title – 9/11 Tributes: NFL, MLB, U.S. Open And Sporting Events Around World Pay Respect To Tragedy (VIDEO)

NEW YORK — From coast to coast, American flags as large as football fields were unfurled inside stadiums and fans of all ages sang the national anthem with gusto Sunday in a red-white-and-blue observance marking the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and start of the country’s most popular sport: the NFL.

Robin Berretta, wearing a blue Giants No. 27 Brandon Jacobs jersey, traveled from New York to Landover, Md., for the game at the Washington Redskins. Some of her friends suggested she shouldn’t attend.

“Everyone’s very paranoid,” Berretta said. “And they’re not even from New York.”

She was unfazed, saying, “I even took the Metro.”

In presentations relayed to video screens around the league, “Taps” was played from Shanksville, Pa., where one of the hijacked jets crashed a decade earlier; Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia; and Hoboken, N.J., across the Hudson River from the World Trade Center site. A recorded message from actor Robert DeNiro was broadcast on videoboards reminding fans that “we honor those brave men and women by continuing to show our unity and strength as a country.”

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell marked the day in Landover and East Rutherford, N.J.

“We remember our great country and the people that died in this tragic incident, the first responders and their families and all the people that kept our country safe,” he told FOX from the sidelines of the Giants-Redskins game. “This is a chance for everyone to come together and feel great about our country, the sacrifices so many people have had and what we all have in front of us. We’ve got a lot to be proud of.”

Reminders of the changes wrought by that sorrowful day were apparent outside MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, where every car entering the parking lots for the Cowboys-Jets game was checked by New Jersey State Troopers with bomb-sniffing dogs.