Visiting teams arrive at Gillette Stadium up a thin-ribbon of a back road called Putnam Parkway, a private, secret entrance far from the traffic and tailgating out on Route 1. To get there team buses weave through classic New England roads and the quaint neighborhoods of Foxborough.
Then it hits them. Emerging suddenly from the thick woods behind the New England Patriots' lower practice field is the site of the towering stadium — 16 stories itself — elevated further up on a hill with bright lights stretching even deeper into the sky above it.
It belies the NFL’s traditional city center or smacked alongside interstate locations.