour drive from Indianapolis to Detroit, get 7 hours of sleep, go to a game, and drive 5 hours back or just fly directly to Detroit and deal with the ridiculously long layover in Chicago on the way to Indy after the game. I decided on the flight just because driving over 10 hours sounded awful. We all know the state of disrepair in the Detroit area since the mid 1980’s when Ford and Chevy started to lose the car wars with Japan. The surrounding neighborhoods are falling apart and you can literally buy a house in some areas for $10k. That being said, downtown Detroit is beautiful. I got a room at the very top of the Renaissance Marriot (68th floor) which provided me amazing views of downtown all the way to Lake Michigan. I was also overlooking Ford Field, Comerica Park and the new Detroit Red Wings arena which was a perfect opportunity for me to take some great pictures for my True Sports Fan-Tasy blog. The day of the game I decided to make my way over to the stadium a bit early so I could take a mini tour of the Tigers ballpark and take a few shots of the Wings arena that looked to be about 50% complete. It’s weird to think the Wings will be moving with all the history they have built in Joe Luis, but we all know each team wants the newest and best home arena. After my “walk-about” I headed to the fan fest outside of Ford Field where there were tons of booths, games for kids, a timed 40 yard dash, and plenty of music. This team has one of the ticketless systems (unless you are a season ticket holder) so I knew it was going to be a bitch finding a stub, but none the less I scanned my ticket, got my Detroit Lions car flag (which I bestowed to my buddy Scott who is from this area), and went frolicking around the massive indoor stadium. Ford Field is amazing. I have been in several indoor football stadiums but this one seemed much bigger. Perhaps it is because they literally added a concourse around that was laid on the outside circumference of the field. In this area they had play areas for kids, team shops, restaraunts, and tons of clean restrooms (yes ladies, you will love this). But once again, just like every damn new stadium there was nothing in terms of a Lions Hall of Fame or trophy cases. I don’t get it! The team has been around since 1930, they couldn’t put up old jerseys, trophies, cleats, medals, pictures, helmets, footballs…ANYTHING! The only nostalgic place in the entire structure was a hallway with faded pictures on windows that showed the old stadiums. At least have a statue of Barry Sanders! After rounding Ford Field in vain, I dejectedly went to my seat hoping to find someone with a ticket stub they were willing to give up. As in the past, if I feel like someone around me might have a stub but will be a dick saying “I think I will keep it for a souvenier” when we both know they are going to immediately throw the thing away once they get home, I do the one thing most dudes cannot pass up…a free beer. I scouted the couple behind me, got my $10 beer ticket, and then was able to just enjoy the game. At this early point of the season, the Eagles and especially rookie QB Carson Wentz were the darlings of the NFL. They were 3-0 and coming off a bye week so big things were expected of this group. On the other hand Detroit was 1-3, the bottom of their division, and without recently retired Pro Bowler Calvin Johnson were quickly heading to a non-playoff season. But the home team started off really well with two quick first quarter TD’s by Sam Bradford to Theo Riddick, and nearing the half were up 21-7. A late Eagles drive and field goal brought it to 21-10 but the Lions looked strong and were posed to get an easy win, then it fell apart. Philadelphia to this point in the season had the best defense in the league and they showed it from the beginning of the second quarter until the 4th completely pulverizing the Lions front line while Wentz and team slowly took the lead with a TD and two field goals (23-21). But with the ball on the Eagles 25 yard line, about 1:30 left in the game, Wentz heaved a hail Mary down the field which was picked off by Darious Slay giving Detroit one last chance for a victory. Bradford made some short passes, handed off to Riddick on several occasions to place them on the 29 yard line where Matt Pater put the blue and silver up by one point which was the eventual final score, 24-23. It was a great game but I needed to book out of there as quick as possible to get my luggage and head to the airport. Best part of the game…all of the Philadephia fans that were talking shit the entire game going home (many on planes) with their heads hanging low. I hate when opposing fans use profanity, start trying to pick fights, basically being complete assholes at away games. It’s one thing when you have the home field advantage, but don’t think for one second that you will get away with that crap in another stadium (unless you are in San Diego, there are usually more away fans than home…ha ha ha!)

Game #93- Carolina Panthers

Carolina Panthers vs Minnesota Vikings Bank of America Stadium September 25th, 2016 Well, this is an interesting time to come to Charlotte. I flew to the east coast to meet with a client and took the 2 hour drive down from Raleigh over the weekend to catch a Panthers game. I obviously didn’t expect the civil unrest to be taking place over the past few days in the downtown area. When officers shot and killed Keith Scott it sparked protests and riots in the community. Over the past week restaurants, shops and hotels were being vandalized, windows broken, and general panic spread throughout the city. On Saturday night protestors vowed to try to stop people from going to the game on Sunday. In my mind I thought that was an overly ambitious plan, blocking 70,000 people is a big task, but the rumors were spreading like wildfire. So when I was making my way to the stadium I decided to park a few blocks back just in case there was some sort of unrest. The streets were patrolled by extra police, the National Guard was in town, and helicopters were overhead monitoring the situation. The only group I saw protesting was about 40-50 people in a Black Lives Matter circle which was surrounded by heavily armed security officers. I guess protestors either realized the demonstration would be extremely difficult or football was more important…who knows. But for me I was selfishly glad because I came all this way to knock off my final North Carolina game and I got to see my brick at the NASCAR Hall Of Fame just down the street(states “My NASCAR is a Cervelo P3…you triathlete’s will get that one). This stadium is pretty impressive. Being in the downtown area there is a lot of character and as you walk toward the stadium archways you are met by enormous panther statues. I do find it a bit odd that a team that has only been around for 21 years also has a 12 foot statue of the team owner in front of the building, but they have made it to the Super bowl twice so that must mean something. Other than those outside statues there wasn’t anything else for the fans to appreciate. No trophy cases, no player jerseys, nothing for the fans to celebrate. The only interactive area was the giant “Keep Pounding” drum when you entered the gates, you could take a couple of whacks for a cool picture. When I pick seats I generally have a couple things in mind: how easy can I get a stub if I don’t already have one, do I need to be by the field if I am rooting for a team, and can I be closer to the aisle. At this game, I think this is the first seat that perfectly hit all of those points. I was way up top, in fact the last row butting against the wall. Normally this isn’t a good thing but it provided me shade the entire game which is important when you are in a state with 95% humidity and 85 degree weather. So when everyone else was melting, I was nice and cool. It was the only seat in the row, so I had the best aisle seat ever…no one ever stepped over me. I wasn’t rooting for either team so being in the nose bleed section was fine and the view was nice (plus the seat was cheap since it was a single ticket). And I was able to get a ticket stub from nice gentleman. It wasn’t the best one ever because it stated “replacement” but Panthers was plastered across it so that worked. I also got a seat location ticket just in case. Good times! In terms of the game, I didn’t really know what to expect from either team. Carolina on paper is the best team in the league. Minnesota on the other hand has a ton of injuries (Adrienne Peterson out for the year injuring his knee and starting QB Teddy Bridgewater didn’t even make it out of preseason) so they should be falling apart but so far were undefeated, this made for an interesting matchup. It didn’t take long for the visitors to show they were the better team this day. Superstar Cam Newton was sacked 8 times, intercepted 3, and went 21 for 35 for one of his worst performances of his career. While the Vikings Marcus Sherels returned a punt for a TD, QB Sam Bradford had zero picks, and the stifling defense completely shut down the Panthers on just about every offensive opportunity. The home crowd never got into the game and Carolina ended up losing 22-10. The highlight of the day was the halftime mascot football game where local college and professional teams were represented on the field. They really went at it hitting each other hard enough to knock the heads off each other. Also the” Keep on Pounding” guest was North Carolina State’s Ryan Held, Olympic gold medalist at the Rio games in the men’s 4x100 freestyle relay team.