Telegraph Sports Reporter Tom KIng.

The day the area’s hard and true pro football fans have been craving for is here: The first Sunday of the National Football League season.

You got a taste of it the other night with Kansas City and Houston opening things at Arrowhead. Now many of you will be glued to your TVs today when the New Englans Patriots host the Miami Dolphins.

Why? Because you love the Patriots, love football, and for many of you who are used to being at Gillette Stadium in person, you can’t do that.

So the voices of Jim Nance and Tony Romo on CBS – or Bob Socci and Scott Zolak on The Sports Hub radio – are your only way.

There is so much that’s strange about this season, taking place in the midst of a pandemic. We’re watching baseball, basketball and hockey games without fans. PGA golf tournaments without fans. The U.S. Open tennis tourney, where the fans are almost as much of the story as the players, not there.

However, there were fans the other night in Kansas City, for a change, but only a handful allowed compared to the huge throng always there.

Locally, there will only be a smattering of fans at high school football teams, and most schools won’t allow visiting team fans. We did have fans at Nashua Silver Knight games over the summer, about 25 percent Holman Stadium capacity, but the so called “butts in the seats” were for many of the nights on par with the average in normal years. There were great crowds – spaced in the bowl – at the three-game FCBL Finals at Holman.

But it will certainly be strange watching the Patriots with no one in the stands. Still, we’ll take it, right?

That’s because the NFL has been the one constant throughout this whole pandemic, since the horror began in mid-March. Roger Goodell & Co. ignored advice from coaches to postpone free agency and the start of the league year back in March. Thus Patriots fans were put out of their misery on schedule, not having to wait extended weeks for the inevitable Tom Brady departure.

In late April, we got the NFL Draft, right on schedule, done virtually, but the choices were made. And Patriot fans felt the usual frustration when Bill Belichick traded out of the first round and they had to wait an extra day for New England to take part.

Yes, we didn’t get the OTA’s, but there were virtual sessions and then training camp started virtually as well. The Patriots media relations staff has done a superb job in providing web-ex interviews with players, last spring and during the just-concluded training camp and now while the regular season is underway.

Did you actually think the season would start on time? Many didn’t.

Many felt the NFL would have to wait until perhaps October, as they had contingency plans in the works. And the Super Bowl you figured would happen later in February.

But nope, at least not now. It’s a full go, as scheduled. Some procedural roster rules have changed, the practice squads are bigger, etc.

Yes, the ultimate contact sport in what is now supposed to be a non-contact world is a go on the professional level.

“I think these guys really handled things very professionaly,” Belichick said. “They understood the things that they needed to do, both individually and what we need to do as a team.

“There are a lot of new policies, protocols, just the daily routine. Things changed quite a bit from what guys around here have been used to… So that includes the coaches and all the other support people and so forth. …

“We’re not where we would normally be at this time of year but I don’t think anybody else is either.”

Miami comes in to Gillette, the place where they triumphantly ended head coach and former Patriots assistant Brian Flores’ rookie season at the helm. Old bearded wonder Ryan Fitzpatrick is their quarterback.

Almost same as it ever was, but with a big pandemic twist.

So let’s see how this first full Sunday of games goes. Let’s see if fans at home get into it. It’s the NFL, we imagine they would.

Of course, the next strange step will be on Sept. 25 when North and South square off at Holman with a sparse crowd of only South fans.

For now, the new normal is the only one we’ve got. Happy NFL Weekend.

Tom King may be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or@Telegraph _TomK.

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