Here’s why the NY Giants need to allow fans in 2020

The NY Giants already figure to be at a disadvantage in almost every game they play in 2020. Why make it harder on the team by playing in an empty stadium?

I know this is a touchy subject for most people, but this 2020 season is really a pivotal year for the future of the NY Giants.

While you could make the argument that every year is a pivotal year, the Giants have been on a tailspin since the 2016 season, racking up the most losses in the NFL over the last three seasons.

Point blank period, the NY Giants need to show legitimate progress in 2020 or this fanbase may just riot. GM Dave Gettleman has been all over the map with his strategy; one year he’s going for it, the next he’s rebuilding.

While he has made his share of savvy moves and has put together some interesting pieces including promising young quarterback Daniel Jones in what I consider the ballsiest draft pick in the modern era, he’s gone back in forth between making moves that make sense for the present and ones that make sense for the future.

In 2020, Big Blue is clearly rebuilding after hiring new head coach Joe Judge and getting rid of most the entire coaching staff. Gettleman is no spring chicken and you can bet he wants this team to start competing sooner rather than later, and nothing has been synonymous with losing franchises more than front office and coaching turnover — something the NY Giants have had a lot of in recent years.

As such, the NY Giants need to explore any possible advantage they can get — allowing fans to attend home games at Metlife Stadium sooner rather than later and before the rest of the league does would be a major advantage.

Like Joe Judge has said many times in his press conferences — the people in the tri-state area are tough people. We’ve come together and fought this problem as hard as we could have but we also have to figure out how to move forward.

Living in fear and not at least exploring ways to do that isn’t the way to go.

We saw just how much of an advantage allowing fans is during the NFL’s opening game of the season last Thursday in Kansas City as Arrowhead Stadium was rocking with a reported 17K fans in attendance (about 25% of the total capacity).

The franchise was the first to announce that they would not be having fans attend games until ‘further notice’ at Metlife Stadium in conjunction with the NY Jets to comply with Governor Phil Murphy’s executive order limiting outdoor gatherings in July.

However, many things have changed since then as the COVID-19 epidemic has begun to subside.

If people are allowed to sit outside next to each other at restaurants in much closer proximity and even sit inside together in some instances then why can’t we fill up a massive outdoor stadium to only 25% capacity? Seems silly.

As we’re already seeing with the team’s Week One home game against the Steelers, Vegas is clearly factoring in the no fans in their oddsmaking as the Giants are big underdogs at home as they open up the season tonight: I’d have to imagine that number would be smaller if there were 82K+ screaming fans in attendance.

No — I’m not advocating that the Giants start to fill up the stadium in droves, but even allowing just 10%-30% like six other NFL franchises (according to the Action Network) are currently doing would be a positive step forward that would give the players much more confidence when they’re playing home games.

Six franchises allowing fans may not sound like much, but even the teams not allowing fans have at least only put a two-game cap on when they’ll make their next decision for the most part. Keeping it open-ended and not at least coming up with a timeline to address the issue is a primative way to deal with this situation.

I did enjoy the fake crowd noise while watching games on TV for the most part, but there is no way the players feel the same rush from that as actually seeing thousands of fans in the stands.

We ran a poll on our @GMENHQ Twitter page today and it seems as though most fans are in agreement that the powers that be should start to consider allowing fans at Metlife.

Via Twitter:

This COVID-19 outbreak has taken a major toll on us all, and I don’t mean to downplay it or act like it’s not a big deal because it is. But, at some point, we’re going to have to begin to move forward. I would like to see the NY Giants be ahead of the curve on this rather than the last ones to the party.

This team has enough problems personnel-wise, the last thing we need is for teams to come in and feel zero pressure that playing a road game usually brings.

There is no reason that this organization can’t figure out a way to safely socially distance (man if I never heard that term again it’d be okay with me) 10k-20k fans in an 82K capacity stadium.

If the fans that want to attend have to sign a waiver absolving the Giants organization of any liabilities I’m sure many fans would have no problem doing that.

No tailgating? Fine.

Just let some people in the stands.