Saints' Sean Payton Suggested Quarantining 50k Fans for Home-Field Advantage

The New Orleans Saints will be at home for their wild-card game against the Chicago Bears Sunday, but head coach Sean Payton was hoping to have a stadium full of fans.

"I brought up the idea of testing 50,000 people and quarantining them in a hotel and having the most safest Superdome known to man, scientifically," Payton said Wednesday, per Luke Johnson of the New Orleans Advocate. "Bus them, they've tested every day, and you've got a COVID-free facility."

While this could theoretically keep people safe from the COVID-19 pandemic, it would also require a large amount of people to be away from their lives for an extended stretch just for one game. Adding in hotels and daily testing would make it an expensive proposition.

Instead, the Saints are down to about 3,000 fans at games after the latest changes from city officials.

New Orleans often employs one of the best home-field advantages in the NFL, although the team has been eliminated in the playoffs at home in each of the last two years despite having crowded seats. Maybe a relatively empty Mercedes-Benz Superdome can help turn things around for the Saints.