JACKSONVILLE, FLA. ? Welcome to the Super Bowl! Hey, Philadelphia Eagles center Hank Fraley! What do you think of the Jacksonville experience so far?

“I thought it would be a little bit warmer,” Fraley said after his team’s practice Monday.

Apparently, Fraley had not consulted a United States map. Neither had the NFL. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have put the Super Bowl in a city where the morning temperatures this time of year hover in the mid-40s, rising to 58 degrees by midday.

Jacksonville is a city in Florida. But this is not the resort Florida, where sunbathers lounge by the pool in February and sip exotic drinks with umbrellas in them. This is the more gritty Florida, located a few miles south of the Georgia border, where many Navy men and ships are based, and where numerous other upstanding citizens work hard to earn an honest living.

This is all well and fine. However, it does not necessarily qualify the city to play host to a Super Bowl. But here we are. Jacksonville is the second-smallest NFL market (beating out Green Bay), and the smallest ever to play host to the game. So there were doubts when the game was scheduled.

Sorry to say, but these doubts were not eased by my first local taxi experience. It seems that there aren’t enough Jacksonville cabs or cab drivers to service such a major event. Thus, the master plan calls for temporary cabbies to be imported from other areas.

Decent concept. Harder to execute, as I discovered upon leaving the official NFL headquarters hotel.

“Take me to the football stadium, please,” I told my cabbie.

“Where?” asked the driver.

Turned out he was from New York. His name was Touba. He was a very pleasant fellow, an immigrant from Senegal, but he got lost twice while trying to find the only landmark in town anyone really cares about this week. I finally had to point Touba in the proper direction to Alltel Stadium, until he turned down yet another dead-end street and dropped me off some five blocks away.

By Sunday, I figure Touba should know the way. That’s the good news. But between now and then, he and dozens of other cabbies probably will be driving the wrong way down several one-way streets. That’s the bad news.

Look, I’m paid to be here. So I purposely dial down any whining about most Super Bowl cities. But if I were someone who had paid $500 per ticket to the game, and a thousand for transportation and a hotel room, plus a few hundred more for meals … well, I might scratch my head and wonder what the NFL is thinking.

Here’s why: We are in the midst of what might be called the “Trailer Park Rotation” of Super Bowl sites. Last year, Houston. This year, Jacksonville. Next year, Detroit. Would anyone choose to take a vacation in any of those places, outside of family visits? Ever? It’s no surprise that such cities struggle to deal with 100,000 or so tourists coming to town.

Apparently, this isn’t a concern to the league. The Super Bowl has become so immense, so bulletproof, that it simply doesn’t matter where the game is played.

When the Eagles’ plane touched down Sunday, a local reporter actually posed this question to Philadelphia coach Andy Reid: “Coach, is there anything about Jacksonville that repulses you?”

In response, Reid wrinkled his mustache, pondered the philosophical implications of his answer and expansively uttered: “No.”

If it’s cold again this morning, I’m suggesting he take a cab to practice.