I've got north of 200 games under my belt. I didn't miss a home game at Gillette until November, 2010 when my daughter was born on a Sunday morning, a consecutive streak that ran all the way back to 1996 in Sullivan Stadium.
Sullivan Stadium was an absolute shitshow, especially prior to those years when the team sucked. But since the day they opened Gillette, its been one of the safer venues you could find. Every season ticket holder has been warned that there is a zero tolerance policy for anything, and every single seat in the stadium has a camera trained on it at all times. There were definitely more fights back when it first opened, but I might go to a dozen games before seeing anything of substance. I think I've seen more fights after games outside the stadium than I've seen inside the stadium in the past 15 years, and I could count those on two hands.
You put 60,000 people with alcohol in any setting and there is bound to be some problems, but all in all, safety has never been a concern of mine at a Pats game, or I wouldn't have started bringing my son when he was 4 years old to at least one game a year (he's 15 now and was with me on Sunday night).
I saw more fights in the stands at game 3 of the Sox/Yanks ALCS game in 2003 than I've seen at Gillette total since that night.
