7/5/2007 8:28:07 PM
On The Road

Road games aren’t for everybody. Many players don’t particularly care for the long days of travel, the eating out, the isolation or even the hostile environment that awaits us on game day. Call me crazy but I love road games and I always have. I’d say the majority of my best games in my career have come on the road. Home games are great because of the comfortable atmosphere and all, but “comfortable” is like a cousin to “complacent” for me it seems and things just wouldn’t feel right to me without some measure of struggle. It takes a different mentality to go on the road and impose your will on someone in their own back yard, it takes a certain temperament and attitude that may not be present in every player when outside of the comfort of their own grass. I’m not saying that I’m some kind of hard-nosed brute or anything like that, not at all. All that I know is that there’s something about road trips that appeals to me, and I’m certain that I can’t be the only one.
The road trip begins early in the morning, the day before the game with each player complying with the team dress code. As with any uniform we’re easily identifiable at airports by the fact that we’re approximately 50 well dressed, larger than normal men who tend to stand out in the formal dress of the day. The flight can be an adventure in and of itself especially when you think of the possibility of being seated between Patrick Kabongo and Dan Comiskey for a few hours in the summer heat, but its all part of the journey. From the flight, we make our way by bus to our opponent’s stadium for our walk through. It’s often on this bus ride that much is learned about the men you’re going to battle with, I’m not sure if it’s a combination of sleep deprivation or hunger, but it becomes “story time” pretty quickly! The team talkers and jokesters make their way to the forefront of conversation at this time without fail on every team I’ve ever been on.
The walk through is the time that we usually decide what footwear is going to be suitable by game time, what steps we can take to deal with the lighting issues in the domes, or anything else that may come up. And each position usually has its own inter-positional skill competitions while waiting for everyone to deal with media and make their way out to the field. Punt pass and kick by receivers, throwing accuracy contests by non quarterbacks, receiver /db 1 on 1’s by Offensive lineman…quite a sight to see. From there it’s on to meetings, and then we break up into smaller groups and find some good food somewhere. After a good night sleep we awake at our own pace and have our team pre-game meal in the early afternoon. Following that are our last meetings before we break off until the bus leaves for the stadium.
The more I think about it, it’s really the bonding that appeals to me. There’s a certain “us against the world” mentality that develops during this expedition into unwelcome lands in search of that elusive road win. You're away from any family, you don't have to worry about sharing a bed or infants waking you up prematurely. It makes sense to me why NFL teams will seclude the team in hotels even for home games. A fellowship ensues it seems, as we’re all there in search of a common goal and away from any distractions outside that goal. There’s a bond that forges in knowing that there is going to be some 30-40 thousand people out watching the fur fly, and very few of them are in your corner. In fact the vast majority of them paid good money to see you fail miserably! The environment itself is one that is not for the faint of heart. Hecklers, spitting, throwing objects and of course a steady stream of boos can certainly have you missing the comfort of your own locker room in a hurry.
The road game is a business trip that has very, personal connotations as nobody likes to think about another team coming in to their house and walking tall. As the team that’s trying to do the walking, I know that tomorrow when we take the field our bark and bite must be of equal size in order to make the statement that we’re trying to make. If we should fail in our mission and leave with no points, that bus ride back to the airport will most definitely be a quiet one, and the flight will be considerably longer than it was on the way here. ©

KP8