Unless you’ve been living in a bunker, you already know that country roads are officially taking the New York Giants home to West Virginia for training camp.
With MetLife Stadium prepping for the upcoming World Cup, head coach John Harbaugh is packing up the entire operation and heading into the Allegheny Mountains. But make no mistake about it, this trip to the historic Greenbrier Resort is anything but a scenic mountain vacation.
It might look like a five-star hotel on the outside, but the resort was once the ultimate reassurance plan. The luxury retreat sits directly on top of Project Greek Island, a top-secret Cold War bunker built to house the entire U.S. Congress in the event of an all-out nuclear war.
For decades, military personnel disguised as hotel audio/video mechanics covered up a billion-dollar government secret right below the guest rooms.
The Giants are getting a very different kind of training camp experience this year
There might not be a more secluded place the Giants could have picked to set up camp. Seriously, any talks of anyone being distracted by outside noise will find that there's not much noise where they're going.
The biggest winner of the change of scenery is Harbs.
As Conor Orr noted in his 100 Bold Predictions for Sports Illustrated, the venue’s secretive past is the ultimate alternative training camp site for a guy who has a thing for history: "Harbaugh will put both his love for history and game-changing reputation as a head coach into uncovering less savory details. ... If anyone is going to find out, it’s John Harbaugh."
If Harbs was enamored by Big Blue's past -- a part of the reason why he was interested in the job -- he's going to be a kid in a candy shop at Greenbrier.
NFL coaches are known to be a bit paranoid, so what better place to let that suspicion run rampant than the paranoia capital of the Allegheny Mountains. Sending a completely overhauled coaching staff and a revamped roster on top of a literal blast shelter is about as controlled an environment as you’re going to find for a new staff trying to find the right guys.
The Greenbrier bunker was designed to save the government when the rest of the world collapsed into a nuclear winter, and now it’ll play host to a team looking to make it out of its own apocalyptic nightmare -- at least, that's what the last decade has felt like.
Getting this team in a historic place rooted in decades of government secrecy could lead to some awesome stories out of camp -- I'm waiting for a Jameis Winston tell-all. Who knows, maybe some of the players will get super strength from phantom radiation or something.
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