The San Francisco 49ers announced on Tuesday that fans will not be in attendance for the team's Week 1 matchup against the Arizona Cardinals at Levi's Stadium on September 13. Head coach Kyle Shanahan, tight end George Kittle, and guard Laken Tomlinson each spoke with reporters after Tuesday's practice and were asked about having to play an NFL game without the roar of The Faithful.
Kyle Shanahan
"It's disappointing but I also understand it. There's a lot of adjustments that everyone's got to make in how the world is right now. So, I totally understand it, but, I mean, it's not going to be that fun. We love having the fans in there. They pump you up. You hear the noise whether you're watching it on TV or there in person. It's a little unusual for me watching basketball and baseball right now, just seeing how it is without fans out there. We'll have to go through it too, just like the other sports have. Hopefully, it won't last. Hopefully, eventually, we'll be able to get our fans in there, but it's a challenge everyone's dealing with, and I can sit and think about it a lot but I'm ready to see how it ends up being different, and what the pluses and minuses are to it, and being ready to adapt and change when we figure that out."
George Kittle
"It is what it is, at the end of the day. Playing with fans, that's how I grew up playing football. That's how I grew up playing sports. If they say there's not going to be fans, then we're just going to have to play with it, and we're just going to have to work on it. I've played in JV games on Saturday mornings at 10 a.m. where my mom was the only person in the stands, and so I could play it then. And that's what football is. You can play wherever you are, no matter what the time is, no matter the location. So I think we have a great team that rise up to that challenge. I kind of think that whoever gives off the best energy every single game as a team will definitely have an advantage week in and week out."
Laken Tomlinson
"It's going to be weird not having the fans out there. ... It's going to be different. We're not going to have a home-field energy and stuff like that. But I don't know. If that's the safest thing that they think for us, I fully support it."