Dee Ford is entering his second season with the San Francisco 49ers and there's a chance his second year could come with zero fans in attendance.
While the NFL continues to configure ideas for the upcoming season, Dee Ford spoke out on the advantages of crowd noise.
“At the end of the day, the true advantage is just the energy at home,” Ford said Friday on a video call with Bay Area reporters.
“I definitely feel it's an advantage, or a disadvantage if you don't have it. And I guess I do feel like it would be a little unfair.”
Just recently, the NFL has begun to reopen team facilities for the first time since March — when the coronavirus pandemic struck. For teams to partially reopen their facilities, they will need clearance from their local and state government. The same guidelines could be enforced for games, with some teams being able to have fans while others can't.
“It would definitely be, in my opinion, an unfair advantage, if some teams have fans and some teams don't,” Dee Ford said. “On the offensive side, you're dealing with crowd noise. And on the defensive side, it's more so snap count, chaos.”
In response to the chance that crowds are limited or absent, there are reports that the NFL could instill crowd noise into stadiums. Dee Ford believes that virtual crowd noise is a laughable subject.
“I heard things about the virtual crowd noise,” Dee Ford said, laughing. “I'm going to go out on the limb and say, a couple teams already have that going on, so they won't have any issues with it.”
It remains to be seen how the NFL plans on conducting games later this year. Similar to most players, Dee Ford seems prepared to play under unusual circumstances in 2020.
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