‘Can’t freakin’ wait! WHOO!’ Seahawks welcome back fans for first time in 21 months
Darrell Taylor knows noise.
He’s played in front of more than 100,000 fans screaming for him and his Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville during the defensive end’s college days.
Yet Sunday Taylor will hear something he’s never heard in football: a Seahawks home crowd cheering for him in the NFL.
“Oh, man! I can’t freakin’ wait! I hope they pack it out,” Taylor said on the eve of the home opener for Seattle (1-0) against the Tennessee Titans (0-1) at, yes, sold-out Lumen Field. “And it’s the first home game? WHOOO!
“They about to pack it out. We are going to have a great time with our fans being there.”
It’s the Seahawks’ first regular-season in Seattle with fans in 21 months, since Dec. 29, 2019. That was the NFC West title game against San Francisco decided at the goal line on the final play in the 2019 regular-season finale. The coronavirus pandemic kept Lumen Field empty for all of the Seahawks’ 2020 season.
The artificial, recorded crowd noise piped into the stadium at low level for ambient sound during home games last year is all Taylor knows of a Seahawks regular-season home game. And he heard that as a spectator on the sideline. The team’s second-round draft choice in 2020 missed his entire rookie season recovering from leg surgery.
No more of that. Sunday, 68,000 people will show their proof vaccinations or negative COVID-19 tests within the last 72 hours required for entry and will bring back one of the NFL’s most unique and decided home-field advantages.
Back to all the noise bouncing off the stadium’s cantilevered roofs and back down onto the field. Back to opponents false starts. Back to the press box shaking.
Back to the Seahawks’ pass rush gaining momentum and advantages at the snap when the opponents try to throw.
“It’s great for us. The O-line, they all have to key in looking at the ball,” Taylor said.
He pantomimed opposing offensive linemen looking down the line of scrimmage at the center snap instead of at him and fellow Seahawks pass rushers.
“When the tackle is looking down at the ball and I’m about to come off the edge, ain’t no way you are going to stop that.
“So I think that’s going to work out really well, considering how we get after the quarterback. I think it’s going to be a really good time having the fans get crazy for us.”
Heck, there’s even a 60% chance of rain during the game. That would make this a true return of an authentically Seattle home-game environment.
Taylor had his first pro sack in his first NFL game, the Seahawks’ 28-16 opening win at Indianapolis that wasn’t as close as that score suggests. Seattle sacked Colts quarterback Carson Wentz three times, all by linemen, plus a fourth sack by end Carlos Dunlap on a two-point conversion. The Seahawks hit Wentz 10 times.
So Taylor has reason for optimism that the noise of the (finally) returning fans plus the rain is going to give the Seahawks’ pass rush more opportunities to control this game, too, against Tennessee quarterback Ryan Tannehill.
But the Titans have one man who can wreck this home-again party.
Derrick Henry is 247 pounds of potential trouble for the Seahawks on Sunday.
He’s the reigning, two-time league rushing champion. The All-Pro running back finished last season with 2,027 yards rushing. That was the fifth-most in any season in NFL history. He led the Titans to 30.7 points per game and the AFC championship game.
Henry romped for 1,540 yards in 2019. That’s 3,567 yards with 33 touchdowns rushing the last two seasons. The unusually large yet fast running back has been the league’s leading rusher for the last two years.
Last weekend in Tennessee’s opener against Arizona, the Cardinals zoomed to a 17-0 lead just 18 minutes into the game. That forced the Titans into throwing way more than coach Mike Vrabel wants to. Only 17 rushes by Henry, with 41 drop backs to pass by Tannehill equaled a 38-13 home loss for a team that reached the AFC title game in January.
Since the middle of the 2019 season, Henry has averaged 174.6 yards rushing per regular-season game the week after getting held to under 100 yards. It’s happened seven times. He’s had four 200-yard games in such situations. That includes 250 yards this past Jan. 3 against Houston.
Henry had 58 last week.
Pete Carroll, Bobby Wagner, Taylor, every Seahawk down to mascot Blitz expects Henry to be running right at Seattle early and often Sunday.
“This team has got a real style about them. It all begins with that running back and their running game and all the rest,” Carroll said.
“It’s a good match-up for us. It’s going to help us during the course of the season because we have to get ready for a great running game.
“We’ll see how we do.”
What else to watch for:
1. Wilson’s 100.
A win for the Seahawks (1-0) and their franchise quarterback Sunday would be Russell Wilson’s 100th in the league.
One hundred wins in his 146th career regular-season game would be the third fewest starts to that mark in NFL history. Only Tom Brady (131) and Joe Montana (139) won 100 in fewer starts. Wilson would top Terry Bradshaw (147), Ben Roethlisberger (150), Brett Favre (153) and Johnny Unitas (153).
A win Sunday, off Wilson’s four-touchdown, no-turnover victory at Indianapolis, and Wilson would join Peyton Manning (105) as the only NFL quarterbacks to win 100 games by their 10th season. That speaks to the fact Wilson has been Seattle’s starter since the third preseason game of his rookie year, 2012. Sunday will be his 146th consecutive start. He’s never missed one in his 10 pro seasons.
Winning is the only record he says he pays attention to.
“Every day I wake up and tell people, because they’ll ask me: ‘What’s your job, can you explain to me what your job is as the quarterback?’” Wilson said.
“I’ll say, ‘I have one simple job, that is to help the Seattle Seahawks win.’”
Yet this weekend, Wilson’s job is far more complex, more real, than the normal one for a starter at the most intricate position in sports.
He will be doing something he’s never done before in the NFL, or in college at North Carolina State and Wisconsin, or in high school in Richmond, Virginia.
Wilson is playing four days after he lost his best friend.
Trevor Moawad passed away at age 48 Wednesday night in California, following his years-long fight with cancer.
2. Five again?
After the Colts’ Jonathan Taylor was romping on them early on inside running plays, the Seahawks went to five defensive linemen. Al Woods, a 330-plus-pound tackle, was at end outside Bryan Mone and Poona Ford, with Darrell Taylor at the opposite end at times against Indianapolis.
Jonathan Taylor gained just 6 yards on six carries the rest of the half, and the Seahawks went from down 3-0 to up 21-10. They cruised from there to win.
After the victory, Carroll feigned ignorance about the new wrinkle of five defensive linemen.
“That might have been a mistake in the substitutions today,” Carroll said.
Expect to see more “mistakes” from the Seahawks’ defensive line to combat Henry Sunday.
3. Unleash Everett.
The most telling takeaway from the tantalizing debut of first-time play caller Shane Waldron’s new offense for the Seahawks last week came after it.
New tight end Gerald Everett pointed out all the formations, the motion, the throwing out of two tight ends, the fly sweeps were just a fraction of all that’s in Seattle’s playbook and what the team will use on defenses this season.
Everett, who arrived with Waldron from the Los Angeles Rams, scored his first Seahawks touchdown lined up outside right as a wide receiver then slanting easily inside and past Colts All-Pro linebacker Darius Leonard.
Look for more of Everett in more ways, and of Waldron putting him and Wilson finding him in advantageous matchups all over formations.
The pick: Seahawks 20, Titans 16.
Henry gets his, running right at the Seahawks’ front and turning this game into a grinding grudge match. Yes, the Titans’ defense has been iffy for years. But the Seahawks’ new offense may not get the ball enough to exploit that. Yet Wilson will get it enough to beat Tannehill at the end, thrilling the roaring, returning Seattle fans.
This story was originally published September 18, 2021 at 4:06 PM.
