They’re back: Seahawks get approval for full capacity of fans at home games this season
As the Northwest and nation continue to get vaccinated and emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, the Seahawks just regained one of the NFL’s biggest home-field advantages for 2021.
The team announced Tuesday its league, Seattle, King County and Washington state government and public-health officials have approved full-capacity crowds at Lumen Field for all Seahawks home games this season.
The usually packed, rocking, 68,000-seat stadium in the SoDo section of Seattle was essentially silent and empty for all the 2020 season. That was because of league and local restrictions from the coronavirus pandemic. The restrictions negated what has been a huge edge for the Seahawks over the past decade: roaring Seattle fans shaking the building’s cantilever roofs and opposing teams into mistakes and defeats.
“Can’t wait to see those 12s,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said last week in anticipation of the team approval to have its fans back this fall and winter. “Can’t wait to see the 12s.
“I know they’re coming. I know somebody is going to be in those stands. Can’t wait to get you out there.”
Fans will not be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to attend Seahawks home games this year, per Washington public-health guidelines. Those who are not vaccinated will be required to wear masks.
The Seahawks reiterated Tuesday they support and encourage all fans to get vaccinated, for the community’s common good.
Carroll has been pushing to have 100% of the Seahawks’ players vaccinated by the start of training camp at the end of July. Last week, he said that goal was within reach. He and the team hosted another vaccination event at the team facility in Renton for players and their families on the final day of mandatory minicamp, the last day players were together before training camp begins next month.
The Seahawks’ announcement that fans will be coming back in full this season came two weeks after Mayor Jenny Durkan announced Seattle was the first major U.S. city to have at least 70% of its population fully vaccinated from COVID-19. Durkan said June 9 that 78% of Seattle’s residents had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
New York City, by comparison, had 56% of its adult population fully vaccinated.
In early 2020, Seattle became the first major U.S. metropolitan area to have a COVID-19 outbreak, at a senior-care home in suburban Kirkland.
The Seahawks are 106-46 at home since the 2002 season. Only Green Bay has a better home record in the the NFL in that span (108-42-2).
Last season was Seattle’s fifth division title in 11 years under Carroll. Yet the Seahawks, who finished the 2020 regular season 12-4, uncharacteristically lost at home in December to the eventual 6-10 New York Giants. Then Seattle lost inside their quiet, empty home to the clearly undaunted Los Angeles Rams in the first round of the NFC playoffs in January.
For most of the last decade, opponents have committed more false-start penalties amid the constant noise inside Lumen Field than in any other NFL stadium. Those foes’ foul-ups all but ceased last season.
Starting in August with two preseason games, then Sept. 19 in the 2021 home opener against Tennessee, the fans are back in full in Seattle.
“Oh man, I’m excited to have them,” Seahawks wide receiver Tyler Lockett.
“You never know what it’s like to not have something until you don’t have it. And when we didn’t have the fans, you could tell it was different …
“It taught me how not to take fans for granted, but how to be able to enjoy and be appreciative that people are actually there. So I’m excited for the fans to come back. I’m really excited just to be able to go out there—I always call it a concert, because that’s what it feels like ever since I first stepped on that football field.
“And, so, when the fans come back, it’s time to get it going.”
This story was originally published June 22, 2021 at 1:45 PM.
