All sports fans are essentially geeks for their teams. While the Seattle Seahawks recently suffered a rare home loss at CenturyLink Field, their home stadium is nationally known for its intense crowd. Every home game, the television broadcast mentions the fan noise, and opponent use of silent counts and other strategies to overcome the raucous environment.
I have been a big Seahawks fan for a while, and I absolutely love the crowd’s involvement. Seahawks fans are called 12s, which stands for the 12th man. Seattle has been pushing the idea that their fan base is so strong, it adds an extra man to the 11 that play on the field. I can’t remember the last time I missed a Seahawks game. This is a fan base that protects their home field. Seahawks fans are always upset at a loss, but losing at home cuts much deeper.
I haven’t exactly kept it quiet that I’m a Seahawk fan. In fact, I’ve made it very well known recently. So I do get texts and notifications from a number of social media sites from people making sure that I know exactly the score of their games (for some reason I only get them when they lose). I imagine this has something to do with Seattle’s football fan base and football team being seen as having a teeny bit of an ego problem.
Yeah, Richard Sherman yelled into a camera for a bit, and he talks a good amount of trash when he’s on a field. The defense is called “The Legion of Boom,” and they sure do look confident on both sides of the football when they play. I imagine winning a Superbowl 43–8, while making one of the best offenses the NFL has ever seen look like children on the field, could create a bit of an ego too.
Based off the reaction I get from other football fans when I say I’m a Seahawks fan, Seattle fans are not well-liked. But is the hate justified? Or are the Seattle Seahawks a program that just knows how to do everything right?
False starts are a good way to judge crowd noise. Although there are a number of reasons why a false start can occur, one of those reasons can be a loud crowd. According to Seahawks.com, CenturyLink Field has the most opponent false starts since 2005, 1.8 per game.
Lately there has been a competition in the NFL for the loudest stadium between Kansas City and Seattle. They have been going back and forth breaking the world record for loudest stadium. Kansas City currently holds the record, but they aren’t known for having quite the same home field advantage that Seattle has.
I’ve never seen a team like the Seahawks of last season, who knew they were getting to the Superbowl after the regular season ended. They knew it because they got to play every postseason game other than the Superbowl in Seattle. At home. In all the noise. Those fans are so loud and so impactful, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It showed in that playoff run. It showed when Seattle’s biggest rival, the San Francisco 49ers, came up north and played fantastic football—but it still wasn’t enough to get them to the Superbowl.
It’s completely fair to give me a hard time when the Seahawks lose. I get it. But remember, the kind of environment the Seahawks get to play in is not fake in any way. That home field advantage is real. It was real last season, and it’s real this season, even after a loss to (ugh) Jerry Jones’ Cowboys. That false start statistic goes all the way back to 2005, and there were a lot of not-so-good years before Seattle became the dominant football team it was last season. These are not fair-weather fans. 12s love their team, we are the best geeks in football.
