Patriots Looking at “Pods” for Fans at Gillette This Season

Traveling Major League Baseballs teams are already facing over 24 postponed games due to COVID-19 barely a month into the season. While those numbers have some people wondering if the quickly approaching NFL season is actually going to happen, a handful of teams are already preparing their stadiums for fans.

Metlife Stadium, home turf for both the New York Giants and the New York Jets have already announced no fans until 2021. The Green Bay Packers and New Orleans Saints have already said they will not start the season with fans allowed and reassess as the season moves on.

However, the New England Patriots are still holding out some hope that they’ll be able to have fans attend games at Gillette Stadium this season. New England is reportedly one of at least three teams exploring an interesting way of making that happen.

According to Yahoo Sports writer Chris Robinson, the Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, and the Dallas Cowboys are looking into a “pods” system that would allow fans to watch in their home stadiums.

The goal is moving toward finding clusters of people who have made a decision to cluster together (while masking up), then distance the clusters from one another in stadium...And I’ve been told it’s the system that appears to have most traction across the league for the teams that hope to include fan attendance.

Chris Robinson, Yahoo Sports

Just last month the Patriots announced that they’ll limit the capacity of Gillette Stadium to 20 percent if state and local officials allow fans to attend games this fall amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The NFL also announced that as a blanket rule for all teams any fans that do end up attending games in 2020 will be required to wear a mask.