LA Chargers: Hunter Henry pokes fun, says team is familiar with no fans

Even Hunter Henry is poking fun at the fan attendance for the LA Chargers.

The LA Chargers‘ pre-SoFi Stadium days in Los Angeles are going to be remembered for one thing: the overwhelming majority of visiting fans that would show up for Charger home games.

There were very few instances in which Charger fans were the majority of the fans in the stands at their own home stadium and the worst example of this was in a Sunday Night Football game this past season in which the entire stadium was waving terrible towels. It looked like a Pittsburgh Steelers home game.

Barring some massive change, NFL teams are likely going to be playing without fans in the stands for the 2020 season. This has led to plenty of jokes about Charger fans, including some tongue-in-cheek remarks from current Charger players.

Tight end Hunter Henry appeared on Friday’s episode of the popular Pardon My Take sports podcast and was asked if he was happy that he was not going to see so many terrible towels in the stands this season.

Henry went along with the joke, claiming that the LA Chargers have experience for 2020.

“Honestly, even playing field for everybody this year,” Henry said. “It helps us out a lot, we have a lot of experience with, definitely a lot of experience with what it going on this year.”

For those that remember, this is a very similar thing to what former Chargers running back Melvin Gordon said about Charger fans earlier this offseason. Since Gordon is a former Charger and with the history of the holdout, Charger fans already were not the biggest Melvin Gordon fans.

His comments were not taken lightly by Charger fans. It will be interesting to see if Henry gets a pass or if he will also face some of the negative backlash that Gordon faced.

Hunter Henry did say the LA Chargers were excited to see the fan support in SoFi Stadium.

For those that might be getting a little upset with Henry’s comments, he did follow it up by being complimentary of Charger fans and expressing that the team was excited to see the fans show up at SoFi Stadium.

“We are opening a new stadium so we were very eager for the fans this year. […] We really do, we really have great fans but when the Steelers come in, they kind of overshadow.”

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Henry did follow this up by joking that every team overshadowed last season.

It was an interesting case study to see how Charger fans were going to show up at SoFi Stadium. Because of the low capacity, the ticket prices at Dignity Health Sports Park started at a higher price than traditional games and those prices would get driven up when a big-name team was in town.

Trust me, I know, I tried buying tickets for the Steelers-Chargers game last season and decided not to because it would have been the same as my university tuition payments.

Charger fans are going to have to wait another year to see the beautiful new SoFi Stadium in person but at least the LA Chargers are somewhat prepared for this unique 2020 season.