Before this weekend, I’d never been to Detroit. I now can’t wait to go back.
Yeah, I’ve been through the airport several times. But it’s still not the same as being there. This weekend, I was there.
Fittingly, I went by car. It’s 5.5 hours, door to door. Very easy drive, except when we almost took out a pair of deer that were in the middle of the road licking some of the salt that had been scattered.
I loved it there. It has a great feel. Real and authentic and, yes, gritty. The people were extremely nice. Everyone. Friendly. Happy. Helpful. Authentic.
For instance, a group of stadium workers was outside as the Football Night in America cast showed up and walked in. They were genuinely thrilled to see us (not me but everyone else). One of them declared it was “the best smoke break ever!”
All day long, the stadium workers were happy to see us. As one of them told me, “We love it when NBC is here, because when NBC is here that means good things are happening.”
Good things are indeed happening. And it shows the power of sports to pull communities together. It’s still the one thing that unites at a time when so many things divide.
The stadium has a great feel. Where the field is, it looks and feels great. In the bowels of the stadium, it feels rough and tough and real.
I never had a reason to go to Detroit until this weekend. I’m glad it worked out that way. And I’d have no problem at all with the Lions finishing the job, since that would mean we’ll be going back to Detroit for the first game of the 2024 regular season, where they’d get things started with a game against the Packers or Bears or Vikings or Rams or Seahawks or Jaguars or Titans or Buccaneers or Bills.
So thanks, Detroit and Michigan, for being nice to someone who was born in Ohio and grew up as a Vikings fan, in a place that feels a lot like Michigan with mountains. As I said on PFT Live, I keep a very short list of places I’d move to if I ever leave West Virginia.
Michigan just made the list, buddy.
