It may not have seemed that way at first, but the NFL schedule maker has been helpful to the Green Bay Packers this season. The team announced on Friday that there will not be any fans in attendance at Lambeau Field for the first two games of the 2020 season because of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic that has already claimed more than 160,000 American lives.

In a normal season, the NFL schedules more home games for the Packers early in the season when the weather is still relatively warm and the chances for snow or other forms of bad weather are significantly lower.

In 2019, for example, the Packers played five home games in September and October and only had three in November and December. In 2018, the Pack played three home games in the first four weeks of the season.

But this season, the two games that the team announced would have no fans in attendance takes the Packers all the way through the end of October. The Packers third home game is November 1 when they are scheduled to host the Minnesota Vikings.

This gives the Packers hope that some fans will be able to attend the team’s six remaining home games if the conditions across the country improve between now and late October. Whether the coronavirus starts to finally fade by mutating itself into a less dangerous form, we find a vaccine or if preventative measures finally do contain the virus, the team is hoping to salvage the latter part of the schedule if they can.

Obviously, the announcement that the first two home games will not have fans will cost the team and the city of Green Bay a lot of money. No tickets will be sold, no fans will be driving into or flying into Green Bay for the games. They will not be spending money in bars and restaurants or to buy brats, beer and other typical tailgating food. Hotel rooms will not be reserved and local businesses will certainly feel the pinch.

The team cannot charge for parking or sell tickets to the Hall of Fame, jerseys and other merchandise like programs, food, drinks and tee shirts. There will be no game program sales either.

The city will also lose a lot of tax revenue from ticket sales and from all of the money that would have normally be spent at the first two home games of the regular season after already losing whatever revenue would have been earned from the two preseason games that are played at Lambeau Field annually.

The Packers could have tried to make as much money as possible and gone ahead with full attendance at home games even though it may not be safe. Thankfully, that is not what they decided to do. So, things will be different this season, but for now, that is how it needs to be.

Plenty of things will be missing this season. But perhaps the biggest thing that will be missing is the way attending Packers home games unites the people of Green Bay and really Packers fans everywhere. People coming together and uniting around their football team regardless of age, race, religion, sexual preference, education level and socio-economic background and political party is a beautiful thing that is unfortunately happening less and less in our country these days.

The memories people share of attending games with their parents, grandparents, siblings or best friends will also be lost for the first two months of this season and quite possibly for all the 2020 season.

But these are not normal times. With so many people in this country getting sick and dying, losing their jobs and being unable to do so many things we used to take for granted, normal routines seem like a distant memory.

But at the end of the day, the Packers and the NFL will do what they can to have a season if they can and provide Packers fans and football fans with some semblance of their normal routine. Maybe right now we can’t attend games, but we can hopefully enjoy watching them on TV in relative safety and enjoy watching our favorite players play the game we love.

And we must remember that this rare, once in a hundred years pandemic will not last forever. The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and 1919 was even deadlier than the coronavirus in part because of the aftermath of World War One and in part because medical knowledge was a lot less sophisticated back then. But that pandemic ended and life returned to normal and this one will, too.

The Packers announced that they will not allow fans at the first two home games this year. Some fans may be allowed to attend later games or maybe they won’t. But sometime soon, things will return to normal. The Pack will be back, and the fans will be, too.