Julian Edelman has a habit of sprinting the length of the field when he emerges from the tunnel before every New England Patriots’ home game. Once he reaches the far end zone, he jumps into the air and pumps his fists, which draws huge cheers from the crowd.
But, of course, there was no crowd in Week 1 at Gillette Stadium when the Patriots defeated the Miami Dolphins. New England was not allowed to have fans in attendance due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
And so there was a sense of anticlimax when Edelman did his sprint and got to the end zone. He slowed to a stop. There was no fist pump or leap into the air — because there was no one to excite. He was asked what playing in the empty stadium was like for the athletes.
“Honestly it reminded me of the times I was back at the College of San Mateo, my junior college. It was a full love of the game type mentality out there,” Edelman told reporters. “You could hear the other guys, everybody could hear each other. It was about going out and playing the game that you love. It was obviously unfortunate that we don’t have any fans. That energy and getting to go out there in front of 75,000 people is amazing but it brought you almost kind of back. It was weird. It brought me back at least to high school, junior college, college – my college, we didn’t really sell out that much so it felt like that.”
The increased communication was apparent, with Newton tweaking the offense at the line of scrimmage early and often in the game. The results were good: New England won, 21-11, and Newton finished with two rushing touchdowns. Even so, it was strange without a roar from fans when he got into the end zone for the first time in his Patriots career.
“There we’re definitely moments where I was like ‘Woah,’ but it was obviously new to all of us,” center David Andrews said after the game. “We have never really run out onto the field without any fans, heck even in peewee there were fans, but I liked the way we went out there and competed and played the game. In some ways, it brings the game back to why you started playing, just to love playing the game. There’s no fans, it is just a bunch of grown men playing a kids game.”
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