Tales of a football fan in transit (Espn Music)

Written by sports.espn.go.com - Duff McKagan

This season, it has been my predicament that I have had to fly on Sundays since September. Hence, I have had to catch what parts of NFL games I could in some God-forsaken airport or another.


I don't drink alcohol. But that is a whole other story. In airports though, finding a place to catch a part of a game requires sidling up to a bar (in places with names such as "Torchy's" or "Connections" or "Flight Relay"). People seem to like to get their hammer on when flying, and lips get a bit looser, and conversation comes a lot easier than if you were in some other non-alcoholic situation. That's cool with me. … I like to talk to my fellows and see what makes them tick.

These bars in airports are naturally places for fans of myriad different teams to gather. You know, we are all from someplace with our team, in the middle of either going home, or going farther away from our cities and our teams.

There never seems to be animosity between fans here either. Everyone is polite, for whatever social-phenomena reason that is. Hell, I've seen New York Jets and New England Patriots fans hanging and watching a game together (note to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and marketing whizzes for the other 31 teams: A lot more women are suddenly in these bars these days, watching the Patriots and Tom Brady. Women who don't seem to be from anywhere near Boston or the great Northeast at all).

I caught most of the morning games at home before I left for the airport. I have the DirecTV package, and saw that great drive by the New York Giants at the end of the second quarter that seemed to present the Miami Dolphins with enough discouragement to take the wind out of them. I saw the almighty New Orleans Saints and Drew Brees fall to the lowly St. Louis Rams.

I was still at home when the afternoon games started. For the first time in my life, I wasn't really even interested enough to go to the Seahawks game first (something I have always done). Again, that is a subject for another column, some other day. No, I wanted to see what the Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers were doing. Heck, I was more interested in the San Francisco 49ers-Cleveland Browns game!

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