Improving the Aerial Game, II

Today I continue my four-part series of providing satellite images of NFL stadiums, begun last week with the AFC and NFC East stadiums. Up this week are the AFC and NFC North divisions. Again, I present the stadiums in order of the final 2004 standings per division.

AFC NORTH

Heinz Field (Pittsburgh Steelers)
M&T Stadium (Baltimore Ravens)
Paul Brown Stadium (Cincinnati Bengals)
Cleveland Browns Stadium (Cleveland Browns)

NFC NORTH

Lambeau Field (Green Bay Packers)
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (Minnesota Vikings)
Ford Field (Detroit Lions)
Soldier Field (Chicago Bears)

Heinz Field in Pittsburgh appears to still be under construction above, although it's nearly finished as far as what can be seen from satellite can tell. If you scroll along the riverbank to the east, you soon come to PNC Park, where the Pirates achieve mediocrity on a daily basis.

M&T Stadium is pretty straightforward: just a bowl in a parking lot.

The Google Maps imagery of Cincinnati is surprisingly not available at the same level of resolution as most other cities, so that's the closest I can get to Paul Brown Stadium. It's the O-shaped building right on the river at the center of the photo.

Cleveland Browns stadium is right on Lake Erie, pretty much exactly where the old horrifying sandpit the Browns and Indians used to occupy stood. To the right of the stadium you can see a building with a dome on one end; that's Cleveland's Science Museum (a really cool place, too), and just beyond that is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (also a really cool place).

Green Bay's satellite imagery is, like Cincinnati's, not able to resolve at the level I'd like, although in Green Bay's case this isn't surprising, since Green Bay is not a large town (Green Bay has fewer people than Syracuse). Lambeau Field is, again, the large building with the green oval in the middle of the image.

Domed stadiums, as I suspected when I started this project, aren't that interesting from the air. The Metrodome looks like a giant pillow. It's also where I passed part of my twenty-first birthday, when I used my newly-legal status to buy a five-buck beer while I watched the Twins down the Kansas City Royals by a score of 9-2. Pedro Munoz doubled off the "hefty bag", and Kirby Puckett ran down a deep fly ball to center field. Nice day, that. No, I didn't get drunk.

Detroit's Ford Field appears to still be under construction (the surrounding parking areas look really unfinished), and Soldier Field is most definitely under construction here. The latter barely even looks like a stadium at the point this photo was imaged.

Tune in next week for a look at the stadia of the AFC and NFC South!