After the 49ers beat the Rams in Week 18 of the 2021 season in L.A., it came to light that the home team had to use the silent count, given the number of San Francisco fans who were in the building. It’s become more common for the defending Super Bowl champions to have to deal with crowd noise in their own building.
With the 49ers returning on Sunday for (as Peter King mentioned on Friday’s PFT Live) the fourth game between the two teams in the 2022 calendar year (and the third at SoFi Stadium), the Rams are ready for a raucous road crowd.
“They travel well,” coach Sean McVay told reporters on Friday. “We definitely have the ability to utilize our silent count if need be. We’d rather be ready than caught off guard. And so, if that’s the case, certainly our guys are ready to handle that. And if not, we’ll be excited about that as well. But either way, we’re just excited about the opportunity to be back at home playing in front of a great crowd and seeing if we can give people a lot to be excited about.”
McVay’s right, but his first three words are wrong. It’s not just 49ers fans making the trip from San Francisco to L.A. It’s also 49ers fans already in L.A., given that the NFL abandoned the market for 20 years.
During that time, a full generation of kids grew up watching pro football but without a local team to pull for. So they picked any team they wanted to align with.
Now, with two teams back in L.A., there are thousands of fans of every team in Los Angeles and surrounding communities (well, of most teams -- we won’t name names because do we really have to?). When one of those teams comes to town, the fans get tickets to the game. And then they do what fans do.