first live sporting event for the blog

The reason for the downtime in blog posting was that I was in Florida.  The main event of the trip was my first ever NFL game.  We'd had our sights set on the Tampa Bay-Detroit game ever since the NFL announced that Detroit would play in Detroit, before the official schedule was even out, back in about June.  When we found out the game would be December 19th we jumped on it.  Florida in December? Hell yeah!

I've always thought Raymond James Stadium is a nice stadium.  I enjoy the pirate ship firing its cannons when Tampa Bay scores.  Our view was outstanding, in the upper level above the corner of one of the endzones.  Most of the game's scoring happened in the endzone in front of us.

The game was well played and there were no turnovers.  The crowd was really into it in the second half as the Bucs took the lead, then broke a tie later with a field goal inside of the 2 minute warning.  But Detroit worked their strategy well, used its timeouts to save more time for their offense, and held the Bucs to a field goal.  They t then drove down the field, largely at the hands of Calvin Johnston, who ran wild all game, and after a shot into the endzone for a win in regulation, settled for a game tying field goal as time expired.

My first NFL game went to overtime.  Detroit won the coin toss and marched down to kick a game  winning field goal.  The Lions won 23-20 to break a 29 game road losing streak.  They've also won 2 games in a row and are 4-10 on the season.

The view from our seats.

Me and our view

Lions win! Lions win! They're undefeated in games I have attended.