Last weekend I attended the grand opening of Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis where I witnessed the Chicago Bears handle a vastly overrated Indianapolis Colts team. I’ve been to several Colts games at the old RCA Dome, which was also overrated, and the best way I can describe it is to borrow a line from one of the writers at the Indianapolis Star whose analysis of attending a Colts game is “kind of like attending an Amish picnic.” This appeared in the Indianapolis Star on Monday, December 18th, 2006 – not that long ago.

Being a Bears fan, I’m obviously excited about attending any Bears game and having an opportunity to wear my Bears “Crown Their Ass” hat, but I was also interested in observing the brand new Lucas Oil Stadium and the Colts fans as they get used to their new home.

The first serious critique I have of the new Lucas Oil Stadium is the scoreboard. They have two huge video monitors mounted in the stadium that can easily be viewed by all fans. This is very well done, however, these monitors are surrounded by ads. The actual scoreboard containing critical information such as the score, time, down and distance, is an impressively small display mounted in each endzone behind the lower level section. It’s nearly impossible to see from the mid levels, not to mention the upper levels. Also, they have another tiny scoreboard that scrolls through relevant stats for this game and scores from around the league. These are even smaller because they fit multiple lines of information an already horribly undersized display, making it next to useless. It was very frustrating. I’ve attended games at least 6 NFL Stadiums and more than a dozen college stadiums and have never seen a simple concept like “the scoreboard” executed so poorly.

It’s my well known opinion that football stadiums with a roof are among man-kinds all-time worst ideas, so naturally I couldn’t help myself but to make some comments that poked fun at the fans gawking up at this feature. On my way to the seats before the game, the shifting crowd sort of came to a temporary stop within sight of the giant opened window at the north end of the stadium. Some of the Colts fans marveled in awe about how they could “see outside” and made other comments like “isn’t that neat” and “look at the sky”. I said, “Yeah, you know what would’ve made that view even better? If they’d built this without a roof.” This created an awkward silence among those fans, and created great amusement for myself.

I can’t help but be amused by the fact that they built a retractable roof on the new stadium. It’s ridiculous. I was especially amused when I was watching the Colts-Bills preseason game on television. It was the first pro game at this new stadium, and halfway through the 3rd quarter, they started closing the roof. Why? Who knows! When I witnessed this I immediately laughed to myself and ran outside to check the temperature. It was 72 degrees on my patio on the north side of Indianapolis, so how awful could the weather have been downtown?

It’s always going to be something. It’s going to be too cold, too windy, too sunny, or too something for them to have that roof open. The fans are soft. I’d hate to see them be forced to watch a football game with even the slightest draft! How horrible. “That’s not football!” you’ll hear them say. But then again, the majority of Colts fans think tailgating means grabbing a bite to eat before the game at the Circle Center Mall Food Court.

My bold prediction: After they get a couple more nice “pictures days” with the roof open, the retractable roof will be closed, never to be opened again for the remaining life of that stadium…or until the team starts to suck again and gets moved to Los Angeles.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice stadium. Best in the league like the Colts want you think? I very much doubt it. It’s equally as nice as the University of Phoenix Stadium out in Glendale (another retractable roof) where I watched a Week 17 game at the end of last season. If anything, University of Phoenix Stadium is nicer. The concourses were wider, the game day staff was friendlier, and the overall experience was awesome. And they play on real grass!

Another funny thing about the Colts fans is that they talk about how “loud” it allegedly is during the home games. Before they game they show a message on the video board that reads, “Are you LIVE or are you piped in?” and the crowd cheers! They get loud when the Colts defense is out there, but then they quiet between the plays. They are quiet as they let the other team huddle and call the play, and then start to get loud again once the offense is back up on the line. Wouldn’t sustained volume be more effective?

Anyway, the actual game between the Bears and Colts was a lot of fun. The Colts fans like to talk smack like they’re the greatest franchise in the NFL and they most definitely did, but there were a lot of Bears fans there and their presence was noticeable. Two Colts fans were escorted out by security in the second half in my section alone! After the Bears scored again to take the lead 22-13 the stadium was silent except for the chant of “Let’s Go Bears, Let’s Go Bears” which faded to pretty much silence after the chant died out. At which time I made the comment, “I guess they should’ve piped in more of that crowd noise before that last play.” One of the Colts fans took great offense to that for some reason.

I’ll admit that the outcome of the game was surprising. I thought the Bears had reasonable change to win, but I certainly didn’t think they’d go in there and win so convincingly. Maybe the Bears caught the Colts at the right time? When healthy, the Bears defense is arguably the best in the league and every bit as good (if not better) than the defense that went to the Super Bowl a few seasons ago. Perhaps the Bears defense playing at full strength caught a Colts team with an out-of-synch Peyton Manning playing behind 3 new starters on the offensive line and that was enough for the Bears to pull out a win. Maybe the Bears are better than we thought. Or maybe the Colts are terrible.