ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Watch the Broncos or any other NFL game on TV this season and, for the most part, it was difficult to tell they were playing before minimal to no fans in the stands.
The games have been as intensely competitive as ever. Many games have been wildly exciting to the last second. Piped-in crowd noise may have helped stir the environment some, but for the most part the competitors made their own atmosphere.
It started with the NBA playoffs in the Disney Bubble where the Nuggets rallied in back-to-back series from 3-1 deficits to reach the Conference Finals.
In baseball, the postseason was played before sparse crowds at neutral-site ballparks yet the two Championship Series went 7 games with the Dodgers rallying from 3 to 1 down to defeat the Braves and the Rays nearly blowing a 3-nothing lead before hanging on to beat the Astros. The World Series was tilting toward Tampa until a fateful pitching move in Game 5 sent the Dodgers to their first championship since Kirk Gibson’s limp around the bases 32 years ago.
The NFL had comebacks, high-scoring, back-and-forth shows and last-second defeat-turned-to-victory nearly every week. The Ravens’ 47-42, Monday night win against the Browns three weeks ago was probably the most thrilling game, but the Broncos, who were never in playoff contention, got one of their five wins on a clock-expiring touchdown throw from Drew Lock to KJ Hamler to beat the Chargers, 31-30.
There were about 5,000 fans in an 76,000-seat Empower Field at Mile High for that game. And zero fans at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium last week when the Chargers held on to win the rematch, 19-16.
It just shows that as long as they keep score, one side will try to whip the other.
“I think that was to be expected,’’ said Broncos head coach Vic Fangio. “We all started playing sports growing up in the backyard and in the playgrounds with nobody watching. Those are competitive games as you'll see and I think once you cross the white lines and there's 11 others on the other side of the ball, playing from an NFL team against your team.’’
How many driveway hoops games across America have resulted in black eyes and bruised ribs between siblings? How many Little League games have resulted in a team’s group of parents yelling at the other? In adult recreation sports like slo-pitch softball, the participants show up with the attitude they’re just there to have fun and drink beer. But as the game moves to 5-4 in the top of the fourth, players start yelling at the umps, whether they’ve had a couple beers or not.
Something happens to the human condition when the score is kept – not all of it healthy, but almost always there’s an attempt for one person to try and defeat the other.
In past years – make that every year leading up to the COVID professional sports seasons of 2020 – players or coaches would credit their fans for rallying the team from a large deficit, or inspiring one to give their all. But there was no home-crowd advantage anywhere this year and teams still rallied from behind and almost every player seemed to give their all.
“Sometimes it was cool in a completely empty stadium,’’ said Broncos Pro Bowl pass rusher Bradley Chubb. “It was like true football. You could hear guys talking back-and-forth. You can hear pads wrestling. You can hear the quarterback’s cadence a lot better with the hard counts and all that. It was pretty cool but for sure, miss the fans. It was a different experience but I’d much rather have fans in the stadium than without fans but whatever we had to – 2020 was such a tough year we had to do, what’s safe so glad we did that.’’
Especially when the entertainment aspect of competitive sports games didn’t seem to suffer.
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