Jarran Reed, Leonard Williams issue challenge to Seahawks fans for 49ers playoff
There’s only one Seahawk who knows what he’s about to enter.
Jarran Reed is the only current player who was on the team the last time Seattle hosted an NFL playoff game with fans packing and rocking Lumen Field.
It was Jan. 7, 2017. The stadium in SoDo was jammed with 68,788 fans screaming people. They roared over Thomas Rawls (remember him?) rushing for a Seahawks-record 161 yards in a 26-6 win over the Detroit Lions in an NFC wild-card game. Reed played 24 of the 55 snaps Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Bobby Wagner, Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril played on the tail-end Legion of Boom defense that night.
“To be playing as long as I have and to be able to get back to the playoffs, especially here in Seattle, it’s real special,” Reed, now 33 in his 10th NFL season, said this week. “I said that couple weeks ago when we had won the NFC (West). It felt good to be able to be here when we brought it back home.”
But, Reed added: “We got more work to do. The job is not done.”
Including for Seahawks fans.
Reed is this 14-3 team’s soul and locker-room leader. He inspires teammates on the field with a fiery pep talk before each game.
He issued a task to Seattle’s fans for Saturday night’s divisional-playoff game against the rival San Francisco 49ers (13-5).
“I can’t wait to see the fans. I can’t wait to get out there and just feel the energy from the field,” Reed said.
“You know, we need our 12s out there. We need them as loud as ever. Trying to break the little sound meter (on the stadium’s scoreboard). I think it topped at 109. We’re trying to break it to where it can’t record it.
“We need it loud, man so the ‘Dark Side (Defense)’ can come alive. Especially if we’re going into a situation in the Death Zone, just playing our style of football.”
Reed is issuing his call for this win-or-go-home game against the dreaded 49ers. The Seahawks just beat San Francisco in their last game Jan. 3 to earn the NFC’s top playoff seed.
“We get a team that we don’t like,” Reed said.
“Me, personally? Don’t like nothing about them.”
Seattle fans’ tangible effect on home games
There’s a long hallway that joins the locker room to the main meeting auditorium on the first floor of the team’s facility in Renton. Hundreds of rectangular photos line the wall of that hallway astride the indoor practice field. Each photo on the wall is from each of the 433 victories (416 in the regular season, 17 more in 36 playoff games, with one Super Bowl title) the franchise had had in Seattle’s 50 seasons.
In one home victory at then-named Qwest Field, during the team’s first Super Bowl season of 2005, the New York Giants committed an infamous 11 false-start penalties. The Seahawks’ home fans got louder with each one, ruining the Giants’ offense. The photo in the hallway from that win is a close-up of Larry Nemmers, the NFL referee for that game, signalling yet another false-start penalty on New York that day. It’s the only one of the 433 photos of all the wins that has a referee instead of a Seahawk.
That’s what coach Mike Macdonald has said he is seeking to replicate in Seattle. He’s been saying that since he took over the team in January 2024.
One of his overarching mantras for his players, “12 As One,” is a nod to the 12s, Seahawks fans — specifically the impact he wants them to have on home games.
Saturday, hosting a playoff game as a division champion in a shaking stadium, is exactly where he expects his team to be. For a while.
“We expect to do it a lot, hopefully,” Macdonald said this week.
Reed, Cooper Kupp, kicker Jason Myers and punter Michael Dickson are the only Seahawks who played in the last postseason game at Lumen Field. It was five years ago, at the end of the weird, silent, 2020 season. The pandemic and the state’s COVID-19 restrictions then prohibited fans from attending Seahawks home games that season.
Kupp’s Rams found they had a huge advantage, a level competitive balance, playing Seattle with its home stadium empty. Sixth-seeded Los Angeles came into Lumen Field with deep reserve, journeyman John Wolford at quarterback and beat Russell Wilson and the third-seeded Seahawks, 30-20.
“Oh, it’s huge, and that year was crazy in and of itself,” Kupp, the 32-year-old wide receiver, said this week. “But when you take that out of it, what it allows you to do offensively, the ease of, hey, third downs, especially anytime that you’re in the huddle and you’re like, ‘We’ve got to be on our stuff’ — talking about third downs and the detail and the focus that’s required — if you can’t hear, if you’re having to have the quarterback repeat things and 2 or 3 seconds ticks off the (play) clock, they’ve got to get something communicated, that’s a big deal. That’s 2 or 3 seconds that the QB doesn’t get up at the line of scrimmage.
“Yeah, those things definitely play a role and are impactful.”
Leonard Williams wants to put an addendum on Reed’s challenge to Seahawks fans for Saturday night.
The Pro Bowl defensive end is playing in just the third playoff game in his 11-year career. It’s the 32-year old’s first postseason home game. That’s because he spent the first 8 1/2 seasons of his NFL career with the New York Jets and Giants.
Williams says Seahawks fans can have a tangible effect on the ability of Brock Purdy and the 49ers offense’s effectiveness Saturday night.
That is, if they choose the perfect times to peak their noise: As San Francisco’s quarterback who is 4-0 in his career inside Lumen Field is trying to tell his teammates the plays.
“It’s real, especially when they’re getting loud during their huddle,” Williams said. “I think that’s when it’s most effective. If they’re getting loud after the huddle breaks, I think they kind of already know what’s going on. It kind of helps with their checks (at the line) and stuff like that. But when they’re specifically loud while they’re huddling, it makes it extremely hard for the offense.
“Sometimes it’s even hard for us on defense to communicate, but I think we’ve been playing home, it’s been loud all season, so we’ve found ways to communicate non-verbally on defense.
“And we want them to be as loud as possible this Saturday.”
Purdy knows what he’s in for on Saturday night at Lumen Field.
“It’s one of the hardest places to play when it comes to the environment and fans,” the Niners quarterback told Bay Area reporters this week. “You have to be on point with everything. Your communication, the operation, it all adds up.
“But when you’re on top of it and you can execute on the road, it can feel really good.
“It’s a tough place to play. But it’s worth it when you’re on top of your stuff.”
This story was originally published January 15, 2026 at 11:16 AM.
