Cheesehead
Well-known member
- Mar 19, 2019
- 2,854
- 0
The Packers used crowd noise in practice on offense inside the Don Hutson Center this week, and if they ultimately don’t have to deal with it, all the better.
“If there isn’t as much, I guess that’s a good problem,” LaFleur said.
“Our fans are really, really … they’re awesome. But we’ll just wait and see what it’s like out there. You’ve still got to go out and play the game.”
The Chargers, who recently moved to LA from San Diego and are waiting for their joint mega-stadium with the Rams to be completed, won’t get caught off-guard. Three weeks ago they hosted Pittsburgh in prime time, and the official attendance of 25,425 was waving Terrible Towels all night long.
The Steelers jumped out to a 24-0 lead by the middle of the third quarter and hung on for a 24-17 victory, so if the Chargers were shell-shocked at all by the hostile environment in their own venue, they’ve processed it and moved on.
Chargers coach Anthony Lynn was deliberately downplaying any impact the fans are going to have on the outcome.
“It should be exciting, a lot of energy in the stadium,” Lynn said in a conference call with Green Bay media this week. “We don’t play the fans, we play the Packers.”
From a historical perspective, this will be the first time in more than three decades the Packers will play a game in front of 30,000 fans or less. Back in 1988, late-season games at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium (29,952) and Detroit’s Pontiac Silverdome (28,124) were more than half empty to watch three teams that combined to win just 13 games that year.
In the here and now, the Packers are trying to keep up their complete 180 away from home compared to a year ago. Green Bay didn’t win a road game until its final trip of the 2018 season in Week 16, after the coaching change. The Packers had lost nine straight on the road dating back to December of 2017.