BRADASSNEWS.COM: Texas & Their Dumb-Ass Stadiums

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Texas & Their Dumb-Ass Stadiums

It has been said that, "If You're Gonna Play in Texas, You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band." Well, maybe there needs to be another saying about the Lone-Star State. One that goes like this, "If You're Gonna Build a Stadium in Texas, Make Sure You Add Something Really Fucking Stupid."

I came to this conclusion after watching the Cowboys' inaugural football game in their shiny new $1.2 billion dollar stadium. The stadium was amazing, it had every sort of amenity you could imagine or ask for, but then, in the third quarter, we witnessed the "Something Really Fucking Stupid." Jerry Jones thought it would be a great idea to hang a jumbo-tron the size of the Titanic over the middle of the field and this happened...

...Are you kidding me? $1.2 billion and you don't think about how a giant screen, floating only 90 feet above the middle of the field may cause some problems when it comes to punting?

I ain't buying Jerry Jones' excuse that, "He tried to hit it." Why would he try and hit it? It's not like the Titans and Cowboys are hated rivals, and the Titans wanted to make the Cowboys new stadium look flawed. The punter that hit it, A.J. Trapasso, isn't even that good of a punter. He is a rookie back-up, that will probably not even make the team. (but between this punt and the fake punt which he ran in for a TD in the first preseason game, he is a god-damn highlight reel.) Just wait until the Chargers and Raiders come to town this year. Both teams have arguably two of the best punters, that kick some intensely high punts. Trapasso joked that San Diego punter, Mike Scifres, "Might put a hole in that thing."

A lot of people think this issue is not that big of a deal and say that it is getting blown out of proportion. I say it's a huge fucking deal. As of now the fix is to simply have a "redo"and put time back on the clock, like it never happened.

Reasons why this is not OK.

1. Your Gunners (the two guys on the outsides that run down to tackle the Punt Returner first) are going to be winded. They don't know that the ball has hit the scoreboard. They can't look up while they're running down field, so they're going to go all out and then have to come back and do it again.

Unlike the Gunners, the Punt Returner looks up at the ball the whole time and doesn't do any real running until he catches it. Therefore, the Punt Returner has the advantage as he has expelled no energy. This problem gets worse if the punter hits the scoreboard again and then has to punt for a third time. Which would make the Gunners pretty much run three straight 50 yard dashes in a row while the guy they are trying to tackle has just been standing around.

2. It will still make the punter change his punt. If the punter hits it on his first kick, that means that was how he kicks and that is the flight path he wanted the ball to go on. (unless he really mis-kicked it) So, on his second try he has to alter what he really wants to do. He has to change his normal punting because of the scoreboard. This would be like placing an item in-between a pitcher and a catcher and saying, "Pitch around it, just change your delivery so you don't hit it."

The NFL Competition Commitee plans on meeting to try and decide what to do about this. They better do something to make sure it is not an issue. This is football, not fucking baseball. We can not have different rules for different stadiums.

After all of this, I thought about other stadiums with oddities and came to the conclusion that Texas has pretty much been at the fore-front of stupid shit involving stadiums. So, maybe it isn't Jerry Jones' fault. It's just a state wide issue.

Other Dumb-Ass Texas Stadiums

Texas Stadium

What Makes it Dumb-Ass: Hole in center of the roof, leading to awful shadows on the playing field.

Why It's There: Two reasons: (1.) Funding ran out and (2.) It was discovered that the stadium couldn't support the entire weight of the roof, so they had to leave the hole in it.

What A Smart-Ass: In 1982, Dallas Cowboys' Linebacker, D.D. Lewis came up with arguably one of the greatest excuses for anything in the history of mankind when he said the hole was there so, "God could watch his favorite team."

The new Cowboys Stadium kept a hole in the roof, but it now has a retractable roof on the top of it. So, there is still a hole for "God" to watch his team, but right beneath that is that gigantic floating jumbo-tron. Which means, not only is the scoreboard in the way of punts, it's also blocking God's view. Good job pissing off God, Jerry!

Minute-Maid Park

What Makes it Dumb-Ass: Look at the picture, there's a fucking hill and flag-pole in the playing field.

Why It's There: Who the fuck knows. This stadium use to be sponsored by those Enron bastards so let's just blame them for it.

The Astro-Dome

What Makes it Dumb-Ass: First stadium to have fake grass. That's why the shit was named, Astro-Turf you dumb-asses. This "green concrete" which spread to all indoor stadiums caused great careers to end prematurely because this shit snapped more knee caps than a mafia thug.

Why It Was There: Houston is fucking awful in so many ways, one being the heat and humidity and they all wanted to go inside.

Thank God somone came up with a new type of artificial grass making Astro-Turf nearly extinct.

Reliant Stadium

What Makes it Dumb-Ass: Nothing actually, holy-shit! It was the first NFL Stadium to have a retractable roof and it works great!

Wait a Second: Reliant Stadium pissed off the Dumb-Ass Texas Stadium Gods and was punished because they didn't do anything stupid. On September 12, 2008, Hurrican Ike came roaring into Houston and ripped off some of the retractable roof, causing The Texans to reschedule their bye to the first week of the season... Ouch!

The Alamodome

What Makes it Dumb-Ass: A couple things. (1.) It was built to attract an NFL team and it never did. (2.) The Spurs played there, but because the stadium was so big they had to cut it in half by using a gigantic stupid sheet. Which just looked dumb and felt like a massive shower curtain, making us all ponder if Paul Bunyan was back there lathering up with a loofah.

We can't say that Texas is the only state to have stupid shit going on in it's stadiums. We got Tropicana Field in Tampa that has baseballs hitting the roof, and Chase Field in Phoenix that has a pool in the outfield. And, probably many others that I am forgetting.

So, I have to end this by saying, thanks to Texas for trying to be innovative but always remember this. There is a very, very, very fine line between innovative and dumb-ass!