Los Angeles Rams star Aaron Donald made it perfectly clear how he feels about the NFL possibly playing in empty stadiums… and he wasn’t too thrilled.
On Thursday, Donald spoke with reporters on a video call and explained that fans are a very crucial part of the game and with them in attendance, makes an impact on the players themselves:
“You need fans to play a game. I don’t see how you could play a game without no fans. I feel like that takes out the excitement and the fun out of the game.
“… I feel like the fans is what pick you up. The fans is what makes the game exciting. The fans will give you that extra juice when you’re tired and fatigued, when you make that big play and you hear 80,000 fans going crazy. That just pumps you up.”
The NFL has made no decision yet as far as playing in fanless stadiums, but Commissioner Roger Goodell had already let teams know to get a ticket refund plan in place for this season. Goodell had sent out a memo on May 5th regarding the issue.
The new SoFi Stadium is set to open in September and recently California Governor Gavin Newsom made an announcement that LA could be seeing sporting events return in June. It’s highly doubtful that fans will be allowed to attend games due to the issue of the large gatherings. That’s where Donald sounds off again:
“You practice, and practice is practice. And then you prepare to play a game and be on a big stage and play in front of a crowd,” Donald said. “… Just no excitement [without fans]. It wouldn’t be fun to me. I don’t think it would be fun to play a football game without fans.”
With the season not starting for a few months, the NFL and hosting cities have time to figure things out. Sadly, the outcome of having fans in attendance looks very grim and highly doubtful, but hey… things can change in a snap (pun intended).
