Great NFL stadiums are made of great moments

Green Bay's Lambeau Field didn't have a lot of creature comforts before its renovation, but it offered a glimpse into NFL history. Sporting News/Icon SMI

In 18 years covering the league, I've reported from 43 different NFL stadiums. Here are my top 10 favorites:

1. Lambeau Field, Green Bay: While the recently renovated Lambeau blends a sense of the stadium's history with the creature comforts and amenities the modern fan has come to expect, the Lambeau I most fondly recall is the older version, with all its green-painted corrugated tin and the time-capsule feeling you got once you were inside. There is no other experience in the NFL quite like watching a big game at Lambeau during the cold of a Wisconsin winter. The Packers' 1996 NFC title-game win over Carolina is my quintessential freeze-framed memory of the most beloved venue in pro football.

2. Texas Stadium, Irving, Texas: Maybe it's the way those eerie shadows are cast on the edges of the field from that giant hole in the roof. Maybe it's those big, thick, white sideline stripes that always instantly told you Dallas was playing. Or maybe it's just the accumulated weight of so many familiar memories from a stadium that has hosted more big games than any other for decades. Texas Stadium makes my list because everything about it says NFL, in a big, overstated Texas sort of way. I actually took one of those paid tours of the stadium in the summer of '83, while in college and on my way to California on vacation. What stands out most, though, is Thanksgiving Day '98, covering a Vikings-Cowboys game that featured rookie receiver Randy Moss dominating Dallas with three long touchdown catches.

3. Old Soldier Field, Chicago: Before Chicago built that space ship-looking structure in its place and called it New Soldier Field, I always found the Bears home ballpark so ugly it was almost beautiful. It had a basic, straightforward feel to it, much like the hard-working Midwestern-bred Bears fans who jammed it for games. Soldier Field was an amenity-free zone, and even its press box was a cramped, out-dated relic from a bygone era. The football memories it spawned were many and rich in historical significance. I covered bigger games there, but I'll never forget a Halloween-night game in '94, when the Packers and Bears played in monsoon conditions as a furious fall storm rolled into Chicago's lakefront.

4. Mile High Stadium, Denver: It was the noise -- the endless, foot-stomping din of fans standing and banging on those metal bleachers at the venerable erector set called Mile High -- I can still hear. When I covered a Sunday afternoon Broncos game there, it routinely took until Tuesday for the cacophony to recede from memory. But there was magic in that old wobbly stadium, and the Broncos seemingly always had it on their side. The combination of Mile High's inhospitality to visitors, John Elway's well-chronicled comeback skills, and the ability of Denver fans to will their team to victory in almost any situation was a tough act to beat throughout the '80s and '90s.

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