City expects Eagles to play home games without fans in 2020 [UPDATE]

UPDATE: The city of Philadelphia clarified the expectations on Wednesday, noting that they are working closely with the Eagles and that this is a “fluid” situation.

The team also reached out to season ticket holders and included the city’s clarifications that things are still be evaluated, but offered the chance to opt-out of 2020 tickets should fans want to defer this season.

Eagles home games are expected to be a lot different in 2020, with the city of Philadelphia issuing an order to ban any indoor events of 25 or more people, per The Inquirer.

“The Eagles are still going to be allowed to play, although without crowds. The Phillies will continue to be allowed to play, although without crowds,” Managing Director Brian Abernathy said.

Abernathy said NFL guidelines also “remind teams that local authorities have the ability to ban fans, so I don’t expect any issues.”

“We have been in communication with the Eagles. We have told them our expectations are that they don’t have fans,” Albernathy said.

We already knew the NFL reduced the preseason to two games, and the NFLPA has been working with the NFL on a host of different rules and strategies to play safely amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but the league is running out of time to finalize things with training camp just around the corner.

The Eagles sent out notices to season ticket holders early in July notifying them that they wouldn’t be charged their deferred payment just yet, and that they would make more announcements after the holiday weekend. Now that it looks like the city, rather than the league, is mandating no fans at home games, not charging fans was a good move.

There are still a lot of questions about the upcoming season, and not a whole lot of time left for decisions to be made.