Craig.
Nosebleeds
We had a great trip up to Boston. Went to the Samuel Adams brewery, saw some sights, ate some damn good seafood, and met a lot of really cool people.
Gameday at Gillette Stadium is nothing like what we enjoy here and, folks, this is a good thing.
The walk to the stadium, which is deep in the outer 'burbs of Boston, was in it's 3rd to 4th minute when some of the locals caught a glimpse of our jerseys. I in my blue 23, my brother in his red 99, my buddy in a blue 8, and my brother's buddy in a blue hoody. A group of guys starts yelling something that we could barely understand but I was able to make out 'Houston, you have a problem' (sooooo original) and something about Adrian Foster. We moved on. Then out of the blue comes the same insults, this time courtesy of a PA system, so we would be sure to hear it. Basically they called me fat (I could lose a few lbs lol) and something about JJ Twat. Nothing we couldn't handle. Welcome to Foxboro!
Patriot Place was next (after a 1 mile hike from the cab dropoff point). Situated just outside the stadium grounds and amounts to a strip mall with a movie theater. Nice to look at it, loaded with chain restaurants and bahs, Old Navy, and some other stuff. We went into Toby Keith's I Love This $7 Beer and had a beer before going in. Nice place, would be interesting to see a development like that here. The stadium was very nice and about as old as Reliant. We walked the 2 miles worth of ramps to get up to the nosebleeds where our seats were located. We were immediately greeted by a beer vendor suggesting a PBR after our long hike up the ramps. PBR. Seriously. Pass. We grabbed some grub and took our seats.
While sitting there waiting for the game to start the stadium video boards were running the ATL/SEA game which was nice. The stadium has legit free wifi and worked amazingly well throughout the game. Score one for the chowdah heads because I'm essentially unreachable on gamedays at Reliant.
We made nice with folks immediately around us and everyone was very friendly. Beyond that 2 row buffer things were a little different as the game progressed.
First, I'm not one to paint an entire fanbase on the actions of a few in our section but I'll do it anyway because it's my only sample group. These people know nothing about football. They stand and scream while Tommy is on offense, they make precious little noise when on 3rd or 4th downs when their D is on the field. They ***** about every call that doesn't go their way. Every incompletion. Etc, etc. Then some of the friendlies explain that their stadium has no seats in the endzones, thus the reason it's so quiet. Maybe but most people were making noise. Score one for us.
As the game moved into the second half and the wheels started to fall off the Texans' hopes of advancing the PBR kicked in and a large chunk of the crowd went full a-hole. Screaming at people, fights all over the place, just a general malt liquor-fueled and profanity-laden bar fight in the stands. It was kind of sad, actually. Again, those immediately around us couldn't have been more pleasant, good-natured ribbing aside. I figured that 90% of the fans there couldn't possibly be any cooler. That means the remaining 10% was made up of nearly 7,000 *******s, all in one spot. Ugh.
We ended up leaving before the end of the game to get ahead of what was described as an insane traffic jam and made our way back to the cab line. We easily beat the traffic out.
So there it is. Summed up, it made me proud to be from a town that does it the right way and quite possibly permanently quenched my desire to see any more road games.
Gameday at Gillette Stadium is nothing like what we enjoy here and, folks, this is a good thing.
The walk to the stadium, which is deep in the outer 'burbs of Boston, was in it's 3rd to 4th minute when some of the locals caught a glimpse of our jerseys. I in my blue 23, my brother in his red 99, my buddy in a blue 8, and my brother's buddy in a blue hoody. A group of guys starts yelling something that we could barely understand but I was able to make out 'Houston, you have a problem' (sooooo original) and something about Adrian Foster. We moved on. Then out of the blue comes the same insults, this time courtesy of a PA system, so we would be sure to hear it. Basically they called me fat (I could lose a few lbs lol) and something about JJ Twat. Nothing we couldn't handle. Welcome to Foxboro!
Patriot Place was next (after a 1 mile hike from the cab dropoff point). Situated just outside the stadium grounds and amounts to a strip mall with a movie theater. Nice to look at it, loaded with chain restaurants and bahs, Old Navy, and some other stuff. We went into Toby Keith's I Love This $7 Beer and had a beer before going in. Nice place, would be interesting to see a development like that here. The stadium was very nice and about as old as Reliant. We walked the 2 miles worth of ramps to get up to the nosebleeds where our seats were located. We were immediately greeted by a beer vendor suggesting a PBR after our long hike up the ramps. PBR. Seriously. Pass. We grabbed some grub and took our seats.
While sitting there waiting for the game to start the stadium video boards were running the ATL/SEA game which was nice. The stadium has legit free wifi and worked amazingly well throughout the game. Score one for the chowdah heads because I'm essentially unreachable on gamedays at Reliant.
We made nice with folks immediately around us and everyone was very friendly. Beyond that 2 row buffer things were a little different as the game progressed.
First, I'm not one to paint an entire fanbase on the actions of a few in our section but I'll do it anyway because it's my only sample group. These people know nothing about football. They stand and scream while Tommy is on offense, they make precious little noise when on 3rd or 4th downs when their D is on the field. They ***** about every call that doesn't go their way. Every incompletion. Etc, etc. Then some of the friendlies explain that their stadium has no seats in the endzones, thus the reason it's so quiet. Maybe but most people were making noise. Score one for us.
As the game moved into the second half and the wheels started to fall off the Texans' hopes of advancing the PBR kicked in and a large chunk of the crowd went full a-hole. Screaming at people, fights all over the place, just a general malt liquor-fueled and profanity-laden bar fight in the stands. It was kind of sad, actually. Again, those immediately around us couldn't have been more pleasant, good-natured ribbing aside. I figured that 90% of the fans there couldn't possibly be any cooler. That means the remaining 10% was made up of nearly 7,000 *******s, all in one spot. Ugh.
We ended up leaving before the end of the game to get ahead of what was described as an insane traffic jam and made our way back to the cab line. We easily beat the traffic out.
So there it is. Summed up, it made me proud to be from a town that does it the right way and quite possibly permanently quenched my desire to see any more road games.
