NFL Road Trip 2013 - It's On!

There are 50 days until the start of the NFL season and for me that means time to decide whether to visit all 32 stadiums in just 17 weeks for the 2013 NFL Road Trip. After much consideration, I've decided to go! The schedule is the most suitable, starting in Denver and ending in Seattle, avoiding the cold winter for the most part and spending Thanksgiving onwards in the south and west. My job is ending in August and so I have the time. And I am moving to the USA, which is conveniently where the NFL is located. So why not?

The schedule is below:

Week 1
Thu Sep 5    Baltimore at Denver 6:30 - Season Opener
Sun Sep 8    Oakland at Indianapolis 1:00
Mon Sep 9    Philadelphia at Washington 7:10 - Monday Opener

Week 2
Thu Sep 12   NY Jets at New England 8:25
Sun Sep 15   Cleveland at Baltimore 1:00

Week 3
Thu Sep 19   Kansas City at Philadelphia 8:25
Sun Sep 22   Chicago at Pittsburgh 8:30

Week 4
Thu Sep 26   San Francisco at St. Louis 7:25
Sun Sep 29   Chicago at Detroit 1:00

Week 5
Thu Oct 3    Buffalo at Cleveland 8:25
Sun Oct 6    New England at Cincinnati 1:00

Week 6
Sun Oct 13   Cincinnati at Buffalo 1:00

Week 7
Sun Oct 20   New England at NY Jets 1:00
Mon Oct 21   Minnesota at NY Giants 8:40

Week 8
Thu Oct 24   Carolina at Tampa Bay 8:25
Sun Oct 27   Buffalo at New Orleans 1:00

Week 9 
Thu Oct 31   Cincinnati at Miami 8:25
Mon Nov 4    Chicago at Green Bay 7:40

Week 10
Thu Nov 7    Washington at Minnesota 8:25
Sun Nov 10   Detroit at Chicago 1:00

Week 11
Thu Nov 14   Indianapolis at Tennessee 7:25
Sun Nov 17   Arizona at Jacksonville 1:00
Mon Nov 18   New England at Carolina 8:40

Week 12
Thu Nov 21   New Orleans at Atlanta 8:25
Sun Nov 24   San Diego at Kansas City 12:00

Week 13
Thu Nov 28   Oakland at Dallas 3:30 - Thanksgiving
Sun Dec 1    New England at Houston 3:25

Week 14
Sun Dec 8    St. Louis at Arizona 1:25

Week 15
Sun Dec 15   Kansas City at Oakland 1:05

Week 16
Sun Dec 22   Oakland at San Diego 1:25
Mon Dec 23   Atlanta at San Francisco 5:40

Week 17
Sun Dec 29   St. Louis at Seattle 1:25

The four rounds of playoffs are also an option, once we know the schedule. As I'll be living in New York, I hope to get to the Super Bowl as well.

My friends at Stadium Journey are going to help out with some logistics and I will post updates on the trip on a daily basis there.  My blog updates therefore will be very limited as I won't have the time to do everything so please follow along at Stadium Journey.

I plan to write a pre-season guide over the next few days as well as a book detailing the journey. More on those in a later post.

You can also follow the trip in real time on Twitter (@NFLStadJourney) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/NFLStadiumJourney). It's going to be four months of football and fun, so hope you can be a part of it.

Best,

Sean

Read More

NFL Road Trip 2013 - New and Improved

I have been very quiet on the blog for the past three weeks because there has been little going on worth writing about. With the Leafs out of the playoffs, I’ve stopped following the NHL, and the NBA hasn’t been as exciting as claimed, with the few Game 7s being blowouts and the finals predictably featuring the top seeds from each conference. The Blue Jays are terrible and baseball’s newest scandal threatens to blow up the game. Perhaps the most exciting event in the past month was Canada’s rugby team beating Fiji in Ottawa as part of the Pacific Nations Cup.

Of course, there is more to my silence than a relatively slow period in my sporting world. My last post was on the NFL Road Trip that I am seriously considering taking and I wanted to leave that as the landing page for some time to see if it would get some more coverage (it didn’t). Meanwhile, I have been tinkering with the actual plan. The one posted last month had a total of 20,000 highway miles, which was the best I had ever developed. But I still wasn’t satisfied, there was too much backtracking.

A “perfect” NFL trip would entail about 11,500 highway miles (these are the miles between stadiums)  to complete the round trip, assuming that you return to your starting point. That route includes no backtracking; you visit the next closest city every time that would prevent you from reversing direction. For example, starting in Denver, you would go KC, Minneapolis, Green Bay, Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and so on, finishing with the Arizona, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, and Seattle before returning to Denver. There is a bit of room for adjustment in the north east perhaps, but doubtful that you could get much under 11,000 miles. So 20,000 was a bit less than double the ideal route.

I decided to revisit my assumptions to see if I could find a trip with less driving. Every hour on the road is one hour less to visit a city or write an update, not to mention about $8 in gas. If I could cut the number of miles down, it would make the trip just that much easier.

I decided to do three things. The first was remove the link between St. Louis and Kansas City. Every trip I planned had both cities being visited on the same weekend, necessitating a 500 mile backtrack as you would head west to KC and then return east for the following game. The second fix was to break up the seven-city southern trip into two bits. The original plan had all four NFC South teams along with Tennessee, Miami, and Jacksonville visited consecutively. But the game order was not good, with a lot of backtracking, particularly having to go to Miami between Atlanta and Dallas. The final adjustment was to eliminate as many Monday night games as possible, at least where a long drive was necessary.

The first casualty was the Bengals Week 2 Monday game. With the Sunday game in Baltimore and the following Thursday game in Philly, going to Cincinnati would cost over a thousand miles roundtrip. I slotted Cincy into week 5, where Cleveland hosts the Thursday game. This meant the NFC North journey would be pushed back, but things worked out well there too.

First, I noticed a Tampa Bay/Jacksonville/Miami in Weeks 8 and 9 with two Thursday games. Unfortunately, the Sunday Jacksonville game is in London, but New Orleans is a reasonable alternative, although there is a lot of backtracking. But it does allow me to skip the tough Sunday/Monday night combo in New Orleans and Tampa in Week 10 and opens up Green Bay/Minnesota/Chicago around the same time, with the Packers hosting the Bears on Monday in Week 9 while the Vikings have the Thursday night tilt in Week 10. Chicago then hosts Detroit on the Sunday.

The only negative is getting from Miami to Green Bay over three days. That’s 1600 miles, or just over 500 miles a day, well within acceptable limits.

As well, with Kansas City no longer tied to St. Louis, the Chiefs slot in nicely between Atlanta and Dallas on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, a much better alternative than traveling to Miami for that Sunday game.

The resulting schedule has 19,000 highway miles,  about a thousand less than the previous plan. It may not sound like much, but it will make a huge difference in the pace of the trip, particularly early on. The worst parts of the trip are those where there are 3 games in a week, and I was starting with two of those back-to-back. Now I can relax and spend more time in Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Here is the updated trip.

Thu Sep 5    Baltimore at Denver 6:30
Sun Sep 8    Oakland at Indianapolis 1:00
Mon Sep 9    Philadelphia at Washington 7:10
Thu Sep 12   NY Jets at New England 8:25
Sun Sep 15   Cleveland at Baltimore 1:00
Thu Sep 19   Kansas City at Philadelphia 8:25
Sun Sep 22   Chicago at Pittsburgh 8:30
Thu Sep 26   San Francisco at St. Louis 7:25
Sun Sep 29   Chicago at Detroit 1:00
Thu Oct 3    Buffalo at Cleveland 8:25
Sun Oct 6    New England at Cincinnati 1:00
Sun Oct 13   Cincinnati at Buffalo 1:00
Sun Oct 20   New England at NY Jets 1:00
Mon Oct 21   Minnesota at NY Giants 8:40
Thu Oct 24   Carolina at Tampa Bay 8:25
Sun Oct 27   Buffalo at New Orleans 1:00 
Thu Oct 31   Cincinnati at Miami 8:25
Mon Nov 4    Chicago at Green Bay 7:40
Thu Nov 7    Washington at Minnesota 8:25
Sun Nov 10   Detroit at Chicago 1:00
Thu Nov 14   Indianapolis at Tennessee 7:25
Sun Nov 17   Arizona at Jacksonville 1:00
Mon Nov 18   New England at Carolina 8:40
Thu Nov 21   New Orleans at Atlanta 8:25
Sun Nov 24   San Diego at Kansas City 12:00
Thu Nov 28   Oakland at Dallas 3:30
Sun Dec 1    New England at Houston 3:25
Sun Dec 8    St. Louis at Arizona 1:25
Sun Dec 15   Kansas City at Oakland 1:05
Sun Dec 22   Oakland at San Diego 1:25
Mon Dec 23   Atlanta at San Francisco 5:40
Sun Dec 29   St. Louis at Seattle 1:25

I can’t imagine a better trip given this year’s schedule. Amazingly, New England is the road team 4 times. I do get Buffalo twice on the road as well, including their trip to New Orleans, which should be fun. Denver does not make a road appearance, meaning I see them in the season-opener and never again.

The ultimate point of this post is to encourage you to take your time when planning a big sports road trip and keep trying different options. Sometimes you make assumptions that are not necessarily valid, which adds unnecessary time and cost.

Check back in a month or so when the final decision on whether this trip will happen or not will be made.

Best,

Sean

Read More

NFL Road Trip 2013 - Redux

A few weeks ago, the NFL released its 2013 schedule. I was flying out to Phnom Penh that afternoon so I put together a very quick NFL road trip plan, which I do every year just for fun. It took about 30 minutes to prepare and wasn't very good, as I realized after I returned to Singapore.

The main flaw was starting in Denver and moving to the West Coast without including a visit to the Arizona Cardinals. That strategy forces a return trip to Phoenix which essentially means criss-crossing the country four times. I knew that there was a better plan, so I resorted to the old standby: the roadtrip matrix. Using a spreadsheet program such as Excel, you enter the dates along the left side and the teams along the top, in roughly the order you would visit them while driving. Then you fill in the matrix when a team has a home game on that date. The entire season is thus visible at a glance. As an example, check out a portion of the full matrix below:

       Den Ind Cin Cle Pit Buf Was Bal Phil NE
5-Sep  Bal         
8-Sep      Oak     Mia Ten NE    
9-Sep                          Phi   
12-Sep                                      NYJ
15-Sep     Mia             Car     Cle SD 
16-Sep         Pit       
19-Sep                                 KC 
22-Sep         GB      Chi     Det Hou      TB

This shows home games for ten cities for the first three weeks of the campaign. For example, Baltimore plays in Denver on September 5th, Indianapolis hosts Oakland on the 8th, and so on. You can quickly see what the possibilities are for a trip that would allow for at least two games per week for those three weeks (one possibility: Denver, Pittsburgh, Washington in Week 1, New England, Buffalo, Cincinnati in Week 2, and Philadelphia and Baltimore in Week 3).

When looking at all 32 teams over 17 weeks though, it becomes a bit more difficult to immediately see a possible route. The next step is then to group geographically proximate locations together, highlighting a series of games that can be seen. For example, you’d want to see the Chiefs and Rams around the same time, the three Florida teams, the two New York teams, the five clubs on the West Coast, etc. When you do this, the path that you would have to take becomes a lot clearer

The Thursday and Monday night games are also key considerations. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to realize that achieving 32 stadium visits in 17 weeks means two games per week most of the time. Assuming you see a game every Sunday, you’d then need to see either the Thursday or Monday game in 15 out of the 16 weeks (there are no non-Sunday games in the final week). This really limits your choices. It might be nice to see a game in Kansas City on one Sunday and St. Louis the following week, but if that means missing the Monday and Thursday games in between, it really hampers the overall trip. So you are looking for weeks where a team with a night game is close to a team with a Sunday game. You also want to avoid seeing a team on a Sunday if it happens to have a suitable night game later in the year.

Keeping all this in mind, I was able to put together the following trip, beginning with the season opener in Denver and ending in Seattle. Note that this trip is different than the one first posted - I moved St. Louis and Kansas City earlier in the year (better opponents) and then Detroit and Buffalo after New York, with the Miami and Carolina games moved a bit later in the trip to the Southeast.

Thu Sep 5    Baltimore at Denver 6:30
Sun Sep 8    Oakland at Indianapolis 1:00
Mon Sep 9    Philadelphia at Washington 7:10
Thu Sep 12   NY Jets at New England 8:25
Sun Sep 15   Cleveland at Baltimore 1:00
Mon Sep 16   Pittsburgh at Cincinnati 8:40
Thu Sep 19   Kansas City at Philadelphia 8:25
Sun Sep 22   Chicago at Pittsburgh 8:30
Thu Sep 26   San Francisco at St. Louis 7:25
Sun Sep 29   NY Giants at Kansas City 12:00
Thu Oct 3    Buffalo at Cleveland 8:25
Sun Oct 6    Detroit at Green Bay 12:00
Thu Oct 10   NY Giants at Chicago 7:25
Sun Oct 13   Carolina at Minnesota 12:00
Sun Oct 20   New England at NY Jets 1:00
Mon Oct 21   Minnesota at NY Giants 8:40
Sun Oct 27   Dallas at Detroit 1:00 
Sun Nov  3   Kansas City at Buffalo 1:00
Sun Nov 10   Dallas at New Orleans 7:30
Mon Nov 11   Miami at Tampa Bay 8:40
Thu Nov 14   Indianapolis at Tennessee 7:25
Sun Nov 17   Arizona at Jacksonville 1:00
Mon Nov 18   New England at Carolina 8:40
Thu Nov 21   New Orleans at Atlanta 8:25
Sun Nov 24   Carolina at Miami 1:00
Thu Nov 28   Oakland at Dallas 3:30
Sun Dec 1    New England at Houston 3:25
Sun Dec 8    St. Louis at Arizona 1:25
Sun Dec 15   Kansas City at Oakland 1:05
Sun Dec 22   Oakland at San Diego 1:25
Mon Dec 23   Atlanta at San Francisco 5:40
Sun Dec 29   St. Louis at Seattle 1:25

There is only the one west coast trip at the end, so you are looking at just over 21,000 highway miles starting and ending in Denver. There are a couple of tough Sunday/Monday combos, particularly going from the Sunday night game in New Orleans to the one in Tampa on Monday. As well, most of the cold-weather cities would be dealt with in September and October. There are three Thursday-Sunday-Monday trifectas but two of them are in the first two weeks, which helps keep the latter part of the schedule more spaced out for relaxation and less driving.

The trip would last for 118 days and there are several good games on the slate. The Raiders and Chiefs are seen as the road team 3 times, and there is one home-and-home (Jets-Patriots). It is the best trip I've put together in the seven years I've been doing this. Most trips are 24,000 miles or more, so this is the most economical one. In fact, this is so intriguing that I am actually thinking of doing it!

Without getting into details, my personal life will be undergoing some changes and I might have a few free months at the end of the year. Why not complete the holy grail of sports road trips? I've already booked a rental car and am beginning to look at the logistics and overall cost. The final decision will be given in early July.

Update: It's July and I'm going on the trip, but not this one. I altered the schedule a bit and leave for Denver on September 4th on my NFL Stadium Journey!

Best,

Sean

Read More

NFL Road Trip 2013 - The First Draft

The NFL released its schedule a couple of hours ago, so here is the annual road trip that involves all 32 home teams. Of course, I never do these but it is great fun to figure out if it is possible.

Thu, Sep 5   Baltimore at Denver         6:30
Sun, Sep 8   Green Bay at San Francisco  1:25
Mon, Sep 9   Houston at San Diego        7:15
Sun, Sep 15  Jacksonville at Oakland     1:25
Sun, Sep 22  Jacksonville at Seattle     1:25
Thu, Sep 26  San Francisco at St. Louis  7:25
Sun, Sep 29  NY Giants at Kansas City   12:00
Mon, Sep 30  Miami at New Orleans        7:30
Thu, Oct 3   Buffalo at Cleveland        8:25
Sun, Oct 6   New England at Cincinnati   1:00
Mon, Oct 7   NY Jets at Atlanta          8:30
Thu, Oct 10  NY Giants at Chicago        7:25
Sun, Oct 13  Carolina at Minnesota      12:00
Sun, Oct 20  New England at NY Jets      1:00
Mon, Oct 21  Minnesota at NY Giants      8:30
Thu, Oct 24  Carolina at Tampa Bay       8:25
Sun, Oct 27  SF at Jacksonville          1:00
Thu, Oct 31  Cincinnati at Miami         8:25
Mon, Nov 4   Chicago at Green Bay        7:25
Sun, Nov 10  Houston at Arizona          1:25
Thu, Nov 14  Indianapolis at Tennessee   8:25
Sun, Nov 17  NY Jets at Buffalo          1:00
Mon, Nov 18  New England at Carolina     8:30
Sun, Nov 24  NY Jets at Baltimore        1:00
Mon, Nov 25  San Francisco at Washington 8:30
Thu, Nov 28  Oakland at Dallas           4:30
Sun, Dec 1   New England at Houston      3:25
Sun, Dec 8   Cleveland at New England    1:00
Sun, Dec 15  Houston at Indianapolis    12:00
Mon, Dec 16  Baltimore at Detroit        8:30
Sun, Dec 22  Chicago at Philadelphia     1:00
Sun, Dec 29  Cleveland at Pittsburgh     1:00

A few long drives (22 of 500 miles or more of which 8 are over 600 miles) but overall seems quite possible at first glance.

Update: Wrong! This trip was 27,500 highway miles. I played around and found a trip under 20,000 miles, and that one I am taking, starting September 4th.

Best,

Sean

Read More

NFL Road Trip 2011 - Almost perfect

While I traveling last month, the NFL released their 2011 schedule. Of course, there's a good chance many of the games won't be played, but that didn't stop me from planning a potential road trip. Without further ado, here is a route that gets you to all 32 home stadiums without too many unreasonable drives.

Thu Sep 8   New Orleans at Green Bay 7:30
Sun Sep 11  Atlanta at Chicago 12:00
Mon Sep 12  Oakland at Denver 8:15
Sun Sep 18  Oakland at Buffalo 1:00
Mon Sep 19  St. Louis at NY Giants 8:30
Sun Sep 25  Baltimore at St. Louis 3:05
Mon Sep 26  Washington at Dallas 7:30
Sun Oct 2   Pittsburgh at Houston 12:00
Mon Oct 3   Indianapolis at Tampa Bay 8:30
Sun Oct 9   Arizona at Minnesota 12:00
Mon Oct 10  Chicago at Detroit 8:30
Sun Oct 16  Philadelphia at Washington 1:00
Mon Oct 17  Miami at NY Jets 8:30
Sun Oct 23  Denver at Miami 1:00
Mon Oct 24  Baltimore at Jacksonville 8:30
Sun Oct 30  Cincinnati at Tennessee 3:05
Mon Oct 31  San Diego at Kansas City 7:30
Sun Nov 6   Baltimore at Pittsburgh 8:20
Mon Nov 7   Chicago at Philadelphia 8:30
Sun Nov 13  Pittsburgh at Cincinnati 1:00
Sun Nov 20  Jacksonville at Cleveland 1:00
Mon Nov 21  Kansas City at New England 8:30
Thu Nov 24  San Francisco at Baltimore 8:20
Sun Nov 27  Carolina at Indianapolis 12:00
Mon Nov 28  NY Giants at New Orleans 7:30
Sun Dec 4   Dallas at Arizona 1:15
Sun Dec 11  Buffalo at San Diego 1:15
Mon Dec 12  St. Louis at Seattle 5:30
Sun Dec 18  Detroit at Oakland 1:05
Mon Dec 19  Pittsburgh at San Francisco 5:30
Sat Dec 24  Tampa Bay at Carolina 1:00
Sun Jan 1   Tampa Bay at Atlanta 1:00

The longest drive would be from San Diego to Seattle, a 20-hour journey that would need to be done in 25 hours between the Sunday afternoon and Monday night games. Overall, you'd be looking at 28,000 miles over four months, assuming Toronto as your start and end points. With the Super Bowl in Indianapolis, you could spend an extra month trying to catch playoff games in the south before moving back north to finish the season.

With the work stoppage currently ongoing though, the schedule is probably going to change, so this trip is not going to happen. I'll be going through the whole exercise next year with the hope that I might actually get around to finally doing it.

Best,

Sean

Read More

No games or 18?

With the Super Bowl over, attention turns to the ongoing labour spat that may put a stop to the 2011 NFL season. I'm not going to go into detail on the issues or what I think about the whole thing (surely they can find a way to share $9 billion!), but rather just talk about the 18-game season that has been proposed.

Most players are against the increase in games, and it's not hard to see why. There will be more injuries and careers will be shorter - 144 games currently takes 9 seasons (with 9 years of pay) compared to only 8 with the longer schedule. Essentially players are taking a pay reduction of 11% over their career to play the same number of games. There should be an increase in TV, gate, and ancillary revenues, but the question is how much of that would accrue to the players and whether existing contracts would be adjusted. A key talking point no doubt.

Several writers and the NFL players union have mentioned another bye week and increased rosters as ways to reduce injuries, and those are ideas that will need to be explored. I suspect we'd see bigger practice squads but the 45-man game day roster would remain unchanged. As for the additional week off, it would mean a 20-week season and the playoffs starting in mid-January, with a Super Bowl near the end of February.

Initially I was opposed to the longer schedule, but I've become more accepting after thinking about it, purely as a selfish fan. First, February is the worst sports month. With college football pushing into mid-January, I can see having the NFL playoffs starting on the Sunday after the BCS championship and going to the President's Day weekend. Only the Daytona 500 would be affected by that, but perhaps they could combine those events into one massive sports viewing day.

The other positive for a longer schedule is naturally the NFL road trip. It's my sole remaining road trip dream and it would be much easier to complete in 20 weeks than 17. That would mean 12 weeks of two games and 8 with just one, instead of 15 and 2. If you want specifics, I like the suggestion put forth by Paul Kasabian of Bleacher Report, who recommends playing two divisions in your conference per season and having 8 bye weeks during the year, each with 8 teams resting.

Still, there will be a decrease in the quality of football. With more injuries and more players on reserve, end of season games could be decided by third-stringers who are currently playing arena football. As well, historical season records will no longer be meaningful and the symmetry (4 weeks of 4 games) of the NFL schedule will be lost.

It's not an easy decision, but I expect 18 games will prevail. NFL players don't have long careers and can't afford to sacrifice an entire season for their eventual replacements. I think the owners have them over a barrel and will try to splinter the union, eventually succeeding but not without losing a few games in 2011.

The final result will be a 20-week schedule with two bye weeks starting in 2012, and the resulting increase in revenues should keep everybody happy. Except the fans, who will end up paying more than ever to follow the game they love.

Best,

Sean

Read More

NFL Road Trip 2010 - Not gonna happen

Today the NFL released its full 2010 schedule which means it's time for me to plan yet another NFL road trip that I am not going to be able to take.

To review, the NFL has a limited number of weeks - just 17 weeks with 42 game dates. There are 17 Sundays (obviously) with the other 25 dates spread around Thursdays, Saturdays, and Mondays. In most cases, there is only one game on those dates, so you are forced to be in that city on that date on at least 15 of those dates (assuming you can see one game on each Sunday). That is quite the restriction. The other caveat is to limit the amount of driving. Ideally, just one cross-country trip would be enough.

With all that said, I spent a couple of hours this morning checking out the schedule and working out the permutations and combinations. The best I could do is the schedule below, which does involve all 32 teams in 17 weeks.

Thu Sep  9 Minnesota at New Orleans
Sun Sep 12 Arizona at St. Louis
Mon Sep 13 San Diego at Kansas City
Sun Sep 19 Seattle at Denver
Sun Sep 26 Tennessee at NY Giants
Mon Sep 27 Green Bay at Chicago
Sun Oct  3 San Francisco at Atlanta
Mon Oct  4 New England at Miami
Sun Oct 10 St. Louis at Detroit
Mon Oct 11 Minnesota at NY Jets
Sun Oct 17 New Orleans at Tampa Bay
Mon Oct 18 Tennessee at Jacksonville
Sun Oct 24 San Francisco at Carolina
Sun Oct 31 Minnesota at New England
Mon Nov  1 Houston at Indianapolis
Sun Nov  7 Indianapolis at Philadelphia
Mon Nov  8 Pittsburgh at Cincinnati
Sun Nov 14 NY Jets at Cleveland
Sun Nov 14 New England at Pittsburgh (same day as Cleveland)
Mon Nov 15 Philadelphia at Washington
Sun Nov 21 Tampa Bay at San Francisco
Mon Nov 22 Denver at San Diego
Sun Nov 28 Miami at Oakland
Mon Nov 29 San Francisco at Arizona
Sun Dec  5 Carolina at Seattle
Thu Dec  9 Indianapolis at Tennessee
Sun Dec 12 Philadelphia at Dallas
Mon Dec 13 Baltimore at Houston
Sun Dec 19 New Orleans at Baltimore
Mon Dec 20 Chicago at Minnesota
Sun Dec 26 New England at Buffalo
Sun Jan  2 Chicago at Green Bay

There are a number of intriguing matchups with the Saints, Vikings, Colts, and Patriots totalling 10 of the visiting teams and with only one West Coast jaunt it's certainly a reasonable trip. But there are several long drives that would be too tiring for just one person to deal with. The total highway mileage comes to 27, 900 miles taking 450 hours over 120 days. Doesn't sound like much, but there are 18 journeys of 600 miles or more, at least the way I've planned it. For now, I don't think I can do it, so it looks like I'll be waiting for NFL Road Trip 2011.

Best,

Sean

Read More