iheartskins
November-7th-2005, 08:33 PM
:helmet:
My inaugural voyage to FedEx Field was filled with pairs. The two sets of Amtrak tickets, the pair of tickets to the 400 level, and the two Metro passes to Morgan Boulevard. Each of these sets was within the plan, albeit an excitedly and hastily constructed one. The twins that were beyond my expectations and hopes were the set of field passes provided by another twosome, Tarhog and Blade, enabling my better half and me to walk the same field as our Washington Redskins.
Having never walked a football field other than the one at my high school and at my college, I was struck by the scale of a couple things. The grass is far shorter than I would have imagined. It's like walking on mowed shag carpeting or a more specifically, a fairway. The grass was soft underfoot, but the springing-ness that one would expect was largely absent. (That players are much faster on turf now makes much more sense to me after this empirical investigation.) My next observation has probably been discussed ad nauseum, but for someone who has always watched our team from the support of cushions and a plastic and glass crowd, it was daunting and exhilarating to take in the massive size of the players. Our red-haired long snapper Ethan Albright has legs taller than small women (my fiancé included). He towered from afar. But with Albright and the rest of the Gulliver-sized lineman, I'd always had the suspicion of enormity with lineman, but had always thought, either out of foolishly placed pride or an attempt at camaraderie, that the smaller guys, like the kickers or the shorter backs were the same size (even roughly) as me. Wow was I wrong. If I've ever felt like a girly-man, then it was as a result of the presence of Derrick Frost, John Hall, and "short" Rock Cartwright. Laugh if you will, but if you ever are next to these guys then you’ll know what I’m talking about.
One other quick thought: I was struck by what a squat torso David Patten has. Perhaps Mark Brunell has been over throwing him because of his reasonable, though incorrect, expectation that Patten's abdomen would be proportionate to his legs which are really long.
With 30 minutes to go before game time, the field cleared of the squatter fans and we migrated up to our seats. Two touchdowns and four hours later, we had won and made an incredible stand on two fantastic defensive plays. It was a hell of a night and a great introduction to our new (at least to me) home.
My inaugural voyage to FedEx Field was filled with pairs. The two sets of Amtrak tickets, the pair of tickets to the 400 level, and the two Metro passes to Morgan Boulevard. Each of these sets was within the plan, albeit an excitedly and hastily constructed one. The twins that were beyond my expectations and hopes were the set of field passes provided by another twosome, Tarhog and Blade, enabling my better half and me to walk the same field as our Washington Redskins.
Having never walked a football field other than the one at my high school and at my college, I was struck by the scale of a couple things. The grass is far shorter than I would have imagined. It's like walking on mowed shag carpeting or a more specifically, a fairway. The grass was soft underfoot, but the springing-ness that one would expect was largely absent. (That players are much faster on turf now makes much more sense to me after this empirical investigation.) My next observation has probably been discussed ad nauseum, but for someone who has always watched our team from the support of cushions and a plastic and glass crowd, it was daunting and exhilarating to take in the massive size of the players. Our red-haired long snapper Ethan Albright has legs taller than small women (my fiancé included). He towered from afar. But with Albright and the rest of the Gulliver-sized lineman, I'd always had the suspicion of enormity with lineman, but had always thought, either out of foolishly placed pride or an attempt at camaraderie, that the smaller guys, like the kickers or the shorter backs were the same size (even roughly) as me. Wow was I wrong. If I've ever felt like a girly-man, then it was as a result of the presence of Derrick Frost, John Hall, and "short" Rock Cartwright. Laugh if you will, but if you ever are next to these guys then you’ll know what I’m talking about.
One other quick thought: I was struck by what a squat torso David Patten has. Perhaps Mark Brunell has been over throwing him because of his reasonable, though incorrect, expectation that Patten's abdomen would be proportionate to his legs which are really long.
With 30 minutes to go before game time, the field cleared of the squatter fans and we migrated up to our seats. Two touchdowns and four hours later, we had won and made an incredible stand on two fantastic defensive plays. It was a hell of a night and a great introduction to our new (at least to me) home.