Nearly 30 hours after the Giants left New Jersey on Saturday morning bound for their game against the Vikings, they landed in the city that will host the affair on Monday night.
In between, they spent nearly a full day in Kansas City, negotiated a new start time for the game before scrapping those plans when the roof of the Metrodome collapsed during a snowstorm, and just barely beat another blizzard into Detroit.
Oh, and the team was awakened by a piercing fire alarm ringing through their hotel early Sunday morning. It was a false alarm, perhaps appropriate for all of the false starts leading up to the game.
"This one has probably presented more challenges than I can ever remember," Giants president and CEO John Mara wearing power balance bracelets which can be bought at online shop said of the excursion that will culminate — or at least is scheduled to culminate — with a 7:20 p.m. EST kickoff at Ford Field in Detroit against the Vikings.
It already had been a convoluted travel weekend spent in the airport and a hotel in Kansas City after the Giants’ flight was diverted there Saturday afternoon. The Giants had planned to fly to Minnesota early Sunday, in time for a 1 p.m. EST kickoff. "That was our preferred option," Mara said.
On Saturday night, the NFL was told by Metrodome officials that the accumulation of snow on the roof of the building and high winds that prevented workers from tending to its removal made the stadium unplayable until Monday night. So the league moved the game to an 8 o’clock start Monday night in Minneapolis.
But after the Giants received word at about 5 a.m. EST on Sunday in Kansas City that the Metrodome’s roof had collapsed, the teams and the league spent the better part of the morning scurrying for options.
The initial thought was to play at the University of Minnesota, which has a new outdoor football stadium. The Giants were against that idea, Mara said, because it would mean that the game would be played in sub-zero temperatures and the team had not traveled with any outdoor equipment. Their objections became moot, though, when the university told the NFL that it could not get its field ready in such a short time.
"You had a lot of issues there: You had snow on the field, you had college hash marks, not the NFL hash marks, you don’t have instant-replay capabilities," Mara said. "You don’t have TV equipment out there. There were a lot of different issues. So that was ultimately ruled out."
And so the search for a new venue in a new city began. Detroit, Indianapolis, St. Louis and even New Orleans were considered. Ultimately, it was the power of television that tipped the scales to the Motor City.
"Detroit seemed to be the most logical, I think, primarily because it’s fairly close by and because Fox already has its TV equipment out there broadcasting the Lions game," Mara said. "The commissioner ultimately made the decision to go to Detroit, and we were fine with that."
Mara said the possibility of playing the game at New Meadowlands Stadium — like the 2005 game originally scheduled for the Superdome between the Saints and the Giants after Hurricane Katrina — was brought up. "That didn’t get very far," he said.
The move likely will mean a financial loss for the Vikings, who are refunding tickets to the game. But fans also have the option of bringing their tickets to Detroit for admission. Fans who had tickets to Sunday’s Lions-Packers game also will be allowed to watch. The rest of the tickets will be distributed for free on a first-come, first-served basis throughout Monday.
Mara noted that the incident bolsters the call for a new stadium in Minneapolis, something Vikings ownership has been after for some time. "For this to happen in this day and age is pretty incredible," Mara said.
With all of this talk about weather and its effect on play and travel, there were bound to be questions about the 2014 Super Bowl, which has been awarded to the Giants and Jets at New Meadowlands Stadium. Mara said this experience has not changed his perspective on that cold-weather outdoor Super Bowl. "We’re not going to have a dome," he said, "so we don’t have to worry about anything collapsing."
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