It hasn’t been the smoothest of beginnings. But then, no one said it would be.
When NFL teams go on the road to play their home games, as has happened five times before in modern history, it has not been without occasional potholes. But if the Bears are looking for the most important precedent as they embark on a new season in unfamiliar surroundings, it’s not a bad one.
Of the five teams to play home games in another city–the 1995 Carolina Panthers, ’97 Tennessee Oilers, ’82 Los Angeles Raiders and ’73 and ’74 New York Giants–three of the five had winning “home” records. One, the Raiders in a strike-shortened season, went a perfect 4-0. Only the ’74 Giants really laid an egg at 0-7.
The Bears will travel 165 miles to Champaign, only a 50-minute charter flight, which is about 20 minutes shorter than it took to bus from their original team hotel in Decatur to Illinois’ Memorial Stadium.
But then, that’s another story.
After just one home exhibition game, Bears general manager Jerry Angelo heeded the concerns of coaches and players and moved most of the team to a hotel in Champaign just blocks from the stadium, where they will be for the season opener Sunday against Minnesota.
“They’re committed to winning here, we see that,” Bears quarterback Jim Miller said. “[Angelo] wants guys to be happy on this team. He doesn’t want outside things to affect this football team. That’s just a smart move.”
With that behind them, however, it will take more than smarts to overcome all of the obstacles of any normal NFL season on top of the emotional and physical drain of essentially 16 road games.
“It’s worse for the families, the peripheral people,” said Bears defensive line coach Rex Norris, who was on Jeff Fisher’s coaching staff at Tennessee the year they played all their home games in Memphis, some three hours from Nashville. “For us, we fly and we bus and it’s going to be inconvenient, but it’s not going to be a distraction. Coach [Dick] Jauron won’t let it be.
“In fact, I doubt we’ll even notice it once we get started. He’s great at handling the team.”
From the beginning, Jauron addressed the issue in the same direct manner as he does most things. “I think we have to stay as honest and up-front about the whole thing as we can,” he said. “The No. 1 thing is that there are no alternatives; this is where we are playing.
“The No. 2 thing is that it will give people a chance to see us who haven’t seen us and we will have home-field advantage. Those will be our fans and it will be noisy there. We’re looking forward to all those things. There is no other way to look at it.”
It’s all about routine, say both Jauron and his players, and it is, like most coaches’, Jauron’s forte. It is the reason behind much of the fuss concerning Decatur. Driving an hour longer to the games would affect their pregame routines, and players were relieved when that problem was eliminated.
“As long as we do the same thing each week, we’ll be fine,” tackle James “Big Cat” Williams said.
Offensive coordinator John Shoop, who coached at Carolina in ’95, when the expansion Panthers finished 5-3 at Clemson’s Memorial Stadium, a record for a team in its first year, remembers the season fondly. But he also remembers some of the logistical problems.
“We took a bus ride to Clemson and the interstate wasn’t bad, but to go into Clemson, there’s only one road off the interstate and it’s about four miles off,” Shoop said. “And when 80,000 people leave the stadium at one time on one road to get to the interstate, even with an escort, you’re looking at five hours on the way home. So Decatur was Shangri-La compared to that.”
Even with that, Shoop recalls that day games, youth and a new marriage made the experience more palpable. “It was our first year,” Shoop said. “The only night games we played were in the preseason because we weren’t any good, so we were just playing at noon every week. If we had many night games, it would have been a real terror, trying to get home from there. I drove home on the bus with my wife. It was our first year of marriage and we have some unbelievably fond memories of it. But it was tiring. This year will be a piece of cake compared to that.”
To the Bears’ advantage, Champaign offers a potentially new base of Bears fans, a scenario teams like the Tennessee Oilers did not enjoy.
“We didn’t have a fan-friendly base at all,” Norris recalls. “Memphis was mad because they didn’t get an NFL franchise. Really, our opponents had more people than we did most weekends. We were 6-2 over there, we had a successful year at home, but unfortunately didn’t win on the road and we were 8-8.”
Asked how he recalled the fans in Memphis, Tennessee general manager Floyd Reese laughs. “We didn’t have enough of them to tell if they were good, bad or indifferent,” he said. “It was not what you would call a home-field advantage. They were a little bit hostile and a lot of fans in the state had other favorite teams simply because there weren’t any other teams there. So when we played Pittsburgh at the end of the season, I remember it was a shocker for us to find an equal amount if not more Steelers fans than Oilers fans.”
Reese said the one advantage the Oilers did have was that it was their second of four straight years playing in different stadiums. “Because we were thrown into it, because it was going to be a way of life for a while, we adapted,” he said. “I’m not sure it’s not going to be harder on Dick from the standpoint that he’s had the environment of living at home and driving to the stadium, where he had just that focus and he could just worry about winning.
“This year he will have other issues and I’m sure his plate was more than full already.”
One theory is that with all the traveling, a season on the road can actually have a bonding effect, a phenomenon that did not happen with the Panthers, said Shoop.
“We had a real mixed group of players our first year,” he said. “I’m not sure how close we were.”
It did, however, seem to work that way for Tennessee.
“Ours really was a bonding experience for a lot of reasons,” Reese said.
“First of all, we were not in the home we were expecting because our stadium was not complete. We knew it was temporary, so we didn’t rely on things being comfortable and instead we turned to each other. Players spent more time together, families spent more time together, equipment managers, trainers and on down the line. You’re going to get to know each other pretty well, being on the road every weekend.
“We had been through our problems in Houston, so here we were, this little gypsy troupe on the road, and we really got to know each other. Wherever we put our baggage down, that was home.”
Still, said Reese, even bonding can backfire when things aren’t going well.
“It may be the smallest of things,” he said. “You have one bad meal and all of a sudden the food has been awful the last six weeks. And when it’s a group, it doesn’t take long for word to spread.
“I think the key for Jeff and the key for the Bears is that they have to understand: `We believe all that is important and we’re going to do our very best to take care of it. However, you have one job and you’re going to have to find a way to step above all that and worry about Sunday.’
“If they can’t do that, then it really will be a distraction.”
The Bears vow they won’t allow it to be.
“Their team has to travel there, we have to travel there,” said defensive end Bryan Robinson. “We should have more of an advantage because we did have preseason games there, so there’s no excuse at all. We know the fans are going to be behind us. So let’s just play football.”
Road warriors
A look at teams that have played whole seasons on the road:*
1973-74 New York Giants
Stadium: Yale Bowl, New Haven.
1973: Home: 2-4-1 Road: 0-7 Overall: 2-11-1
1974: Home: 0-7 Road: 2-5 Overall: 2-12
With Yankee Stadium undergoing renovation and Giants planning a move to New Jersey in ’76, a new home was needed. Yale Bowl reps initially turned down Giants’ request to play there because it would have meant a blackout for the local schedule. Pete Rozelle modified rule so games did not have to be sold out in advance. First two home games of ’73 (a win and a tie) were played at Yankee Stadium.
In ’75, Giants played at Shea Stadium before moving to the new Giants Stadium in ’76.
1982 Los Angeles Raiders
Stadium: Los Angeles Coliseum.
Home: 4-0 Road: 4-1 Overall: 8-1
After winning court decision allowing the move to Los Angeles, Raiders commuted from Oakland in strike-shortened first year as L.A. Raiders.
1995 Carolina Panthers
Stadium: Memorial Stadium, Clemson, S.C.
Home: 5-3 Road: 2-6 Overall: 7-9
In franchise’s first year, the Panthers finished fourth in the NFC West, the defense ranked seventh in the NFL and its home record was best ever for an expansion team.
1997 Tennessee Oilers
Stadium: Liberty Bowl, Memphis.
Home: 6-2 Road: 2-6 Overall: 8-8
Second of four straight years of playing in a different “home” stadium.
*Since 1970
