On Saturday, February 4, 2006, the Commissioner traveled to Detroit for the NFL Experience.
This is Part Four of his account of a day in a football fan's paradise.

- Click any picture for an expanded view -

Richard Seymour: Just outside the Red Zone game, we saw the Patriots defensive end signing autographs amid a mob of people. I grabbed a quick (and admittedly poor) picture. What was cool was that he was just one of several players waiting to play some kind of paper football tournament for...

The King: Yes! The Burger King was strutting around a stage, sporting the bling and creepy grin we've all come to know and love. I was hoping to see him sprinting through some of the exhibits, but we weren't that lucky. He seems less agile in person. My brother seemed more excited by The King than by any of the actual NFL players we saw. Reason for concern or admirable dedication to American commerce? You make the call. We would have stuck around to see which players were squaring off in the tournament, but the crowd was huge and there were other games to tackle.

Quarterback Challenge: I flat-out sucked at this. Volunteers set three cardboard players in motion - an offensive lineman, a defender with outstretched arms and a receiver with a hoop at the end of his reach. Your goal was to throw the ball over the lineman, past the defender and into the hoop. Perhaps it was the Lions jersey I was wearing, but my throws were all off-target. It was at this challenge that we saw a guy wearing a Joey Harrington jersey tucked into his pants. Okay... in the rare circumstance you'd have to tuck a jersey into your pants, at the very least, you should make sure the entire number is visible. This guy had the jersey wedged so far down his trousers, you couldn't see all of the "3." We flagged the guy with a 15-yard penalty for conduct unbecoming a true football fan.

Arm Strength: Another throwing game, another poor performance by yours truly. A radar gun was set up to clock your football throw. The fastest we saw were in the 50 mph ballpark. My brother clocked in at about 49 mph, while my best efforts got me to 41.

Field Goal: This was a fun one, though the line was huge. You had to boot a 30-yard kick from a tee while automated defenders came at you. My kick had the distance, but I hooked it left. (I chalk it up to the fact that I was wearing round-toed stomper boots... not really the kicking footwear of choice.) My brother, continuing his day-long beatdown of me, nailed his kick straight down the middle. For our efforts, we were rewarded with a "fun size" Snickers.

I don't mean to go off on a tangent here, but how could those mini-candy bars be classified as "fun?" A "fun" size would be a full Snickers, not three inches of chocolate. That just makes me hungrier for more. They should call it a "taunt size." Stupid candy companies.

Free Food: This was one of the highlights of the day. We were worried we'd have to pay through the nose for food inside the hall, but the NFL is sponsored quite heavily by food companies. Campbell's was dishing out free Chunky Chilli all day. We had two cups apiece, then went over to the Training Camp drill to get free Gatorade to wash it down. Periodically, Pizza Hut would dish out free "cheesy bites" pizza slices. It was supposed to be one per customer, but there were two servers, so we just went through one line, scarfed a slice, then went through the other line and abused the system. We had four slices throughout the day. By making periodic stops at food tents, we were able to replenish the much-needed fat we were burning off by physical activity.

Pictures below. Click arrows to continue the story.


The first encounter with Richard Seymour as fans scramble for autographs.

The moving obstacles and target of the QB Challenge.

This man has his jersey tucked in so far, you can't see the bottom of the number. 15-yard penalty and loss of down.

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