Three weeks after the Super Bowl, more than two months short of the NFL Draft, we football fans (the root word folks is ‘fanatics’) are adjusting to life without perpetual pigskin.
Nah, to tell the truth, we’re not. You know it and so do I. To sooth the open wound there are alternative medicines, like tours of NFL stadiums. Here are three ways to make it till the season resumes come September:
Visit the shrine that is Green Bay’s Lambeau Field, the place Bart Starr broke this reporter’s heart when he snuck in for the winning TD in the infamous Ice Bowl. Walk where Paul Hornung tore up the frozen tundra, and where Brett Favre set it ablaze. See the Packer’s Hall of Fame and marvel at how a town this small could win the hearts and minds of football fans (even Cowboy fans) everywhere.
On the other end of the spectrum, travel south to the Metroplex, to Arlington, Tex. to be precise. That thing that looks like an alien mother ship sitting halfway ‘twixt Dallas and Fort Worth is Cowboys Stadium, the most imposing, most dominating (even if the team’s not) stadium in the National Football League. Billed as the planet’s largest domed structure it doubles as an art museum and a classroom. In short, it’s a theme park for grownups and kids alike.
Travel to America’s heartland to see the place the NFL Combine’s is currently being played out, and the stadium that hosted the most recent Super Bowl. Peyton Manning may be moving out of the Colts locker room, but his aura will forever suffuse Lucas Oil Stadium, the House that Peyton Built.
Football over? Not if you don’t let it be.
Story by Jerry Chandler
(Images: Paul Kehrer, Cowboys Stadium, Lucas Oil Stadium)
