CARSON, Calif. -- At one point during the Steelers' 24-17 win over the Chargers at Dignity Health Sports Park, I closed my eyes and inhaled, soaking in the reverberating floor boards and a rowdy, raucous chant of "DE-FENSE" emanating from the stands below.
Then, I chuckled. Because we were 2,400 miles from Pittsburgh. And the Chargers had the ball. The crowd was going nuts for the away team.
"It was just awesome to see all the Terrible Towels out there and just seeing them having the support," James Conner was saying after the game. "It was really a factor in us winning this game."
Yeah, but that's Conner. He's a third-year player from Erie, Pa., who attended Pitt, so he's quick to embrace this "hometown pull" kinda thing. Let's ask Ramon Foster, a Tennessee native who has appeared in over 150 career NFL games, instead.
Yup.
"It was by far one of the coolest things I've seen," Foster said. "To have your fans own the stadium in an away game, it's cool. They were loud. I thought the opposing team was going to have to run the silent count."
It's not overblown by Conner or by Foster. The scene was wild to behold, Terrible Towels twirling with such force I wondered if the constant wind at my back in the open-air press box was courtesy of Mother Nature or Myron Cope.
You almost expected "Renegade" to come blaring out of the stadium speakers — and then:
RENEGA— OH MY GOD! CLASSSSIICCCC! #dkps #steelers pic.twitter.com/WuSz8NKFr8
— Hunter Alek Homistek (@HunterAHomistek) October 14, 2019
The Chargers knew it was coming, and they played it perfectly, hyping Steeler Nation with that Styx goodness, only to pull out the rug from underneath them with a classic bit of Rick Rollin'. But just stop and consider the foresight here. The Chargers' home fan base here just outside Los Angeles is questionable at best. The team knows this.
Combine that with a traveling squad possessing the passion and fervor of Steeler Nation, though?
Game over.
“HERE WE GO STEELERS! HERE WE GO!” Fired-up scene after that muffed punt. #dkps #steelers pic.twitter.com/T8aAlm59cc
— Hunter Alek Homistek (@HunterAHomistek) October 14, 2019
"It was amazing, bruh," Benny Snell was telling me of the scene after the game. "I felt like we were at home, like it was a home game. And when we were in the locker room, I was telling 'em, 'We['re] in Cali, man. We gotta have fun out here.'"
You know who wasn't having fun? The Chargers. Not just because they were losing as badly as 24-0 at one point, but because the crowd on hand was largely happy to see it happen.
“I mean, yeah, it’s frustrating," Chargers tight end Hunter Henry said. "It was pretty loud in there. We know that kind of going in. We have guys who are used to it and we’ll just keep going at it. We know the Steelers, they travel well. We knew that kind of going into the game. So it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
Keenan Allen didn't comment directly after the game, but he took to Twitter later to offer the following (language warning):
Shit sad https://t.co/ZmxEUKPQJb
— Keenan Allen (@Keenan13Allen) October 14, 2019
Offensive lineman Forrest Lamp went hardest of all:
"We're used to not having any fans here," Lamp said after the game. "It does suck, though, when they're playing their music in the fourth quarter. We're the ones at home," Lamp said. "I don't know who's in charge of that but they probably should be fired."
Devlin Hodges, making his first NFL start with Mason Rudolph still nursing a concussion sustained last week against the Ravens, knew it all was coming, too.
“Honestly, not too surprised," Hodges said. "That’s something that we kind of anticipated happening. We travel with fans so well. I mean, just pregame warmups, you could tell this was going to be like a home game.”
While Henry, Allen and Lamp mentioned being frustrated by the away team dominating the noise and momentum, Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn took a different approach.
“No, I can’t say the team is affected by the crowd," Lynn said after the game. 'The crowd doesn’t play. If anything, I thought that crowd brought a lot of energy to the stadium. It was an exciting night to play football. We just didn’t execute the way we should have.”
The Steelers, however, disagreed. They felt it. They fed off it.
“It was good," Devin Bush said. "I am just super excited. Steelers Nation and the fans. You know our fans travel. They love our team and they bring a lot of spirit to the games, especially winning games and home games.”
“It was real cool to come here and have it be sort of like a home game," Kameron Kelly added. "The crowd definitely kept us into it and we tried to keep them into it.”
