I imagine a lot of the Kansas City Chiefs players feed off the energy from the home crowd but on Sunday there was another kind of energy out there. The Pittsburgh Steelers faithful showed up in full force waving terrible towels in Arrowhead.
In fact, the picture to your right comes right after Steelers WR Hines Ward did the Tomahawk Chop in a touchdown celebration.
After the game, Chiefs RB Jamaal Charles acknowledged the presence of all those darn towels.
"We didn’t like that at all," Charles said.
"Coming into our house with those towels, we didn’t like that so we wanted to go out there, Brian (Waters) brought us together before the game and said that our people sold their tickets to them, so we just wanted to go out there, set the tone and hopefully win the game."
Take the motivation wherever you can get it. The Chiefs used it to their advantage but Robert Dvorchak of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes that this is the way it is for all the Steelers away games.
"That's part of the mystique of the Steelers," he writes. "The fan base openly unfurls its towels and battle flags to rename whatever enemy territory with a simple proclamation: You're In Steelers Country."
The Steelers players also recognized their traveling fanbase that came out in solid numbers. Backup QB Charlie Batch said this a sea of terrible towels is a common occurrence in the opponents stadium.
Translation: Don't feel bad, Chiefs fans.
"There were a lot of (Steelers) fans there, but this is how we typically travel. Our fans are well represented in almost any stadium we go to. So that wasn't a suprise to us."
Chiefs DE Glenn Dorsey did note that the Chiefs fans that did show up were loud.
"They had a lot of fans," he said, "maybe more than we did, but we played hard and the fans that did come, they were loud. I had fun, I enjoyed it, so it was a great win."
The Steelers are a big name, and their fans travel well, so the 70,000 or so in paid attendance isn't a surprise. Next month when the Bills and the Browns come to Arrowhead will be a real test to sellout.