Scenes from Steelers vs. Patriots at Gillette Stadium

New England Patriots fans welcomed football back Thursday night after a lengthy offseason marred by the Deflategate fallout and Tom Brady’s suspension and subsequent appeal.

SI Wire | Sep 10, 2015

Scenes from Steelers vs. Patriots at Gillette Stadium /

New England Patriots fans welcomed football back Thursday night after a lengthy off-season marred by fallout from Deflategate and Tom Brady’s suspension and subsequent appeal.

With the Patriots hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers at Gillette Stadium, fans showed up early to celebrate the return of regular-season action. The game opened with the expected excitement: Steelers kicker Josh Scobee missed two of three field-goal attempts, more headset issues affected an opponent at Gillette Stadium and Tom Brady connected with Rob Gronkowski for the first two touchdowns of the NFL season.

After all that, the Patriots led the Steelers 14–3 at halftime.

Naturally, social media was full of fan tributes to the return of football. Check out some of the best from Foxborough below.

Here's the card stunt they just did inside Gillette pic.twitter.com/tD685K9iHF
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) September 11, 2015

Yep, Tom Brady is Che Guevara (H/T @ashleybcogswell) pic.twitter.com/CidgJJGSEz
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) September 11, 2015

#Patriots fans outside Gillette: Roger Goodell 'not wanted' here tonight http://t.co/C11z7OKkot by @BostonHeraldHS pic.twitter.com/OS99cKHDmO
— Sean Leahy (@leahysean) September 10, 2015

Another banner for @GilletteStadium! #NFLKickoff #PITvsNE pic.twitter.com/s7j9uRmLhZ
— Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) September 11, 2015

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Published Sep 10, 2015

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