Gumbo
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- Mar 19, 2019
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49ers tight end George Kittle feeds off the energy of a home crowd like few other football players. But if 2020 proceeds without fans due to the ongoing pandemic, Kittle sees a silver lining.
“Home games will definitely be weird but if I can go into Seattle or New Orleans without fans there, that will make my job at lot easier,” Kittle told #PFTPM on Friday. “I wouldn’t have to listen to anything. No more silent counts, nothing like that. That would make my life really easy. Hey, I’ll play on the road. That’s fine. No worries with that.”
The 49ers won close games last year in Seattle and in New Orleans even with deafening crowds supporting the home teams. Without either of those two victories, the 49ers would have had a much harder path to the Super Bowl.
“[T]he fans are what makes the game so much fun, whether it’s winning a game and your stadium is going ballistic or you win a game on the road and the crowd goes silent,” Kittle said. “Both of those are some of the pinnacles of football for me, just hearing that. So it will be definitely different if that’s what happens. Like I said, I’m just going to focus on what I can control, and if I can just go play football then I’ll be pretty happy.”
Fan-free football definitely would require an adjustment for everyone, and it would hurt the teams that have the best home-field advantages due to playing in the loudest stadiums. Which would create a very real advantage for teams like the Chargers, who have grown accustomed to performing before hostile crowds both on the road and at home.