Pandemic be damned. The Shield is back.

© Andrew Sgroi. All Rights Reserved

With the official kickoff to the 2020 National Football League season tonight—when the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs host the Houston Texans before about 19,000 socially distanced fans at Arrowhead Stadium—there will be millions of football fans across the nation who will likely gaze at the televised event, barely believing their eyes.

Football is back in earnest. And not a moment too soon.

Sure, we’ve seen signs of the life to which we’ve grown accustomed return steadily over these past few months, albeit with new parameters.

But when the NFL held its first-ever virtual draft at the end of April, it seemed as if that might just be an exercise for the 32 league franchises—an essential business procedure. Who would have believed that these men being selected might actually suit up, as they have every year previously, just a few months later?

After all, at that moment when the NFL was drafting these future stars (and creating a ratings giant while it did), Major League Baseball was already six weeks removed from postponing its season. The National Basketball Association and National Hockey League, too, were on pause indefinitely. And although all three of those sports leagues have since returned—either playing out a truncated schedule or hosting postseason tournaments inside of bubbles—the logistics of those reboots were barely a flicker as April came to a close.

So yes, the (sports) world has changed—for the better—in just four, seemingly interminable, months.

We’ve learned that games can be played safely even if fans, in most cases, still are not permitted in attendance.

Just as we’ve learned that school can (and should) occur, even if it has started virtually in some places.

And we can go shopping. Or take a flight. Or return to work, even when it’s done remotely for a time.

For life carries on, in spite of our sometimes hasty defenses against its inherent perils.

If the sun shall rise every day, so must we. We can do all the things we did before this pandemic. And we can also adopt reasonable safeguards to protect ourselves from it. We can do both.

And we are. Just as many faiths have welcomed back believers to their houses of worship, even with restrictions carefully implemented.

Arrowhead Stadium is arguably one such “house of worship.” And tonight, we’ll witness both play and precaution on full display.

So it can be done. And it shall.

The NFL is back in earnest!

And not a moment too soon.