Flaw in the Dallas Cowboys' $1.2 billion stadium?

Shutdown Corner Sat Aug 22, 2009 10:40 am EDT

Punt hits video screen at new Cowboys Stadium
By Chris Chase


Spending $1.2 billion on a football stadium can get you a lot, but apparently not a good sense of how high to hang 2,100-inch video screens above the field.

At the debut of the new Dallas Cowboys stadium last night, Tennessee Titans punter A.J. Trapasso kicked a ball that struck one of the gargantuan high-definition scoreboards that hang over the center of the field. Trapasso's punt sailed straight up and hit one of the two scoreboards that face the endzone. It deflected backward and was ruled in-play until Titans coach Jeff Fisher informed officials (who had been watching the players, not the ball) that the punt struck the scoreboard. By rule, the down was replayed.

Jerry Jones wasn't happy with the kick, not so much because he felt that somebody on his engineering team screwed up by placing the video boards too low, but because he seems to think that Trapasso was trying to hit the board on purpose. When asked whether he thought the scoreboard should be raised higher, Jones snapped:



Later, Jones reitirated that he would not be moving the scoreboard higher. Trapasso and the regular Titans punter, Craig Hentrich(notes), think that's a bad idea. Said Hentrich:



Despite his dismissive response to the incident, Jerry Jones may have a point. Watching a replay of the kick, it sure does look like Trapasso is trying to boot the ball as high as he can, a method that punters usually only use on shorter punts designed to pin a team back. (The Titans kicked from their own 37-yard line, so Trapasso should have been trying more for length than height.) ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/Punt-hits-video-screen-at-new-Cowboys-Stadium?urn=nfl,184487

fund the stadium? I hope not.

Jones will have to cave and raise it. It seems rather odd, that for all the money wasted on this monument to greed and excess, that designers wouldn't have had the foresight to see this potential problem.

First the Mets owner hires a guy who thinks it's perfectly ok to build a notch into the outfield wall, thereby elminating 80% of the Mets' Home runs. Then the Steinbrenners hire a guy who does the opposite to the Yanks outfield, turning it into a sandbox. Now Jerry Jones allows a scoreboard to be build in range of punts. Haven't these people watched a game before?

Don't they have any architects down in Texas?

I've never see this shit happen at Ford Field, or in St. Louis, Atlanta, New Orleans, or any other indoor/semi-indoor stadium. Just raise the damn thing, Jerry! It's not like people won't still be able to see it just fine. Those punters weren't just barely hitting the thing either.

:sarcasm:

The lower level stands seemed further from the field than Texas Stadium. At best, they blended in severely with the field.

In Texas Stadium there were very distinct color schemes and lower level fan presence was obvious. All I saw in the new stadium was retreating blue seating, very blase.