Saints had great reasons for choosing Jacksonville as location for Packers game

The New Orleans Saints will face the Green Bay Packers at TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville, Fla. during Week 1 of the NFL season. The game was supposed to be held at the Superdome in New Orleans, but that plan was changed due to the Hurricane Ida-caused damage throughout the state of Louisiana.

Jacksonville was an interesting location for the game, and there are several excellent reasons why that venue was selected.

Nola.com’s Jeff Duncan wrote a great column breaking down how the Saints chose Jacksonville.

For starters, the game needed to be played at an NFL stadium because those stadiums are properly set up for the NFL’s replay and review system. Dallas would have been a natural fit since the Saints are practicing nearby, but it was booked for a concert.

Next, the Saints looked to the state of Florida. Florida made sense because there are three NFL cities in the state, and all the stadiums were available: Miami, Jacksonville and Tampa. The Saints also liked that Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has a 3-4 record playing in Florida during his career.

But the best reason of all for their choice to play in Jacksonville had to do with the fans.

The Saints reasoned that Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans might show up at Raymond James Stadium to cheer against their division rivals. The Saints didn’t like Miami, because they figured that would be an attractive destination for Packers fans to travel. They ended up on Jacksonville because they researched and saw that a flight to that city was much more expensive than the other Florida cities.

In essence, the Saints wanted to pick a destination that would make it as difficult as possible for Packers fans to turn it into a “home” game for Green Bay. They sure used a great thought process coming up with their decision.

The entire column is worth a read.

The game is scheduled to take place on Sunday, Sept. 12 at 4:25 pm ET.