During a weekend many thought would never come to fruition, the NFL has finally returned to kick off its 2020 season. Unlike the NBA, who is finishing its playoff sequestered from the world in Orlando, and the NHL, who set up a pair of game sites in Toronto and Edmonton, the NFL is not playing its season in a 'bubble'. And, unlike the MLB, whose season now features seven-inning doubleheaders and an automatic runner on second for each extra inning, the NFL has not significantly altered any rules for this season. Instead, the country's largest and most powerful sports league soldiers on, much like it would any other year.
And so far...it’s working.
Not to jinx anything, but the first week of the NFL's 2020 season was a success story, primarily because the coronavirus, which has greatly upended life in America, has not yet stopped the NFL. In the league's most recent round of testing, eight individuals, only one of whom was a current player, tested positive for COVID-19, out of 44,510 tests. While the league seemingly faced disaster in late August with 77 positive cases in a single day, all of them proved to be false positives due to an error at the league's testing site.
This isn't to say things aren't different this season. All but two week one games featured no fans in the stands, with only Kansas City and Jacksonville allowing a limited number of spectators. For the venues without fans, the league is pumping in artificial crowd noise to make the games feel a little more normal. And, while it isn’t perfect (CBS commentators Jim Nantz and Tony Romo joked that the artificial crowd noise at Gillette Stadium sounded “a little too happy for a field goal” after the Patriots failed to convert on third down), barring shots of tens of thousands of empty seats, the audio and visuals of the game felt largely the same as they would in more normal times.
What did feel unusual was the Patriots starting their season without Tom Brady. For the first time in his career, Brady will not be sporting the Flying Elvis on his helmet, having instead left for Tampa Bay (Tompa Bay? Tampa Brady? The branding is unclear...) to join the Buccaneers. The Patriots, in turn, signed former league MVP Cam Newton to replace Brady. Newton rushed for 75 yards (already over 7% of Brady's rushing yards in 20 seasons with the Patriots) and two touchdowns in the Patriots 21-11 victory over the Miami Dolphins, while Brady threw two touchdowns (along with two interceptions) and rushed for a third in a 34-23 loss to the New Orleans Saints. Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians voiced his displeasure at Brady's performance, blaming Brady during the post-game press conference for the turnovers the Bucs' new quarterback had a hand in.
Bill Belichick would NEVER.
Throughout the off-season, rumors surfaced that Brady's departure from New England was a result of being 'Belichick-ed out', tired of the legendary coach's lack of praise and harsh criticisms of Brady's performance during games and practices. Belichick famously would tell Brady after particularly bad throws, "I can get Johnny Foxborough from down the street to make a better throw than this". However, can you imagine Belichick blaming his team's loss on a single player's performance? The legendary coach (and recent Subway commercial star), as if 2020 wasn't weird enough, instead prefers to give the media as few specifics as possible, never blaming individual players and always insisting that football is a team game. That is, if he gives the press an answer at all.
The 2020-2021 NFL season, like everything else in 2020, will be anything but usual. However, we can still manage to field a sense of normalcy every Sunday afternoon. Case in point, when asked if he had ever experienced anything like football with no fans, the famously media-friendly Belichick gave a one-word answer, "practice".
Welcome back, football. We missed you.
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