...because they lead to hearing loss
This weekend my friend Seth Burn and I went on a road trip to Baltimore to attend their wild card round playoff game hosting the Indianapolis Colts. It had been about 8 years since my only other time at an NFL game in Denver, at which we sat way up high, none of those in our group cared much about the Broncos even though we lived in the area, and I didn't even know what the point spread was. This time, we were down in the second row among the hardcore fans with season tickets and it was the playoffs. It was quite the experience.
There were three big takeaways from the game: The noise, the comradery and being able to actually see the field up close.
The noise was, I was told afterwards, about average for an NFL game. This is not a quiet level. It is, in fact, a level I am confident would cause season ticket holders hearing loss. Part of that is that it's fun for people to make a lot of noise; for the most part I stayed quiet except for joining some righteous chants of "BULLSHIT!" and by the end of the game had a headache of fully known origins.
The comradery was awesome. The entire stadium was a sea of purple, with tiny spots of blue. Everyone in the area knew each other and had the same seats as always; we were the interlopers who didn't belong, but once they knew we were on their side, it wasn't a problem. There was huge crowd pressure to get in the game as much as possible, and even new superstitions created. The woman on our left observed that us sitting down correlated with the Ravens offense working properly, so she called on all of us to sit down from there on in when the Ravens were on offense. I hope that one only lasted for the one game, but who knows? There were many celebrations, and late there were many of those previously mentioned righteous chants of "BULLSHIT!" against the referees, who the crowd turns on fast. To be fair, there was a taunting penalty, which is more or less the definition of a dumb call.
Actually seeing the field was a refreshing change, although the angle did mean that while some things were easy to see up close with high bandwidth, other things were at bad angles so when the teams went to the other side of the field I more or less reverted to watching the JumboTron. What I did notice, early in the first quarter, was that the Colts were not disguising their offensive plays. At all. Whenever you line up for a play, you're balancing having people in the right places for what you intend to do with the need to line up people in other places so the defense is kept guessing and has to defend against things you do not intend to do, and devotes less resources where it counts. The Colts were unwilling to do any of this. If you looked at the field up close, it was obvious in a way that it's not clear on TV that there was no real way for the Colts, on most plays, to do anything except the thing they ended up doing. Sure, they'd toss one guy off to the side - sometimes, but far from always! - but the formation was obviously throwing to a pair or trio of guys in one place, when it was throwing. When it was passing, they'd line up the receivers close enough to the rest of the line that they could function as linesman, but only in one direction, while on passing plays they got separation so they could get open.
I don't know if this played a large part in the Ravens victory, but it would not surprise me in the slightest if it did. There were some obvious (and a small number of creative) things yelled at Colts QB Andrew Luck, only some of which were obscene (hey it rhymed!) but no one seemed to notice him putting his cards face up on the table.
In terms of the experience, the biggest problem was definitely the noise level. Alas, there isn't any way to do anything about it. Defenses want lots of noise, so it's necessary for the fans to supply that noise, because fans care about winning and the whole experience is about going to the stadium and being part of the team largely by creating noise and getting mad at the refs whenever they don't cooperate. We must protect this house! The fans, if anything, have trouble obeying the signs that say "Quiet please, offense at work." There are multiple homes of "The twelfth man" because fans like to think they're louder than other fans. And no, ear plugs would not be something you'd want to be caught using. Thus, the experience is what it is, and I think that once every few years is about right for me.
There were three big takeaways from the game: The noise, the comradery and being able to actually see the field up close.
The noise was, I was told afterwards, about average for an NFL game. This is not a quiet level. It is, in fact, a level I am confident would cause season ticket holders hearing loss. Part of that is that it's fun for people to make a lot of noise; for the most part I stayed quiet except for joining some righteous chants of "BULLSHIT!" and by the end of the game had a headache of fully known origins.
The comradery was awesome. The entire stadium was a sea of purple, with tiny spots of blue. Everyone in the area knew each other and had the same seats as always; we were the interlopers who didn't belong, but once they knew we were on their side, it wasn't a problem. There was huge crowd pressure to get in the game as much as possible, and even new superstitions created. The woman on our left observed that us sitting down correlated with the Ravens offense working properly, so she called on all of us to sit down from there on in when the Ravens were on offense. I hope that one only lasted for the one game, but who knows? There were many celebrations, and late there were many of those previously mentioned righteous chants of "BULLSHIT!" against the referees, who the crowd turns on fast. To be fair, there was a taunting penalty, which is more or less the definition of a dumb call.
Actually seeing the field was a refreshing change, although the angle did mean that while some things were easy to see up close with high bandwidth, other things were at bad angles so when the teams went to the other side of the field I more or less reverted to watching the JumboTron. What I did notice, early in the first quarter, was that the Colts were not disguising their offensive plays. At all. Whenever you line up for a play, you're balancing having people in the right places for what you intend to do with the need to line up people in other places so the defense is kept guessing and has to defend against things you do not intend to do, and devotes less resources where it counts. The Colts were unwilling to do any of this. If you looked at the field up close, it was obvious in a way that it's not clear on TV that there was no real way for the Colts, on most plays, to do anything except the thing they ended up doing. Sure, they'd toss one guy off to the side - sometimes, but far from always! - but the formation was obviously throwing to a pair or trio of guys in one place, when it was throwing. When it was passing, they'd line up the receivers close enough to the rest of the line that they could function as linesman, but only in one direction, while on passing plays they got separation so they could get open.
I don't know if this played a large part in the Ravens victory, but it would not surprise me in the slightest if it did. There were some obvious (and a small number of creative) things yelled at Colts QB Andrew Luck, only some of which were obscene (hey it rhymed!) but no one seemed to notice him putting his cards face up on the table.
In terms of the experience, the biggest problem was definitely the noise level. Alas, there isn't any way to do anything about it. Defenses want lots of noise, so it's necessary for the fans to supply that noise, because fans care about winning and the whole experience is about going to the stadium and being part of the team largely by creating noise and getting mad at the refs whenever they don't cooperate. We must protect this house! The fans, if anything, have trouble obeying the signs that say "Quiet please, offense at work." There are multiple homes of "The twelfth man" because fans like to think they're louder than other fans. And no, ear plugs would not be something you'd want to be caught using. Thus, the experience is what it is, and I think that once every few years is about right for me.