seahawks germany trip

For the Seahawks, the trip to Germany wasn’t much farther than it was for the Bucs

09 November 2022, Bavaria, Munich: American football, NFL, Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Seattle Seahawks, Matchday 10, Allianz Arena: A logo with the words “NFL Munich Game” can be seen on a board. On Nov. 13, 2022, an NFL game will take place in Germany for the first time. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will meet the Seattle Seahawks at the Allianz Arena. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa (Photo by Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images)

dpa/picture alliance via Getty I

The Buccaneers and Seahawks will meet in Germany on Sunday. At first blush, it seems like a much longer trip for Seattle than for Tampa Bay. But it’s not.

A PFT Live viewer sent a link earlier in the week to a “ Great Circle Map ,” showing the actual distance from both cities to Munich. It’s 8,503 kilometers (5,283 miles) from Seattle, and it’s 8,040 kilometers (4,995 miles) from Tampa.

The flight time directly to Munich is only 30 minutes longer; eight hours, 55 minutes from Tampa, and nine hours, 25 minutes from Seattle.

So there’s no real advantage for the Buccaneers. If anything, the Seahawks avoid facing a traditional “home” crowd in Tampa, as the Bucs give up what would be a ninth home game for a neutral-site showdown that may have a Super Bowl feel. Especially since the NFL got three million ticket requests for the game.

Why 800,000 fans vied to see Tom Brady, Bucs face Seahawks in Germany

MUNICH -- For 45-year-old Markus Jantke, there was no way he was going to miss an opportunity to witness the NFL's first regular-season game played in Germany.

Not after being a fan since the 1980s, long before NFL games were televised on a weekly basis and long before most of his friends and fellow countrymen had any clue about the sport he'd grown to love despite being 5,000 miles away.

The day tickets went on sale to the general public in July, he happened to be driving to Munich and pulled over to a rest stop to join the queue.

"After half an hour of waiting and No. 400,000 on the waiting list, I quit and go on to Munich," Jantke said. "Twenty minutes later, I got a call from a friend. She asked if I wanted to go the game with her. ... Ten minutes later, another guy called me, 'Markus I got four tickets!'"

Mark Van den Eeckhout logged onto the site on five different devices -- two cell phones, two iPads and a notebook. The best spot he could get in line was 254,000. But one of his buddies got No. 3,500, and he ordered tickets.

Seven of them will make the trip from Paderborn, Germany, a small village near Cologne, to witness quarterback Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers take on the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday ( 9:30 a.m. ET, NFL Network ) at Allianz Arena in Munich.

"[We] look forward to the game like little children," said Van den Eeckhout, who has been an NFL fan since he was 13 or 14 years old. "But to be honest, I have no idea how I'll react when the GOAT [Brady] and the Bucs run onto the field!"

Oliver Robbet, whose football interest began with the movie "Any Given Sunday" and who will make the trip from Halstenbek, Germany, logged on to the Ticketmaster site on six different devices.

"We got a place in the queue around place 4,000 and just got tickets on the top of the stadium," Robbet said. "A lot of people were pissed because of the secondary market. They used bots to get tickets and sold them directly for horrible pricing."

THE TICKET DEMAND was extraordinary.

"We saw huge queues in the ticketing queue of around 800,000 people," said Brett Gosper, head of NFL Europe and U.K. "The fans are absolutely over the moon about it."

The fact that Brady came out of retirement after 40 days in March had something to do with it, and the game will be played at the home of FC Bayern Munich, Germany's most successful soccer team. The NFL received special permission to play on the natural grass.

"I think the game would've always been highly subscribed, highly sought after," Gosper said. "It's a historic game -- whoever's in it -- but obviously he puts a lot of icing on that cake, Tom Brady, by his own presence, and everyone in Germany knows who Tom Brady is.

"Tom transcends the sport. So anyone who does that pulls in audience from outside of your avid traditional fan and creates new fandom, and he's done that brilliantly."

Not to mention, the NFC West-leading Seahawks (6-3) are one of the best stories in the NFL right now, having won four out of their past five games with quarterback Geno Smith taking over for Russell Wilson after he was traded in the offseason.

As of Tuesday, the cheapest single ticket on StubHub in the southeast corner of the stadium that holds about 70,000 fans was $351, although prices were higher this summer. For two seats together, prices started at $395 each.

For those who can't make the trip to Munich, Deutsche Bank Park (Commerzbank Arena) in Frankfurt, Germany -- which will also host games in Germany over the next four years -- is holding a live watch party.

IT'S VERY DIFFERENT from what the NFL saw when it hosted its first American Bowl -- a series of NFL exhibition games that were held outside of the U.S. -- in Germany. The game took place in West Berlin on Aug. 11, 1990 -- nine months after the Berlin Wall fell.

Organizers had to give tickets away -- mainly to those who had little exposure to not only American football but the Western world, and did not even understand the rules.

"Most people did not know the sport at all," said Martin Hanselmann, who most recently coached the Stuttgart Surge of the European League of Football.

Fast forward to today, and there is not only a generation of NFL fans in Germany, but multiple generations of fans. Gosper said Germany, which started showing games on TV on a weekly basis in 2015, is the highest-subscribed fan base outside of the U.S. on the NFL GamePass streaming platform, even more than the U.K. despite London hosting 33 regular-season NFL games since 2007.

"It's a huge market," Gosper said of Germany. "Casual fans are growing at the rate of about 20% in the last four, five years. But the avid fans have grown between 40 and 50% over the last four to five years."

Rob Donner, who will attend the game from Solingen, Germany, stays up to watch games despite being six time zones away from the United States' East Coast.

"I watch all Bucs games live," said Donner, who became an NFL and Bucs fan in 1999. "These can be at 2:20 a.m. in the middle of the week. I always save some vacation days for these games so that I don´t have to go to work the same day."

He stayed up for Week 9 as the Bucs came from behind to defeat the Los Angeles Rams 16-13. Brady and the offense marched down the field in the final minute, with Brady capping a 60-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown pass to rookie tight end Cade Otton with 9 seconds remaining.

Donner tried not to disturb his girlfriend, who was sleeping when the Bucs scored at 1:25 a.m. local time. But the magnitude of the moment -- the Bucs (4-5) snapping a three-game losing streak and Brady defeating the Rams for the first time in four tries -- was too much.

"I was going crazy," Donner said. "My dog was really confused when I start running around the living room. Then my girlfriend woke up and celebrated with me."

There was a similar scene inside Ned Kelly's Australian Bar in Munich.

"We all saw Tom Brady being Tom Brady and getting that last amazing touchdown," said the bar's manager, Alistair Taylor. "There was a huge cheer and a lot of clapping when it happened!"

NFL SUNDAYS ARE always played in prime time in Germany.

Harit "Harry" Khanna, owner of The Keg in Munich, usually has three TVs and two projector screens ready to go, although sometimes it's as many as all eight televisions.

"We stay open until the people stop watching!" Khanna said. "Wings Night is on Sundays because of the NFL."

Ned Kelly's has struck a similar tune, advertising the "complete USA experience," with wings, hot dogs, nachos and fries.

"Demand has definitely grown over the six or so years, partly because it's become a mainstay of peoples' weeks," said Taylor, who is a Seahawks fan. He said he has customers who have had reservations for months leading up to this week's game.

Those bars usually close about 2 or 2:30 a.m., although Super Bowl Sunday is a different story and becomes an all-night affair.

"Every Super Bowl game is an experience in Germany," Robbet said. "It starts always late and mostly is not over before 3, 4 a.m., so the next day everybody has to work. And you always see who watched the game."

Van den Eeckhout's girlfriend and friends still won't let him live down the fact that he went to bed at the beginning of the fourth quarter watching Super Bowl LI with Brady and the New England Patriots down 28-9 to the Atlanta Falcons . Brady went on to lead the largest Super Bowl comeback in NFL history after trailing 28-3 in the third quarter.

"To be honest, I'm not proud of it," Van den Eeckhout said. "Everyone has laughed at me since this Super Bowl, always asking if I want to go to bed if a team is high in the lead. And my girlfriend laughs the loudest. I will never leave a game again before the final whistle."

THE U.S. MILITARY had a strong influence in spreading American football in Germany. About 100,000 U.S. troops are currently stationed in Europe, with 35,000 of them spread across 40 active military installations in Germany.

"I think the real question [for the NFL] is, 'Why weren't you in Germany earlier?'" Gosper said. "Because it's a significant European market. In many ways, it has a larger casual fan base than in the U.K. It has a great history of American football."

Hanselmann was first exposed to American football in 1982 at age 18 when locals started a team in his hometown of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, about 14 miles from Illesheim -- home of a U.S. Army facility.

"The American soldiers had an important impact on this," said Hanselmann, who credits former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana for inspiring him to play football for over 10 years before becoming a coach. "We had some books through the Army base and learned a lot from the U.S. players."

Hanselmann got to shadow members of the Buffalo Bills ' coaching staff when they played the Minnesota Vikings in the American Bowl in August 1993 before the last one was played in 1994.

"We all were very impressed by all the athletes there," Hanselmann said. "I also remember that ... Rocket Ismail played for the Vikings, and during the practices I was able to see him. His speed at this time was unbelievable."

SOME HOME COOKING will be in order for Seahawks linebacker Aaron Donkor .

He is from Achern, Germany, and joined the NFL when he was assigned to Seattle's practice squad as part of the International Player Pathway Program .

He grew up playing basketball but started playing football when he was older, which led to playing college football at the New Mexico Military Institute and Arkansas State.

Naturally, he knows how welcoming his home country will be as a first-time regular-season host.

"The Germans, they're going to do their thing," Donkor said. "They're great hosts. They've been preparing the one thing they can -- like just organizing and making sure everything is set up. ... It's going to be a Super Bowl in every sense of the word."

Bucs wide receiver Mike Evans , who won a Super Bowl with the Bucs in 2020, knows what it'll be like to compete in that kind of environment.

"Hopefully we put on a good show," Evans said.

But no matter how great the show is, Donkor knows how important Germany is for the growth of football internationally, especially in Europe.

"The Germans are at the forefront of American football," Donkor said. "They really embraced the game. I think after World War II and the stations, from there, they brought the sports, they brought the culture and they never really left. And it was just lingering there. And I think now that the Germany game is there ... that this just comes all together and people can really embrace the game. I'm excited for that."

WHILE INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL across the Atlantic and quickly adjusting to new time zones isn't the most fun, players like Evans welcomed the opportunity to connect with fans from another part of the world and bring the "brand of football to the fans that are just waiting for us to go over there and play."

"I've gotten fan mail over the years from people in Germany, so I think it's really cool to be able to go to their country and play a regular-season game in front of them because obviously they're not able to come here all the time or see us play," cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting added. "So it's definitely a cool experience for us, and I know it is for them as well."

Right tackle Tristan Wirfs was concerned he wouldn't be able to find any cold weather clothing in size XXXXL, while defensive tackle Vita Vea seemed to be motivated by the cuisine.

"Man, I'm 'bout to eat schnitzel, pretzels, hot dogs ... whatever," Vea said.

The NFL committed to five games for its international series this year -- three games in London, one in Germany and one in Mexico. NFL owners also passed a resolution that says beginning in 2022, all 32 teams will play internationally at least once every eight years.

And while their approach will always be quality over quantity, they are eyeing other markets, keying on stadiums that can accommodate at least 70,000 fans.

"You never know when there might be a stadium issue in one of those countries," Gosper said. "You never know when a team outside of that rotation may say, 'We really want to push the Spanish market or the French market' or whatever. But we do a review of those stadiums and core markets over the next coming years to see what their availability of viability is.

"So we're not sure where's next, but we're sort of keeping an eye on places like Spain, like France, like Brazil, Canada, etc."

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Seahawks' League-High Travel Miles Continue to Rack Up With Pair of Preseason Trips

• Author: Ty Dane Gonzalez

In this story:

Due to their location in the upper northwest region of the contiguous United States, travel will always play a significant role for the Seahawks on a year-to-year basis. But their itinerary for the upcoming regular season is set to be even more gruelling than usual, thanks in large part to their 10,528-mile roundtrip between Seattle and Munich, Germany. 

In total, the Seahawks will travel 29,446 miles across 34 time zones. Here's where that falls in franchise history:

• 2008 – 29,902
• 2022 – 29,446
• 2018 – 29,088
• 2007 – 29,014
• 2020 – 28,982
• 2004 – 28,860
• 2005 – 28,618
• 2012 – 28,512
• 2013 – 28,270
• 2021 – 28,088

On top of their trip to Germany, the Seahawks will also play three games in the Eastern time zone. Those visits combined will account for 11,090 miles (37.6 percent) of Seattle's distance traveled in 2022. 

This is all while being scheduled to play the fewest possible amount of road games⁠—eight⁠—in a season. That, however, does not account for the preseason, which will see the Seahawks take the skies an additional two times⁠—and neither trip will be a puddle-jumper. 

Seattle will kick off the preseason in Pittsburgh, traveling a whopping 4,258 miles to and from. Then, to cap off its exhibition slate, the team will make its way down to Dallas for a 3,342-mile roundtrip. 

Add both of those numbers to their mile total for the regular season and the Seahawks are set to cover 37,046 miles through the air from August 13 to January 8. Now, if they were to make the postseason, cracking the 40,000-mile could be a real possibility. 

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Seahawks take a page from 2018, embrace ‘field trip’ to Germany

MUNICH — For the Seahawks, Wednesday segued into Thursday without the benefit of a night’s sleep other than the fitful one on an interminable plane flight from Seattle across the Atlantic Ocean onto another continent.

“It felt like one big day,” quarterback Geno Smith said.

And yet there the Seahawks were Thursday afternoon, on one of the soccer fields of FC Bayern Munich’s vast practice facility, stepping lively as the familiar music from their weekly “Techno Thursday” playlist blared. It was as if the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton had been transported to Germany.

Bleary-eyed Seahawks players nevertheless danced and bobbed their heads rhythmically. At one point the entire team became engulfed in one big group hug, jumping up and down like the Mariners after they clinched their playoff spot.

Related Seahawks vs. Bucs in Germany

Joked Smith afterward, “It was OK, but I felt there were a couple of songs they missed. I’m pretty sure Will Dissly will be on them about that, because he’s the techno captain.”

That the Seahawks could be so chipper barely an hour removed from the 12-hour flight across the pond, with only a brief stop at the team hotel to drop off their bags and freshen up a bit, speaks to the positive mindset with which the entire organization is embracing this trip. And that might be their secret weapon as they prepare to face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday in the first NFL game played in Germany.

That’s not to say the Bucs are blowing off the game or griping about the inconvenience. It’s as important to their playoff hopes as it is for the Seahawks, as both teams try to protect their division leads. But when the Seahawks easily defeated the then-Oakland Raiders 27-3 in 2018 in London , their only other foray into Europe, coach Pete Carroll felt the ballclub hit upon the perfect mixture of attitude, science and logistics. They are trying to replicate all that this week.

The logistical part involved the complex task of moving so much necessary equipment and accouterments more than 5,000 miles. The science revolved around the optimal time to travel as well as the best sleep patterns to minimize the debilitating effect of the nine-hour time difference, for which Carroll credited “our no-sleep R & D department.”

But coaxing buy-in from the players in a situation that could easily bring out negativity is Carroll’s bailiwick, and of course he mirrored the desired attitude. The 71-year-old coach was his usual fount of enthusiasm as he flung the football around during their brief walk-through, as well as during the news conference afterward. Carroll likened it to a college bowl trip and said players are excited about the opportunity to play in front of what they hope is a Seahawks-centric crowd.

Seahawks: 1 Jet lag: 0 #munich #seahawks pic.twitter.com/2qiPwjVdS4 — Sara Walsh (@Sara_Walsh) November 10, 2022

“To me it’s really about the attitude — the attitude you put together, how you go about it, and that you don’t take it as a drag, a burden, ‘It’s hard,’ all that kind of stuff,” he said. “You turn it in the right direction, and then you try to make the very most of it. We are patterned very much like we were in London, and that worked out well for us.”

Asked about the team’s energy level, Carroll replied, “Did you watch practice? They went nuts out there today. … I don’t want to make light of this. It’s important, it’s fun, and our guys are jacked.”

That certainly was the takeaway from two of the players made available to the media, Smith and safety Quandre Diggs. Also speaking, appropriately, was Anton Donkor, a linebacker from Germany who is on Seattle’s practice squad with a special exemption as an international player.

“I feel it’s a field trip with great friends and teammates,” Donkor said.

Diggs said the experience of practicing Wednesday in Renton, leaving for the airport to fly through the night and then immediately practicing again Thursday, brought him back to his youth.

“You’ve basically pulled all-nighters before, so it was just like you’re 16 again,” he said, adding that fatigue can be controlled. “It’s mental. Tired is a mental thing.”

Diggs, however, joked that his ability to sleep on the plane was undermined.

“You’ve got the bigger guys up there snoring, so you can’t get enough sleep. I think that was the worst part of the trip.”

That wasn’t a problem for Smith, who said that after he broke down some film, he put on his headphones and earbuds, turned on music and was out like a light.

“I was probably one of those guys snoring,” he said with a laugh.

Smith embodies the attitude that Carroll is seeking from the Seahawks.

“I think everyone on our team is excited, coach included,” he said. “It’s definitely not a nuisance. Anytime you get to represent your country internationally it’s a big thing. I liken it to being on USA Olympic basketball or something like that, where you go overseas and you’re playing your sport, but you’re also representing your country and bringing new fans to the sport as well. I know there’s a big following out there [in Germany], and I look forward to putting on a show for those guys.”

Carroll’s master plan is for the novelty and adventure of the trip to be sustained through Sunday.

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“They were excited going into the travel, and they were excited coming off the plane here tonight,” Carroll said. “We’ll have a big day [Friday], and then we’ll get ready to play.”

Their last practice in Renton before leaving for Germany was one in which turnovers are stressed — preventing them by the offense, getting them by the defense. Near the end of practice, who should come up with a pick-six interception but Donkor. Carroll immediately blew the whistle to end practice so the team could get on the bus en route to Donkor’s homeland.

“It was too perfectly poetic,” Carroll said.

The Seahawks will be looking for some poetic perfection Sunday, and another validation of their “good vibes only” international strategy.

The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only and do not reflect the opinions of The Seattle Times.

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Seahawks honored to play in the 1st-ever nfl game in germany, share this article.

The Seattle Seahawks will be one of two teams to play in the first-ever NFL regular-season game in Germany when they square off against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 10 at Allianz Arena in Munich.

Coach Pete Carroll talked about the magnitude of the opportunity on Monday.

“Sure, and again, I’ll throw this number around, somebody said that there have been three million requests for tickets, which is a staggering number of requests,” Carroll said. “I can’t imagine , but they are excited, they are really pumped up about it. We are going to try and put on a show , make them see our football, and experience it in a way they never have before.

“It’s an honor to do that and we will respect the heck out of every aspect of this.”

As far as travel goes, the Seahawks are set to cross 34 time zones this year when they fly 29,446 miles throughout the 2022 season. Carroll is counting on the previous experience gained from the 2018 matchup in London, for reference.

“ We have a big travel thing to endure, b ut so do they,” Carroll explained. “It’s a bit of a competition in that regard, to put all of the elements that it takes to get this whole thing on the move , transfer us to a new country, and figure it out. We have such a great group around us and people that can function so well together and they are so well organized that it’s not going to be a big deal.

“We are just going to play another away game.”

The Seahawks plan to hit the road following Wednesday’s practice.

Pete Carroll provides Seahawks injury updates heading into Week 10

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Seattle Seahawks FAQ

When did the seattle seahawks start playing in the nfl.

The Seattle Seahawks joined the NFL as an expansion team in 1976. They recently won the Super Bowl (2014), and had some successful seasons during that period, winning the NFC Championship in both 2014 and 2015.

Where do the Seattle Seahawks play their games?

The Seakhawks play at CenturyLink Field, an open-air venue built in 2002. The stadium is known for its intimate atmosphere as well as for the high decibel levels on the field. In fact, Seattle’s is officially the loudest stadium in the NFL, having set the decibel level record in 2014 at 137.4. For nationally-televised games, reporters often bring decibel level readers and compare the volume of noise to that of a jet engine. Are you ready to get rowdy? Then Seattle’s the place to be!

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The stadium was constructed on a very small site compared to other stadiums. For this reason, the building design itself is also compressed very tightly. Fans are closer to the field than they are in almost any NFL stadium, and when you add in factors like the curvature of the roof and the nature of the material (very sound-reflective ones like steel and concrete) you end up with an intimate, if rowdy atmosphere. Just for comparison, the 137.4 decibels recorded in 2014 is quite a bit louder than a vacuum’s 85 decibels, which can contribute to hearing loss with prolonged exposure.

Where should I stay when I visit Seattle?

Seattle may be a relatively small city, but with three-quarters of a million people there is still plenty of urban density to take advantage of. In terms of where to stay, it always depends on the details of your visit. There are plenty of upscale hotels and restaurants to visit, but the city can accommodate the style and budget of any group. If you’re interested in football and football only while you’re in town, then stay near the airport or the stadium itself. If you don’t want to miss some of the city’s attractions, stay downtown. At Bookseats, our specialty is helping you build great trips that build even greater memories, and all at the best prices. Just plug in some details and you’re on your way. Or, if you need more hands-on help, contact us and we’ll be able to help guide you in the right direction.

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On the topic of parties, let’s not forget that the tailgate parties are where you can enjoy some of the most fun of the entire Seattle Seahawks trip! Depending on the state, you might pick that the best way to enjoy your Seattle Seahawks travel package is to show up a few hours early to begin the party!

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The NFL in Germany, an oral history: ‘Beer and brats. It’s like being in Wisconsin’

The NFL will play its first-ever regular-season game in Germany on Sunday, with huge demand for tickets as the Bucs and Seahawks square off at Allianz Arena in Munich.

The league said there were 3 million requests for tickets for the 70,000-seat stadium, a testament to the rabid following there. While much of the league’s international efforts have focused on London in recent years, the NFL has maintained a relationship with Germany for decades.

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In the 1970s, the league had plans for an Intercontinental Football League, including teams in Munich and West Berlin. The IFL was never more than a proposal, but they presented a 1976 summer exhibition between Texas A&I and Henderson State from Berlin’s Olympiastadion, which was built for the 1936 Olympics.

“American football is in Europe and is here to stay,” an unidentified man in bell-bottom jeans and a T-shirt says in a grainy 17-minute video buried online in the University of North Texas digital library. “In a few years, when the sport has become more popular and there is a fan group, it can become professional without the slightest flaw. You can foresee a Berlin team with German players, maybe with an American quarterback or runner. Believe me, they’re going to be yelling and swearing at each other in German, not English.”

It has taken almost 50 years, but American football at the highest level has arrived in Germany. We talked to players and coaches who have seen the country’s love affair with football unfold since 1990, when the league sent two teams each year to Berlin for a preseason game as part of its “American Bowl” series, and through 15 seasons of different incarnations of NFL Europe.

🇺🇸🇩🇪 Die Allianz Arena ist ready fürs NFL-Spiel! 😍 #NFLMunichGame @FCBayern pic.twitter.com/dqA5wDF5mN — NFL Deutschland (@NFLDeutschland) November 10, 2022

The first NFL preseason game in Berlin featured the Chiefs and Rams at a historic time in the city’s history, less than a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. In introducing the debut game, commissioner Paul Tagliabue referred to John F. Kennedy’s famous 1961 speech in that city.

“(Kennedy) said if people want to understand freedom, meaning the difference between freedom and totalitarianism, let them come to Berlin,” he said. “We have come to Berlin to take part in a celebration of freedom, to celebrate the success of a free people and a successful economic system.”

Kansas City had allowed coaches and players to bring their families along for the weeklong stay, practicing in the morning and taking buses for short trips to explore the city’s history in the afternoon.

Tony Dungy, Hall of Fame coach and Chiefs defensive backs coach in 1990, who was also in Berlin with the Vikings in 1993 : Both trips were fantastic, culturally. The wall was just coming down at that point, which was very historic. We got to take our oldest daughter at the time, and it was very cool to explore with her and see a different culture.

Bruce Arians, longtime NFL coach, Chiefs running backs coach in 1990: It was absolutely amazing. We had landed in Shannon (in Ireland, to refuel), and from Shannon to Berlin, we all watched “The Jesse Owens Story,” and we got off the plane and went straight to the stadium. I mean, it was so eerie to walk in that stadium, to see Hitler’s box still there. And we went over to the drill field, and I forget how many troops he had out there. It was really chilling.

Tom Pratt, longtime NFL assistant, Chiefs defensive line coach in 1990: We certainly went after the football, although we did get beat in that game. But we also got to visit Berlin and see the wall. I thought that was important. We got to share in the history of the whole thing.

Wade Phillips, longtime NFL coach, coached in Berlin with the Broncos in 1992: You think you have history in the United States until you see it there. We went to some of the museums there, and they were fantastic. You really notice that kind of stuff.

Dungy: It was unbelievable, to get the whole scope of what life was like. That wall had been in place for so long, and it was just the very beginning of progressing to tear it down. A few of our players got little pieces of rock from the wall.

Pratt: We took our two girls and my son, and we rented a chisel and a hammer from one of the entrepreneurs there, and they’re up there chipping part of the wall off. I’ve still got them. I’ve got one piece outside by my front door.

Dave Moore, longtime Bucs tight end and radio analyst, played in Berlin with the Dolphins as a rookie in 1992: I’m trying to concentrate and make the team, and talk about distractions, now I’m in Germany. It was only two and a half years after the wall came down. We stayed in East Berlin, and nobody could speak English because the secondary language was Russian. Every time we went out, you had to point to a picture on the menu. Otherwise you had to go where Checkpoint Charlie was to get to West Berlin, where everybody spoke English. The Broncos stayed in West Berlin. It was a great experience, though, very cool to play in a stadium that had a ton of history.

Brad Johnson, longtime NFL quarterback, played in Berlin with the Vikings in 1993 and later in NFL Europe: Holy smokes, this is where they held the Olympics . This is where Jesse Owens ran. The history of it all. When the game was played, it was like just another game. Looking back at it, it’s awesome to be able to say I got to visit and go overseas and experience different things.

Robert Smith, Vikings running back who played in Berlin in 1993: This is my rookie season and (it was) just incredible for me. I was a history major at Ohio State, a military history specialist. To go in there, being from Ohio State, knowing Jesse Owens’ story, practicing by Olympic Stadium and playing in Olympic Stadium. My mother’s father was first generation from a border area called Szczecin inside Poland, so Polish and German roots. It was just a really cool trip for me. The reception was amazing. The fans were excited to see us and fascinated by the size of the linemen. It was an amazing trip.

Curt Menefee, Fox Sports broadcaster, called eight World Bowls from 2000 to ’07: I was a history major in college, so I always liked Berlin. You’d drive around Berlin and there’s still huge sections of wall there, with graffiti on it. You’d see that, and being witness to that history live was something that was high on my agenda, and you appreciated it as a cultural experience more than the football aspect. There’s a lot of history around Germany, (such as) the churches in Cologne.

Peter Vaas, two-time World Bowl champ as coach of the Berlin Thunder: I was fascinated with the history of both Berlin and Cologne. You’d be walking down the streets in Cologne and you’d see pieces of the Roman aqueduct system. You get down around the Reichstag, the Berlin capital, and the Brandenburg Gate, you can see the brick path of where the wall used to exist. When I was in Berlin, the team would go to a concentration camp. Each year, we had a whole new group of players. It was eye-opening to see how our guys reacted to stuff. It gave you chills.

For most of two decades, the NFL used Europe for its developmental spring league. The World League of American Football had three of its 10 teams in Europe in 1991, including the Frankfurt Galaxy in Germany. In 1995, it was rebranded as NFL Europe, adding a second German team in the Rhein Fire, based in Dusseldorf.

The league rebranded as NFL Europa for its final season in 2007, when five of six franchises were in Germany: the Galaxy and Fire, along with the Berlin Thunder, Cologne Centurions and Hamburg Sea Devils. 

Menefee: I wouldn’t be where I am today without NFL Europe, and I think a lot of people can say that. I look at coaches, and Jason Garrett came out of there and Jim Tomsula. Doug Pederson actually played there as a quarterback. I don’t want to say a lot of people owe their existence (to it), as they could have found a different path, but it certainly was the best way forward for a lot of people, and I include myself in that. So I have fond memories of it. Germany was always the country that celebrated American football better than everything else.

Doug Graber, longtime NFL and college assistant, won the World Bowl as the head coach of the Frankfurt Galaxy: The Germans absolutely love football. It’s shocking to me that the NFL has played games in London and not in Germany. Frankly, it’s not even close. In Frankfurt, we averaged almost 50,000 a game. It’s hard to explain how wild the games were there. I’ve never been in a game in this country that could approach what it was like. You couldn’t hear yourself think.

Brian Baldinger, NFL offensive lineman and broadcaster, called NFL Europe games for Fox: It was unreal. Every game I did there, whether it was in Frankfurt or Dusseldorf, Berlin not so much, it was just a phenomenal scene. The pregame party, the crowd was so into it.

Menefee: The Deutschland Derby, between Frankfurt and Rhein, was always in the last three weeks of the season, and they had 40,000 people. You may have a game in Barcelona, and Barcelona’s a great freakin’ place, but there’s 6,000 people there. It’s the L.A. of Europe in a way, in that you have beaches and sunshine and, “Yeah, we’ll show up at the game later.” In Germany, there was 40,000, whether it was at Rhein or Dusseldorf.

Arians: They were fantastic. Great, great crowd. A little different from London, but you look, and every jersey in the league is worn. Somebody’s got one on. It’s loud and nonstop, a tremendous crowd.

Pratt: They were enthusiastic. I think in some cases, they didn’t know what they were cheering for, but it was all new for them. When the kicker came out, they were very excited.

Vaas: I can’t remember if this was cheering or booing, but they constantly blow whistles during the game. You play to the whistle, but there’s a zillion different whistles, so you’re not really positive which one you’re playing to. You’ve got to get used to how a play starts and stops from the officials on the field. Was it a long-distance whistle or up close in your ear?

Graber: They’d blow whistles, and if the referees would ask them not to, they’d just blow them louder. The players just got used to playing with that. It was deafening. Frankfurt and the Rhein Fire just packed them in.

Menefee : They’d have halftime acts. “Mambo No. 5” (by Lou Bega), they performed it at halftime of one of those games. So I saw it before it had even come out in the States. You’d hear songs there, and three months later, you’d hear songs here. I saw Coolio perform there once at halftime. It was a big deal, those games. Germany really embraced the league from Day 1.

Dungy: The people were just getting into NFL football, had a lot of energy. It was pretty awesome. There was a fascination to it. It wasn’t any different than being at a regular preseason game for us. People seemed to know what was going on. They got excited over the big plays and the hits.

Johnson : What I remember about Frankfurt was it was 35,000 fans, but it felt like 80,000.  They have an Army base there, and it was electric. The fan base, the crowd noise, was always in play. It was loud, exciting. Fireworks, different kinds of music being played. I loved it.

Baldinger: They had certain songs. For whatever reason, “The Mighty Quinn,” Bob Dylan. That was their song in Dusseldorf after they won. They played that during the game, after the game, everybody sang that like a chant.

Graber: Their favorite was ( Bruce Channel ’s) “Hey, Baby.” They’d sing that two to three times a game. And they sang a song ( by Smokie ) about Alice, and the punchline of the song was “Alice, Alice, who the f— is Alice?” The games were on Fox and you could clearly hear it on TV. The Germans, the more they cuss, the more they think they’re American.

Phillips: “Hey Baby,” they sang that one for sure. Bruce Channel, he used to come to our camp and sing that song when I was with the Saints. My dad (Bum) brought in a lot of country-western singers. It was a big song over there, and it was fun to hear that again.

Menefee: You’ve got 40,000 people in the stands and they’re singing every word in English. You’re just waiting for it. It is amazing, the random songs. All of a sudden, I’m hearing (“Hey Baby”) in the stands. I’m like, “Why do they love this song?” I still don’t know why to this day. It really is funny, but they created an atmosphere that was like no other.

“Power parties” were massive pregame gatherings that Sports Illustrated in 2002 described as “a Teutonic tailgate that’s something between a state fair and a Grateful Dead concert.”

Baldinger: They had these sing-along songs, power parties that started hours before. They just wanted a taste of Americana, so they got their face painted up. It was like a carnival and a concert, part state fair, part athletic event.

Vaas: Power parties. The fans probably enjoyed them as much as anything. As you can imagine, you’d see people in pregame walking through the tailgate section, and they had backpacks just full of beer, serving it to people. It was almost like your driveway air-blower (backpack), but full of beer. Tampa and Seattle might not see that, but they’ll hear about it. The fan involvement in pregame is tremendous.

Graber: Frankfurt had a power party before every game. It started four hours before the game, and they’d have a minimum of 20,000 people. I don’t know what the hell they did. We had training camp in Tampa, and there’d be a couple hundred Germans at every practice. They’d rent a big truck, had cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. It was nuts.

Menefee: It was Oktoberfest every weekend, basically. It was always a big festival atmosphere, which was so different from everywhere else, and part of the reason that at the end, five of the six teams were in Germany.

Baldinger: They had a hot tub in the end zone. People would win lottery tickets to sit in the hot tub. One year, in the World Bowl, they had a huge elephant come in with the World Bowl trophy around the trunk. Fans were riding the elephant into the stadium. They really knew how to put on a show. All of us — Troy Aikman, Moose Johnston, Bill Maas — all of us that were over there, we enjoyed those games, every game. We’re all sort of connected by our time over there. It was a bonding experience for all of us.

Menefee: (NFL Europe) is such a bond. I saw Kurt Warner in Arizona last week and we talked about NFL Europe. Wherever you go, there’s a connection you always have because of this league and this place, and you always go back to it as soon as you run into someone. It can be a coach, a player, another broadcaster, officials. Walt Anderson, now head of officiating, one of the first times I met him was in a bar at a hotel in Offenbach, Germany, which is where the team hotel was for the Frankfurt Galaxy. One of the first things we go back to is NFL Europe. It’s like you went to high school with somebody, and the memories come flooding back right away. It’s a beautiful thing.

Menefee: When you’re there, you’re going to do beer in Germany. How can you not? Beer and brats. It’s like being in Wisconsin, just a little farther east.

Johnson: Had a few beers. And the beer had a little bit stronger alcohol content to it.

Pratt: First thing I did was order a draft beer, and that was great, but they’d pour it in the glass and the foam comes about halfway, and they’d let it settle, then pour some more in, let it settle. By the time you got your beer, it was 10 minutes. So I started ordering bottled beer. That was easier.

Phillips: Big beer steins. That was the first time I’d been to Germany. The things you think about Germany in terms of drinking and eating, it was all that you imagined. They had a good time and really enjoyed themselves.

Baldinger: The beer gardens in Dusseldorf are second to none. In Frankfurt, they had one restaurant we’d go to, the Steiner Haus, with a hot stone. They give you this hot stone, and you cook your meat or fish or shrimp or whatever. They had the big steins of beer, very festive. We always had a really good time. Beer is beer. It brings people together, and it’s what they do best. It’s cold, it’s fresh, it’s big. You never stop filling it up.

Arians: My wife and I walked every night, just looked for a beer sign and a pot roast sign. It was a great week.

Dungy: I tried it all. Wanted to experiment with the local food. All the beverages were lukewarm. I’m a cold person. Cold milk, cold water, cold soda. They don’t deal with a lot of ice over there. That was the one thing where I remember thinking, “I don’t know if I could live here.” I’d have to get my own icemaker.

Graber: Anywhere you go, you order a pils, which is a light beer. They were different in every area. I’m not a big drinker, but they were wonderful. The Germans drink a lot of damn beer, but there were very few police, never any issues. Players were treated like celebrities over there.

Baldinger: I would eat schnitzel for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I love schnitzel. The brats, the German food, I like meat. I never understood the little bun with the big brat. You’d have a four-inch bun and a 12-inch bratwurst. I didn’t ever understand that. I loved it.

Vaas: One of the things I love to this day is spargel. It’s white asparagus. We’ll order a meal and get steak and potatoes, but they get spargel and ham, spargel and bacon. It was not a year-round food, but I totally loved that part of it. Whether it’s with butter or with Hollandaise sauce, gosh, it’s good.

Graber: It was quite amazing, really. A fabulous experience. I’ve never talked to anybody that didn’t love every minute of NFL Europe. It was a tragedy when the NFL dropped it, honestly stupid. It was Tagliabue’s deal, and the new guy came in. Germany would support an NFL team like you couldn’t imagine.

Dungy: People were very hospitable, took great care of us. We didn’t know what to expect. I’d never really done that, didn’t know how the game would be received, but the people were into it, and it was a tremendous experience for our whole group.

Baldinger: I always thought the NFL missed the boat when they played all these games in London. London’s fine, it sells out, it’s real popular, but Germany was where the fan base was for American football.

(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic ; Photo: Alexander Heimann / Bongarts / Getty Images)

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