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Bears won’t encounter typically raucous Saints crowd as only 3,000 fans will be in attendance
■ Who dat in the Superdome? About 3,000 fans allowed to attend Bears-saints game.
The New Orleans Saints haven’t been quarantining 50,000 fans in hotel roomsso they can attend the playoff game against the Bears on Sunday, as much as Sean Payton liked the idea.
The Saints coach lofted the scheme to New Orleans media Wednesday when asked about his team trying to create a home-field advantage in the playoffs with a limited number of fans in theMercedesBenz Superdome.
“You’d sequester them in a hotel room and you’d have them tested daily for about 8-10 straight days,” Payton added on a conference call with Chicago reporters later that day. “Any of these home teams would have a lot of volunteers for that.
“But look, relative to what’s going on in our country, we certainly understand and respect the challenges we’re faced with right now.”
The Saints instead will have just 3,000 fans in the Superdome because of New Orleans’ COVID-19-related restrictions, a Saints official said Thursday.
The city set the number at 4% of the stadium’s capacity of 73,208 fans, and the Saints offered the right to purchase seats to season ticket holders. The team also released a chunk of unused Bears team tickets to the public, and those were going for a minimum of $377 apiece on SeatGeek.com on Thursday afternoon.
NFL teams have grown used to playing in empty or partially filled stadiums this season because of the pandemic. The Bears didn’t have any fans at Soldier Field, though they played against the Jaguars in Jacksonville, Fla., in Week 16 in front of 17,445 fans.
But a playoff game in front of a few thousand fans will be a new level of strange, especially at a place like the Superdomethat normallywould be rowdy.
“I’ve been a part of the New Orleans crowd when it was just rocking,” Bears safetyTashuan Gipson said. “Thatwas one of the things, that the atmosphere was electric. So for them to lose that, I think that’s going to be key for any opponent going in there, playoff or not.”
Home-field advantage disappeared in the NFL this season. Road teams finished 128-127-1, the first time since 1970 the league has posted a cumulative winning record away from home. The Saints, who had 3,000 fans at each of their last two homes games, were 6-2 both home and away, while the Bears finished 5-3 on the road and 3-5 at home.
The Saints, of course, still will enjoy
some home benefits thisweekend, including not having to deal with the stress of traveling during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But make no mistake, Payton said: They miss their full contingent of fans.
Bears coachMattNagy said he has been to most NFL stadiums, and playing the Saints inside the dome gets “really, really loud.” That noise not only builds intensity for the team in key moments but also creates communication problems for opposing offenses.
The Bears hope to benefit from the quieter atmosphere, with left tackle Charles Leno noting the empty stadiums mean the Bears usually don’t have to use a silent count this season.
“I actually love the fans, so I don’t care if it’s as loud as an airplane in there,” Bears wide receiver Anthony Miller said. “I love that type of atmosphere, but of course having that silence in there or ( just) a little bit of noise, we’re going to take advantage of that. Obviously it’s going to better the communication between us, so we’re going to take advantage of that.”
Gipsonwondered howmany Bears fans might make it toNew Orleans.
William Frazier, 41, of Conway, Ark., will be one of them. Frazier became a Bears fan as a youth thanks to Walter Payton and the 1985 Super Bowl championship team and has stuck with them since, even though he never has lived in Chicago.
A high school football coach, he usually goes to December games after his own season is over and gathers with the Chicago Bears Tailgaiting Club at Soldier Field. Without fans inChicago this year, he picked road games.
He said he was at the Dec. 27 Jaguars game and bought a ticket to Sunday’s playoff game on Ticketmaster.com for $450 on Thursday.
“It’s kind of bittersweet,” Frazier said. “It’s a playoff game, which makes it
exciting, but you want to go into a place, especially like the Superdome … and have the full 70,000-people experience. But I think it will be better thanwatching it from BuffaloWildWings or a place like that.”
Nagy previously thanked the many fans who showed up in Jacksonville for the lift they provided in a 41-17 victory, and Frazier echoed that it was “a very pro-Bears crowd.”
“We sang the fight song afterwe scored, a cappella style,” he said. “Itwas as close to being at Soldier Field as youwere probably going to get that day and maybe all year.”
COVID-19 precautionswere followed at the game, Frazier said. He said there was distance between seats and people mostly kept their masks up, with ushers around to remind those who didn’t.
Frazier saidhegoes to school with 2,500 people and doesn’t consider Sunday’s playoff game to bemore of a risk. Fanswho go to the Superdome will undergo temperature checks, sit in pods, be socially distanced and have access to touchless concessions, a Saints official said.
Frazier knows hewill likely be outnumbered at the Superdome and expects some “good-natured ribbing” from Saints fans there. Leno speculated that even just 3,000 Saints fans might still get wild.
“It’s New Orleans, man,” Leno said. “Those guys are going to be partying out there. Them fans are going to be crazy no matter how many they’ve got. They could have 10 people out thereandit’s going tobe loud.”
Gipson promised the playoff stakes would get the Bears “juiced up,” if nothing else.
“And you know (3,000) fans this year feels like 100,000 — 15,000 felt like it was packed like back in the glory days in Jacksonville,” Gipson said. “So just that (3,000), we’ll be able to feed off of it.”