The San Francisco 49ers on Wednesday practiced for the third time since the start of training camp inside Levi's Stadium. Head coach Kyle Shanahan is still trying to figure out what Week 1 will feel like when his squad hosts the Arizona Cardinals. After all, it will be a stadium devoid of fans. There will be no roar of the crowd. There will be no cheering for the home team. There will be no heckling of the opposing defense.
There may be sound, though — the sound of virtual fans pumped through the stadium sound system. That's what Shanahan and company are still trying to figure out. Should that fake crowd noise be allowed? If so, how loud should the 49ers make it? After all, the team can't turn up the volume when it is on defense. Once you turn it on, you can't turn it off or alter it until the end of the game, per league rules. Even those rules haven't been finalized.
With the first game of the season a week-and-a-half away, that meant hitting the Levi's Stadium field again for practice to work out those details.
"We're still trying to figure out the noise," Shanahan told reporters on Wednesday. "We went in there a couple of practices ago to try to figure it out, and we need more work at that. There's a few things to experiment (with), and the rules aren't official yet either. So, I want to experiment with a few things, and hopefully, we'll get that solidified this week."
Could the 49ers opt to go without artificial noise altogether? Maybe. Shanahan will choose whatever he feels gives his squad an advantage over the visiting Cardinals.
"Yeah, if it's silent in there, it's definitely going to be a difference," Shanahan noted.
Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo acknowledged that playing without crowd noise will be an adjustment, and the team is preparing for any situation it may face come Week 1.
"Yeah, well, I think nothing's set in stone right now," Garoppolo told reporters on Wednesday. "So, we've been kind of mixing it up with trying without noise, trying with the noise at different levels. We've been in the stadium a couple of times trying it, so we've gotten into a pretty good rhythm of it. I think we'll have to be ready to go for both of them, though."
Shanahan isn't too worried about opposing defenders hearing his play calls. Aside from an occasional trip to Seattle or New Orleans, he typically isn't screaming it into his headset, which is linked to his quarterback's helmet.
"The defensive calls and stuff like that, to me, is a bigger deal," said Shanahan. "Every time you change strengths, and you get to hear what the middle linebacker says and all their calls and stuff, I mean, a lot of quarterbacks could pick up on that. So, you're hoping we can get some noise in there, so it does feel a little bit more like a real football game.
"We're just trying to figure out if that noise is constant, what decibel it's at and all the things that go with it, which we don't have a ton of experience in that. So, we're trying to figure it out this week."
