Quiet on the drive home; that’s the kind of situation where the stadium gets really empty in the second half.
I had Cleveland Browns seasons tickets for about ten years and didn’t renew them this year. So we sat through a number of halftimes (and a lot of bad football) in those 10 years. For those games where the Browns weren’t getting blown out bad enough for us to leave at halftime, this is pretty much what happens during the 12-13 minute halftime.
Since the field at Browns Stadium is grass, as soon as the clock reaches zero and even while the players are still exiting the field, a series of 10-12 grounds crew members head onto the field from each end zone, walk the surface and make basic repairs to any divots or turned up sod, by stomping them back into place (think golf divot).
As for actual halftime entertainment some of the things we’ve seen during our 10 years are: Weiner dog races; The Ohio State University Marching band; local HS marching bands; a local rock band playing one or two numbers; dogs chasing Frisbees, honoring local HS football players, teams or coaches of the week (or district/state champions), some weird tag-like game involving the mascots of the local pro and college teams; At least once a year there would be some sort of ceremony honoring a Browns alumni/ring of honor ceremony. After whatever on-field event there is, the video boards will show highlights from other NFL games and also list fantasy stats for the day’s games.
With about 5-6 minutes before the 2nd half kickoff, the place kickers and punters come back out and begin warming up (this is where the FG kickers get a feel for their “range” for the day). The rest of the players return with about 3 minutes to go before kickoff. The 2nd half kickoff happens within about 15-20 seconds after the halftime timer reaches zero. The whole halftime is like a well choreographed event.
Zimaane had it correct. . .it’s too short to hit both the rest room and concessions and make it back to your seat for the 2nd half kickoff. A lot of the fans around us who ventured out to the concourse at the gun didn’t return to their seats until mid-way through the 3rd quarter.
I’ve only been to one real NFL game. It was a game between the Seahawks and Buccaneers in 2013. (Seattle came back from a 21 point deficit to send the game into overtime and then won on a field goal, it was amazing to see in-person.)
The one thing I took away from that game was how unlike watching the game from home, nothing stopped. Between plays, during timeouts, between possession changes or quarters, there was always someone down on the field doing something I could watch. And the players interacted with the fans a lot. It was a very different experience.
The halftime show was some dance number that wasn’t anything special but it was okay, and it didn’t take very long. I remember that being there at the game was a lot more engaging than being at home. I also chatted with other fans around me too, that helped a bit, but I think one reason why it was better was that when you are watching at home, you are restricted to seeing a tiny little screen showing you whatever the camera wants to show you. When you are there, you can look around and see anything at any time.
There was this too. I remember there was some sort of event going on to honor a former Seahawk (can’t remember the details a decade later), and then there were people warming up on different parts of the field. And stuff on the big screens to look at. They do a really good job of trying to keep the fans from getting bored.
Here is a photo I took from my seat, showing one of the ceremonies:
There’s also the trend of having a team of mascots play a quick game of football against a team of kids in pads.
What’s, er, interesting about this is that the mascots are grown adults, and they don’t usually pull back at all. You can see videos of games where kids are getting absolutely destroyed.
I’m surprised the mascots/teams would do that, given the massive lawsuits you could get hit with if a kid is significantly injured - and, even if there were waivers, still some pretty terrible PR.
Those kids are just getting knocked down, it’s no different than what they’d go through on a peewee football field playing with other kids. It’s not like they’re being picked up and tossed through the air like frisbees or getting crushed. In fact, I see adults being careful to just push kids over and not make any other contact with them. If they were full-blown tackling them, such as wrestling them to the ground or putting their weight on them, that I’d call egregious. The few times you see a mascot on a kid, you can tell they’re keeping their actual weight off of them.
The worst was maybe the Colts mascot, and even then I just see mild horseplay. (See what I did there?)
The only frightening things about that video were the awful-looking mascot costumes.
I agree with you that the experience is very different. However, for just watching the game, I find it better to watch at home with a big screen, a DVR to skip commercials and half time, and a lot less bad music at high volume. We do go to one or two games per year in person, because sometimes the craziness is fun.
Absolutely. That was a heck of an experience but I would not want to do it every week. Heck, if I had the choice, I’d probably pick one game a year to attend because any more than that seems like too much hassle, even if I could go for free. (The one time I went, it was for free, at least to me, because my father-in-law was gifted a couple of tickets so we went together. And we took the train which was also free since I have a pass for it through work.)
A perennial crowd-pleaser!