Rick Gosselin

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Houston Texans owner Bob McNair spared no expense when it came time to house his NFL expansion team. Backboned by public financing, the Texans erected a $440 million stadium that featured the NFL's first retractable roof.

At the time, it was the most expensive NFL stadium ever built. Reliant Stadium certainly got the attention of the NFL, which staged a Super Bowl in Houston's football palace within 24 months of opening. The new stadium also got the attention of the coaches, players and fans of the Texans.

"A new stadium energizes everyone," McNair said. "The fans are certainly proud of it. Everyone wants to think what their city has is the best. It's also a positive for the players. They like to practice at a new facility and play in a great stadium. Any professional wants to be showcased.

"It's like an actor or an actress. They don't want to work in a run-down theater. They want to perform on a nice stage with good sound so they can present themselves in the best possible light. I think football players are the same way."

The stadium did not have a direct impact on the play of the Texans. They are still looking for their first winning season in this their eighth year of existence. But new stadiums have had positive impacts on teams throughout the league.

The Tennessee Titans moved into LP Field in 1999, posted a 13-3 record and went to the Super Bowl. Fourteen stadiums have been built since 1998. Nine of those teams with new homes advanced to the Super Bowl since moving.

A change of address tends to signal a change in attitude. Texans coach Gary Kubiak witnessed it in Denver as an assistant coach in 2001 when the Broncos left Mile High Stadium for Invesco Field.

"It's almost like a total change in the culture of a franchise," Kubiak said. "I loved old Mile High as a player and what it stood for. When we went to Invesco, there was a total change – uniforms, environment, everything.

"These stadiums are so nice nowadays. I grew up old school with places like Cleveland Stadium and Mile High. I miss those days. But these new places are beautiful."

The NFL's newest place is the $1.15 billion Cowboys Stadium, which opens this season. The Giants and Jets will move into a new stadium in New Jersey in 2010 – the 20th new stadium constructed since the implementation of the salary cap in 1994.

A look at the NFL's other recent additions:

The Washington Redskins were among the original supersizers in the NFL stadium boom.

The Redskins played in the cozy confines of RFK Stadium from 1961-96, squeezing in crowds of 55,500 for the biggest games. But when FedEx was constructed for the 1997 season, capacity zoomed to 78,600.

In the 11 seasons since then, additional seating has pumped up capacity to 91,704. That makes FedEx the largest stadium in the NFL. Also, only the new Cowboys Stadium has more suites (300) than FedEx (234). That's almost triple the number of suites at RFK.

But the Redskins have made their home field so big even Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs couldn't win there. Gibbs, of course, coached Washington to three Super Bowls at RFK from 1982-92. He retired from coaching in 1993 but unretired in 2004.

Gibbs won 75 percent of his career games at RFK (68-23) but struggled at FedEx, managing just a .500 record (12-12) in his three seasons there.

RFK was a downtown stadium with a downtown crowd. There was an edge there on game day. No such edge exists at FedEx. It's a suburban stadium (Landover, Md.) with a suburban crowd. It's not the intimidating place for visitors that RFK was, which explains why the Redskins have only qualified for the playoffs three times in their 12 seasons at FedEx.

The Pittsburgh Steelers had the history and aura. What the Steelers lacked was the money to compete in the new NFL.

When free agency and the salary cap were introduced to the NFL landscape in the mid-1990s, the Steelers were playing in Three Rivers Stadium, a multipurpose facility that also housed baseball's Pirates. With an initial seating capacity of 50,000, Three Rivers was a bit too big for baseball but too small for football.

With tighter financial restrictions of a salary cap, free agency became a game of signing bonuses. The Steelers didn't have the seating capacity or suites to generate the cash flow for that type of spending.

So the Steelers weren't in competition for the elite free agents, nor were they able to re-sign their own blue-chip players.

All that changed at the turn of the decade when the Steelers received public funding for a new stadium. The seating capacity at Heinz Field would increase to almost 65,000 with 127 suites and 6,600 club seats. The premiums spent on those luxuries gave the Steelers the cash flow to become a factor in free agency.

The stadium opened in 2001, but the spending began a year earlier.

The Steelers won a division title in their first season in Heinz Field, then won a Super Bowl in their fifth year in the new stadium.

Invesco Field was the stadium that John Elway built. Unfortunately, it was never a stadium that John Elway played in.

The Broncos won their first Super Bowl in 1998 – and a stadium proposal later that year received public approval with 57 percent of the vote. Construction of the stadium began in 1999 on the heels of a second consecutive Super Bowl by the Broncos.

By the time the Broncos moved into Invesco Field in 2001, Elway had retired and the magic of old Mile High Stadium had dissipated.

The Broncos had played at Mile High Stadium since the inception of the franchise in 1960 when it seated just 35,000. With countless renovations of the rickety old building, the seating capacity ballooned to 76,000 by the 1980s. The place shook and gave the Broncos a terrific home-field advantages during the Elway era.

From 1983-98, the Broncos won 80 percent of their games (102-26) at Mile High, closing the Elway era in 1998 with 24-game home winning streak. Denver's Hall of Fame quarterback retired after that season, and the Broncos moved into Invesco in 2001.

But bigger, more comfortable Invesco has not produce louder crowds. Invesco, with its 76,125 seats, 8,800 club seats and 132 luxury suites, does not contain the noise like Mile High did. And the Broncos aren't nearly as invincible at home. They have won 69 percent (44-20) of their games at Invesco.

The New England Patriots were the best team in the NFL when they moved into Gillette Stadium in 2002. But it took the Patriots a year to get comfortable in their new digs.

The 2002 season was the only one in the span of four (2001-04) that the Patriots did not win the Super Bowl. New England didn't even qualify for the playoffs in 2002.

But that was a mere blip in the history book. The Patriots were a great team before they moved into their new building and an even greater one after. New England became only the seventh franchise in NFL history to win consecutive Super Bowls in 2003-04.

The Patriots annually rank among the NFL's most expensive tickets, but that's understandable. The stadium was privately financed to the tune of $325 million, and the Patriots did not require their fans to buy personal seat licenses.

Foxboro Stadium, the previous home of the Patriots, seated 60,200. Gillette seats 68,756, including 6,000 club seats and 87 luxury suites. The suites are the biggest in the NFL, some as large as 2,700-square feet.

The Patriots have won 79 percent of their games since moving into Gillette (44-12). New England never managed an unbeaten home season in the 31 years the Patriots played at Foxboro Stadium. But New England has had three 8-0 seasons in its seven seasons at Gillette.