For all intents and purposes, Sunday's game will be played in the backyard of the home where Buffalo running back Fred Jackson grew up.
When Cowboys Stadium was constructed, a number of homes and other structures in the Arlington entertainment distrcit were purchased and cleared via eminent domain. The rental house Jackson lived in used to sit in what is now a parking lot for the stadium, which began construction in April, 2006.
Jackson said he grew up idolizing Emmitt Smith, and wears the No. 22 jersey now because of the former Cowboys great.
"It was a lot of fun," Jackson said. "We were young kids playing football out in the middle of the street. It will be good going back."
Jackson's football career has been a long, strange trip. A late-bloomer physically, he didn't even start for Arlington's Lamar High School, and ended up playing at Division III Coe College in Iowa. He spent two seasons in the minor leagues of arena football, playing for the Sioux City Bandits, and was with the Rhein Fire of NFL Europe in 2006.
Legendary Bills coach Marv Levy, a Bills alumnus, invited Jackson to the team's training camp in 2006, and the rest is history.
Sunday will be his first time playing in Cowboys Stadium, but he has visited before, just a stone's throw away from the place he grew up.
"I did go back last year and got Super Bowl tickets for my parents so they could go to the Super Bowl back there," Jackson said. "It's completely different. It's a completely different place than what I grew up in. So it will be a lot of fun to get back and hang out a little bit."
