2020 was an unusual year in all of our lives. COVID-19 kept us from convening in public, and sports leagues — like everyone else — had to find workarounds in order to get their games played.
The workaround for the NFL was to play in empty stadiums as fans were prohibited from attending due to the contagious nature of the virus.
In Week 1, the New York Giants hosted the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday Night Football. With no fans in the stadium, the teams could hear all of the banter on the other side of the line of scrimmage as well as the other side of the field.
It was all new for NFL teams. There would more to be learned as the season went on. Things weren’t going to be business as usual.
All-Pro linebacker T.J. Watt recently recalled the game on an eerie night three seasons ago.
“We could hear the huddle call,” Watt said on the Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger podcast. “We had the Giants on a silent count by the second or third series. Me and Bud (linebacker Bud DuPree) are just looking at each other like ‘it’s on one.'”
“They went to a silent count in an empty stadium,” Watt recalled. “It was incredible.”
It was more bizarre if anything. The game was a typical pre-Brian Daboll-era one: competitive early, not so competitive late. The Giants had a 10-3 lead early in the second quarter but by the five-minute mark in the fourth, they were down, 26-10, en route to a 26-16 defeat.
