Mark Schlereth previews the return of the NFL on FOX
FOX NFL analyst and former NFL player Mark Schlereth on kicking off the season on ‘Fox & Friends.’
The defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs will host the Houston Texans at Arrowhead Stadium on Thursday night to kick off the 2020 NFL season.
In a league year that will be filled with uncertainty due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Chiefs have taken the proper precautions to make sure fans, staff and players are safe, which includes plans that have been finalized for a reduced capacity, as well as other important health and safety protocols.The team will be allowed to have 16,000 fans in attendance.
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The University of Kansas Health System outlined everything in consultation for fans who will attend games at Arrowhead Stadium.
The Chiefs, who are only one of five teams that will have fans in their stadium to begin the season, announced that they will have intensified methods, including the cleaning and sanitization of high-touch areas before and after each game and regularly throughout the game with hospital-grade disinfectants.
All staff members who enter the building will go through a health screening, which features a questionnaire and temperature check. They are expected to routinely wash their hands with soap and water or use hand sanitizer when unavailable. Staff members must also wear masks throughout their entire shift.
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The gameday experience for fans will be quite different than usual as well. Seating and high-traffic areas of the stadium have been modified to support social distancing standards, and all concessions, retail points of sale and parking tollbooths will be cashless. For the fans attending games, all bags will be prohibited inside the stadium, and everyone must wear a mask at all times except when eating or drinking.
The NFL is also providing every team a stadium-specific recording of crowd noise that must be played at a required level of 70 dB throughout every game, except during injury timeouts and quarter, halftime and commercial breaks.
A league official will be monitoring these levels on the sidelines every game. Teams that don't follow the rules will be subject to fines, suspensions or even lost draft picks.
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The Chiefs ask that fans “be patient and understand that these are unprecedented times.”
“We are all in this together so let's work with one another to keep Chiefs Kingdom safe by adhering to the guidelines outlined,” the Chiefs said.