Are You Ready For Some Football?

Hey all,

Today I got to attend my first pro football gamein about 20 years, the Arizona Cardinals vs the Cleveland Browns. Cleveland is the team from my youth, as I was born about an hour outside of Cleveland and still have a lot of family there. CLeveland is my team. Now I also root for the Cardinals because they represent my home, where I live and you HAVE to root for the home team.

I went with my friend Stef, who is rooting for the Cards. Now I feel that since Cleveland is my team, I have to root against the home team and cheer my Browns, who are having their first winning season since there re-inception 8 or 9 years ago. The game was excellent to attend, despite the Browns loss. The Browns really beat themselves, turnovers and penalties were costly, and some questionable calling by the officials all led to their defeat, 27 to 21. Not to say that the Cards didn't play great because they did. Cleveland had a last second shot to win the game with a touchdown pass, and as the clock expired, the reciever caught the pass, but was pushed out of bounds. They ruled after a legnthy review that it wasn't a force out and the Cards got the win.

It was exciting all the way through, surrounded by Cardinal fans and talking smack to each other. I was a little surprised by the number of Browns fans out in the stadium. I guess Phoenix is sort of a melting pot of people from all over, part of how we get the rep for not caring about our own teams. I'll definately be a bit horse tomorrow.

I also got my first real look at the new Cardinals staium and it is great. We had great seats on the upper deck along the vistors side right on the 50 yard line. A great view of the field and everything in the stadium is open and clean. Plenty of over priced concession stands (where we both consumed about a foot and a half long chili cheese hot dog). I had a great time and definaley want to go again.

Here's hoping the Browns can pull a win next week.

End of Line.
Gerrad!