If there was one consistent theme to come from the 49ers' State of the Franchise event on Wednesday night, it was how much the team and the players are looking forward to getting fans back in the stands after a 2020 season filled with games in empty stadiums.
Now that the Bay Area has seen dramatic improvements in the fight against COVID-19, the 49ers will be able to welcome fans back to Levi's Stadium for training camp practices, preseason games, and regular season games. There's no question that everyone across the board in the 49ers' organization is eagerly anticipating having the fans behind them after what everyone went through in 2020.
"(It's going to help) immensely," 49ers general manager John Lynch said Wednesday night.
The NFL in general went through an unusual season in 2020, but no team had an experience quite like the 49ers. After not being allowed to have fans at their games early in the season, the 49ers were forced to move their late-season home games to Arizona due to local COVID-19 restrictions. Things will be much more normal this season, which everyone is understandably looking forward to.
"It's so nice and our players feel it," 49ers owner Jed York said. "When we had to go to Arizona for a period of time, we at least got to see some of our players' family and things like that, but playing in front of nobody is just such a strange, strange experience. It's just a very, very different world, and The Faithful, whether it's here or on the road, you've seen them lift us up and lift our spirits."
49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan recalled his first experience without fans in the stands last season, which was made even more surreal by the presence of local wildfires. Shanahan usually doesn't pay too much attention to what's going on in the stands before the game, but last season, he couldn't help but notice.
"I don't even know what's going on before the game. I'm so locked in on the game," Shanahan said. "But you feel people. You feel an energy. Even if I had earplugs in, you still feel a collective energy of 80,000 people. That's something that if you would have asked me before, 'What's it going to be like not having fans?' I would have been like, 'That's probably going to suck.'
"But now I really know it does. I actually had to go through that, and it is worse than I ever imagined. That first game, I'll never get over it when I came out and saw cardboard sitting in the stands and our sky was orange. I did not know where I was. I'm like, 'Is this real?' Eventually you got used to it, but it wasn't something I wanted to get used to. It was nice not having to use the silent cadence on the road, but that was the only benefit."
No one will appreciate the return of fans to Levi's Stadium more than the players, however. 49ers players haven't had the chance to play in front of a home crowd since their NFC Championship win over the Green Bay Packers during the 2019 season, so they're eagerly anticipating the chance to do so this year -- and are expecting things to get energetic when it finally happens.
"Ever since I was a rookie, even when we weren't winning a lot of games, they always showed up and they always loved the Niners," tight end George Kittle said. "The last time I played in front of a full stadium was the NFC Championship game. That was pretty electric. I definitely know that our fans are going to come back because they've missed us just as much as we've missed them. Levi's Stadium is a place where the fans make a great impact. The fans are close to the field. You hear them and you can feel the energy. They bring it every single Sunday. Just the fact we get to play in front of them again, you kind of feel like a gladiator out there."
As luck would have it, the 49ers open their regular season home schedule with a Sunday night game against the Packers. The atmosphere in Levi's Stadium will likely be one the players won't soon forget.
"That's going to be a special moment for sure," linebacker Fred Warner said. "It couldn't have worked out better. The fact that it's going to be a prime time game, it's at night, our first home game of the season, just having fans back is going to be so special. I know personally, I thrive off the fans' energy."
As was the case with the 2020 season, the 2021 season will be a unique experience for the 49ers -- albeit one that will probably be much more enjoyable than what they went through last year. The team will be making up for some lost time by celebrating 2019's success with the fans, but it'll also be looking to create some new high points as well. Hopefully, the 49ers and their fans will experience a 2021 season that makes 2020 feel like a distant memory.
"I'm really looking forward to it," Lynch said. "It's going to be nice to have that energy. It helps pick you up. We've got a lot of guys who love it but that's even increased when you've got a fan base like ours."
