Giants Country

New York Giants Players Eager to See Fans in Stands

The Giants will practice before their fans Wednesday night at MetLife Stadium where the door will be open to the general public for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Patricia Traina

New York Giants Players Eager to See Fans in Stands
New York Giants Players Eager to See Fans in Stands /

On the Giants players' schedule, it's just another padded practice among several scheduled for training camp, but Wednesday night's practice is going to take on a whole new level for head coach Joe Judge and his players.

Wednesday, the team will be holding its first and only practice of this year's training camp at MetLife Stadium, which will open its doors to its fans for its FanFest event. 

And while the Giants have several football objectives they want to accomplish during the practice, one of them will be reacclimating themselves to performing football activities in front of their home crowd.

"I can’t wait, honestly. Honestly, I can’t," said tight end Evan Engram. "That’s been circled on my calendar. I do miss the fans at training camp every day like in the past. Just being back in the atmosphere and kind of getting a taste of what it’s going to be like come September 12th, I’m definitely looking forward to it and can’t wait."

"It’s going to be pretty fun," added defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence II. "Obviously, we missed the fans last year. They bring a different type of excitement, a different type of juice. Playing in front of them is just an honor, really."

Last season, fans were kept out of MetLife Stadium and all New Jersey public venues thanks to an executive order by Governor Phil Murphy in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. 

But despite the emergence of the virus's Delta variant, said to be highly contagious, the rollout of the vaccines to prevent serious illness caused by the virus has given Murphy's office some confidence in reopening the state's public venues to capacity.

While the Giants didn't exactly love playing in an empty home stadium, the players and coaches did a decent enough job tuning out the external environment when it came time to step in between the white lines and play ball. But make no mistake about it--if given their druthers, the players would rather have some friendly faces in the stands cheering and supporting them.

"Yeah, you kind of got numb to it after a while," Lawrence said. "You’re just out there trying to win games and do your job, keep the spirits up and keep the energy up yourself. We had a lot of games to kind of feel that out and just keep things going for ourselves."

"Football is football," Engram agreed, "but just our fans, how passionate they are, and every Sunday before last year that stadium was rocking. We feed off that. We feel like we’ve improved as a team and we’re ready to put the product that we’ve been working for and building for on the field for our fans."

 More from Giants Country

Join the Giants Country Community!

Published
Patricia Traina
PATRICIA TRAINA

Patricia Traina has covered the New York Giants for 30+ seasons, and her work has appeared in multiple media outlets, including The Athletic, Forbes, Bleacher Report, and the Sports Illustrated media group. As a credentialed New York Giants press corps member, Patricia has also covered five Super Bowls (three featuring the Giants), the annual NFL draft, and the NFL Scouting Combine. She is the author of The Big 50: The Men and Moments that Made the New York Giants. In addition to her work with New York Giants On SI, Patricia hosts the Locked On Giants podcast. Patricia is also a member of the Pro Football Writers of America and the Football Writers Association of America.

Home/News