Special Commentary: Bleacher behavior can ruin football fun
We are pretty deep into the NFL football playoffs, one of my favorite times of year. I am a big fan of football despite my favorite team, the Atlanta Falcons, being perpetually terrible. I know I’m not alone. There are a lot of fans of underachieving teams. Still, we return every season with hope, for some reason, that this is the year.
As the season progresses, football emotions heighten. There was a recent viral video of a Philadelphia Eagles fan being verbally abusive toward a visiting Green Bay Packers fan at a game. If you’ve seen the video, you know that it was quite extreme. That it didn’t lead to a physical altercation is some sort of miracle. I remember watching the video and wondering what I would have done, had that situation happened to me.
And then I remembered – it did happen.
Years ago, my beloved Falcons went to the Super Bowl with one of the most potent offenses in modern NFL history. Not only did the Falcons lose that game, but they blew the biggest lead in Super Bowl history. It was such an embarrassing disaster that you’ve probably heard about it even if you aren’t a football fan.
The next season, as luck would have it, the Falcons had a chance at redemption. A rematch against the very team that embarrassed them the year before – the New England Patriots – in their home stadium. I was excited. Nothing would erase the embarrassment and heartache of the prior season’s Super Bowl, but beating the New England Patriots in their own home would sure soothe that sting just a little bit.
To top it off, my best friends are Patriots fans. One of them is actually from Boston. We collectively decided that we had to be there. So, we traveled up to Boston and I, perhaps with foolish pride, put on my Falcons jersey and we were on our way to the rematch.
Now, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the general attitude of many Bostonians. They can have an edge, and I was ready for some not-so-light ribbing. Boy, did I get it. My favorite was the guy at a restaurant telling my friends that our table was ready, but for me, it would be a 3-to-28 minute wait (28-3 being the lead the Falcons had before ‘The Comeback’). Ouch. Still, that was a good one.
It was mostly good natured until we got to our seats. In a sea of Tom Brady jerseys, I saw a single red Atlanta Falcons jersey across the stadium. My wife and I made three. I thought, we’re going to have to be really loud to support our team.
You see, in most places, the fans make noise to try to throw off the other team. This works spectacularly well in places like Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where there are regularly more fans of the opposing team than there are for the Falcons. But we were right in the middle of a 19-year Patriots dynasty, coming off a historic Super Bowl win, in Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts. The situation was quite different.
I guess our enthusiasm wore on the nerves of one of our stadium neighbors. She started cutting eyes at us and making a few comments. Our group did its best to ignore her, but she became more and more vocal. There may have been alcohol involved.
This continued to escalate until she eventually swung and hit my wife in the face. Everyone nearby immediately intervened and shortly after, security came to take her away. Her husband seemed to have a look of familiarity on his face. I suspect this wasn’t the first time mom was whisked away over an altercation, leaving her husband and son to figure out what to do.
All this over a game. Not a game that we play. A game played by athletes that have no idea who we are. A game that we have absolutely no control over. Truthfully, I absolutely love the back-and-forth between fans talking about their teams. It’s fun. It’s also asinine because we have absolutely no control over the teams we get so passionate about. There is also a point, however, when that good-natured trash talking goes too far.
Unfortunately, altercations like ours and the one in the viral Eagles video happen all the time. The woman at our game was removed, wasting the ticket someone spent a lot of money on. The fan in the video was banned from all Eagles home games and lost his job over his incident. People have been arrested, hurt, even killed.
Luckily, we were able to enjoy the rest of our game. It continued as a fog rolled over the stadium, somewhat symbolic of the altercation clouding a fun football weekend.
Spoiler alert: The Falcons lost that game too. What can I say? The Atlanta Falcons are nothing if not consistently disappointing.