The Las Vegas Raiders opened their new home this weekend as they hosted their first scrimmage at the brand-new Allegiamt Stadium, or as Mark Davis likes to call it, the ‘Death Star.’
The Raiders and the city of Las Vegas spared no expenses in building one of the nicest new venues in the world, and now the organization finally has a home it can call its own.
While the Raiders won’t officially open the stadium until they host the New Orleans Saints on Monday Night Football in Week 2, this weekend’s scrimmage served as a sneak preview for the players and staff members into where they will be working from here on out.
Raiders running back Jalen Richard was among those that couldn’t help but come away impressed, via Kyle Martin of Raiders.com:
“A couple of guys were [looking around the stadium]. For a little bit, I was,” Richard said. “Coach [Gruden] wanted us to get that game feel and be locked in going through the mock pregame. But you could definitely feel guys looking around and saying ‘wow.'”
One aspect of the stadium that Richard says players liked the most is the natural grass field:
“It’s very impressive, man,” he added. “The yard keepers for the field have done a great job — it’s really fast. It’s comfortable, I know a couple of guys thought it was going to be turf, but it turned out to be real grass, so we’re very excited for this.”
It is clear how big of an upgrade Allegiant Stadium is compared to the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, which is cool for not only the players and organization, but also the fans.
Unfortunately, the fans will have to wait a while before seeing the Raiders’ new home as they likely will not be able to attend games in 2020 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
As soon as they are allowed in though there’s no doubt that Raider fans will swarm the Death Star, and there’s also no doubt that they will come away as impressed as the players were when they first saw it.
