The Green Bay Packers Received A Huge Lift From Their Fans

When the Los Angeles Rams ran onto the field Saturday afternoon, boos reigned throughout Lambeau Field.

When Los Angeles quarterback Jared Goff screamed out plays at the line of scrimmage, there were times his teammates couldn’t hear him.

And when the Green Bay Packers eventually defeated the Los Angeles Rams, 32-18, in an NFC Divisional playoff game, there was roar that could be heard in Milwaukee and Madison.

Saturday’s game was the first time this year Green Bay allowed ticketed fans into the stands due to COVID-19. Roughly 6,500 season ticket holders — combined with a limited number of employees’ families and front-line workers — brought the total attendance to 8,456.

After a season, though, of mostly empty stadiums, it felt like a lot more to Green Bay’s players and coaches.

“It felt like 90,000, honestly,” wide receiver Allen Lazard said. “The fans, they were huge. For me, being able to just see more than a couple hundred people for the first time in I don’t know how long was a cool experience, just being able to feed off their energy was huge.

“I think that played a huge role in our win today. I’m going to be looking forward to those guys coming back out and doing the same thing next week, because we’re going to need them. We’re going to need them for sure.”

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers agreed.

“Oh man, talk about just pure joy, running out of that tunnel,” Rodgers said. “We’ve had a few hundred for a couple games, but it felt like 50,000 when we ran out of the tunnel. It really did. It was such a special moment. I forgot how much you truly, truly miss having a crowd there and obviously that wasn’t a normal like last year against Seattle type of crowd. But it felt like 50, 60,000. It really did.

“There’s no, it’s hard to really put into words how special that feeling is. But you can feel it. It’s so palpable. You can feel that energy in the stadium. It’s just different. It’s different playing in front of a crowd. It is. It’s a little more special and obviously more sweet.”

Prior to Saturday, the Packers have had 1,000 or fewer fans for recent home games. Those people included employees, as well as front-line workers and their families.

The Packers were pleased with how their COVID-19 protocols went and welcomed additional fans for the playoff game.

“We were glad to have our fans back in Lambeau,” running back Aaron Jones said. “They made it extremely loud. It sounded like all 80,000 were in there. So it was special to be able to play in front of them. And I’m glad they turned up for us.”

The fans were spaced out through the lower bowl inside of Lambeau, which has a capacity of 81,441. Many fans held up large signs with creative messages, they banged those same signs on the bleachers to create noise, and they yelled and screamed throughout.

Green Bay president Mark Murphy hasn’t announced a plan for the NFC Championship Game on Jan. 24. But the Packers are hoping even more fans will be allowed to attend.

“They said 9,000. I don’t know about 9,000. It looked like it was half of what we usually have, so shoutout to the fans,” Packers wideout Davante Adams said. “They showed up tonight. They were big and they were loud, loud in the perfect situations at the end of that game, just making it tough for them to communicate and yeah, it was huge.

“I saw those signs. I honestly didn’t pay too much attention to it beginning of the game, but on that last drive when we were holding them down there on defense, you hear that stuff and you see it and love it because once we make a play, they get even more loud and the offense, defense, entire team feeds off of that. So we’re looking forward to them coming back here next week.”