Morning Joe: No Fans, No Towels, Just Renegade - How the Steelers Will Make Heinz Field a Home Game

PITTSBURGH -- It's the Heinz Field season-opener, and Steelers Nation is packing the parking lot, crushing beers at 9 a.m. and wearing nothing but pants and body paint.

Wait...

The Pittsburgh Steelers home opener is going to be, well, weird - to put it frankly. With no fans, it'll be a sea of yellow seats, nothing but the surround-sound playing Renegade, and 53 black and gold jerseys trying to create the momentum of 70,000 fans.

It won't be your average Sunday on the North Shore, that's for sure. But the Steelers do have plans to make Week 2 against the Denver Broncos as much of a home game as possible.

"It definitely does have a home game feel to it as far as being able to drive in, change in your own locker room and wearing the black jerseys," outside linebacker T.J. Watt said. "We'll have all the third-down sounds that we are used to, things that remind you that it is a home game. Even though the atmosphere isn't going to be everything that we are used to, it will be nice to be at Heinz Field." The Steelers have used their automated noise during training camp scrimmages. Sitting the press box with your head down, you honestly can't tell much of the difference between fake and real crowd noise.

This team has been through this, though. They've pulled into a stadium and had no fans in the parking lot. They've played 60 minutes with limited noise and no terrible towels in the stands.

And it was "incredibly different," as quarterback Ben Roethlisberger put it. "Pulling into the stadium and not having tailgaters and not seeing fans, I definitely had some jitters on the bus ride over. But when you pulled into the stadium and not seeing all that usual buzz before the game, it definitely calmed me down a little bit."

Those nerves shouldn't be strong on Sunday. The Steelers spent a month and a half before the season, practicing at Heinz Field - in the same atmosphere they'll be playing this afternoon.

They'll utilize crowd noise and displays on the big screen. But what about "Renegade?"

"I hope they play it," Watt said. "I always love watching the video and seeing what new wrinkle they add to the video and the explosive game-changing plays the defense and offense has. I know it will be different without fans, but I'm sure it will bring back memories of what the atmosphere should be like, and it will juice up our defense for sure."

So, without fans, terrible towels or ever so passionate Steelers Nation, the Pittsburgh Steelers add the task of making a home game... a home game.

And as much as they have planned to try and keep it as "normal" as possible, they won't have Steelers Nation.

"Honestly, Pittsburgh fans, Steeler Nation, they're unbelievable. They're like nothing else. The fan base is incredible," wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster said. "For us to go out there and for them to not be out there, it's going to be tough ... But we're giving Steelers Nation what they want, what they need - a W."

Noah Strackbein is a Publisher with AllSteelers. Follow Noah on Twitter @NoahStrack, and AllSteelers @si_steelers.