Oh, the 12th Man is for real in Seattle. But, no one said that the 12th Man gets you to the big dance. It only helps the home record - makes Seattle's Qwest Field and KC's Arrowhead Stadium a very difficult environment for visiting teams to play in.
Save the Sean Taylor emotion argument. Sean isn't doing anything for the team from the beyond. Personally, I am sick and tired of hearing about him. He died the way he lived. Lets move on.
seattle could have an easy run through the playoffs. seattle and redskins are about the only teams in the nfc that are healthy and on any kinda of winning streak. but i dont think a first time playoff qb will be able to handle a fast defense. unless portis can carry the game, which he very well could, i think redskins offense will fold.
It's the NFC, and I just don't seee anyone as all that good. Plus I have an east coast bias. So I just don't see the big gap in talent between the 2 teams, and spare me the 12th man. If that was really the big deal the seahawks and the Chiefs would be in nearly every Super Bowl. I think the Skins defense plus the Sean Taylor emotion carries the day. of course I am a Skins fan.
The Seahawks have 24 wins at home since 2005. 12th man or not, the Seahawks do play better at home. Good luck!
Redskins fullback Mike Sellers has played in the domes of Minnesota, St. Louis, Indianapolis and in front of notoriously hostile crowds at Oakland, Philadelphia and Kansas City. But Sellers said there's no place louder than Seattle's Qwest Field where Washington will try keep its surprising season going in Saturday's wild card playoff game. That's where the New York Giants were penalized 11 times for false starts in 2005.
"The crowd was ridiculous," Sellers said thinking back to Washington's 2005 playoff loss at Seattle. "That's the loudest stadium I've ever played in. Crowd noise is an issure for us. The guy from Microsoft [Seahawks owner Paul Allen] when he built the stadium, I think he had a few little extras put in."
Noisy Qwest Field not a top concern
By Ryan O'Halloran
January 3, 2008
James Thrash aggravated his ankle sprain enough that Joe Gibbs called it a "concern." (Joseph Silverman/The Washington Times)
No stadium has produced more false starts by the opposition than Seattle's Qwest Field.
Presented with that fact yesterday about the Seahawks' home stadium, the Washington Redskins responded with a collective, "So what?"
Center Casey Rabach: "I can't imagine playing anywhere that was louder than Minnesota. We know what to expect. I'm not too worried about it."
Associate head coach-offense Al Saunders: "We've played in some really noisy places — Philadelphia, Minnesota and our place. For our guys, it's part of the culture to be able to handle that."
Quarterback Todd Collins: "It sure is pretty loud, but you just deal with it. You can't do anything about it. Guys have to pay attention. Listen and try to make plays in your favor to quiet them down."
Opponents have 68 false start penalties (2.83 a game) at Seattle. The Redskins had two in their playoff loss in January 2006. The teams play Saturday in an NFC wild card game.
The Redskins are 4-4 on the road this season, silencing crowds in Philadelphia, Minnesota and the Meadowlands (twice).
The Redskins have 23 false start penalties, including 12 on the road. In their first road game (Philadelphia), they had four false starts. They had three against Minnesota but none at Dallas.
Fullback Mike Sellers thinks the Seahawks pipe in crowd noise.
"That place has to be miked up because the last time we played there, it was ridiculous — we couldn't hear ourselves talk," he said. "For a stadium that small, it can't be that loud."
The Redskins conducted a walkthrough yesterday and don't have to list the injury status of receiver James Thrash (ankle) until tomorrow morning. But coach Joe Gibbs said Thrash's injury is a "concern."
"He said he tweaked it some but not like he did before," Gibbs said.
Thrash sustained a high ankle sprain in the Week 10 loss to Philadelphia and missed four games.
"It's not frustrating, just painful," he said.
Linebacker Randall Godfrey (abdominal strain) is expected to practice today.
The Redskins' Week 1 starting lineup missed a combined 56 games with injury. Only eight opening day starters — Chris Samuels, Pete Kendall, Chris Cooley and Clinton Portis on offense and Cornelius Griffin, Andre Carter, London Fletcher and LaRon Landry on defense — started every game.
Collins was named NFC offensive player of the month yesterday. In December, Collins was 67-for-105 for 888 yards, five touchdowns, no interceptions and a 106.4 passer rating during four victories.
Collins will start his first postseason game Saturday.
"You always have some butterflies," he said. "That's part of the game — you have that experience ever since you've been playing football. ... This is going to be the playoffs, now but in terms of you have to win to keep playing, that hasn't changed. We've been playing playoff football the last four weeks."
Sellers grew up in the Seattle area and is trying to collect more than 40 game tickets.
"I need to take out a loan," he said. "I could use some help because it's 42 and it's steadily rising. I've stopped answering my phone."
Cantilever roofs larger than 747s give Seahawks unique home-field edgeAssociated Press
Updated: January 4, 2008, 4:31 AM EST RSS digg blog email print SEATTLE (AP) - Joe Gibbs appreciates where his Redskins are as much as anyone.
Four consecutive wins to end the regular season sent Washington to the playoffs for the second time in three seasons.
The improbable, inspirational December surge, which followed the death of defensive leader Sean Taylor, also allowed Gibbs to rebound from what he calls the "lowest point" of his 16 years as a head coach. Gibbs called consecutive time outs at the end of a game five weeks ago, earning a 15-yard penalty and making Buffalo's winning field goal easier.
As for where the Redskins are going Saturday? Well, the Hall of Fame coach doesn't appreciate that so much.
"That's the good news," Gibbs said of the 10th playoff berth in his legendary career. "The bad news is we're going to Seattle. It's not a good place to go for a playoff game."
The Seahawks were 7-1 at home this season and are 34-7 at Qwest Field since Week 16 of the 2002 season. Only New England's 35-7 home mark is better during that span. Since 2001, Seattle is 42-14 at home, second only to the Patriots' 45-11.
That doesn't include the playoffs, in which the Seahawks are 3-1 at Qwest Field. That includes a 20-10 win over the Redskins in the teams' previous meeting, during the divisional playoffs in January 2006 on Seattle's way to the Super Bowl. That is Gibbs' only loss is six career games against the Seahawks.
"I think ... we went to Seattle not knowing," Washington running star Clinton Portis said. "That stadium was loud. The crowd was amazing."
It's not just that Seattle is starved for a title - though it is, not having felt a major men's professional sports championship since the 1979 SuperSonics won the NBA.
And, no, it's generally not the weather. Saturday is expected to bring - shocker! - steady rain and temperatures in the mid 40s during the game, with gusty winds that will make it feel like the mid 30s. But Seattle's FieldTurf, which is near real grass without the mud, and a high-tech draining system generally neutralize the effects of most weather.
Seattle's home-field advantage largely comes from Qwest Field's cantilever roofs along each sideline. Each is 760-feet long, the same as three 747 jets parked end-to-end. The roofs hang over each upper decks of each sidelines and cover 70 percent of the 67,000 seats. They are supposedly designed to keep fans semidry during the many rainy games.
But effectively, the roofs are noise traps that push the fans' roars back onto the playing surface, making players' ears ring and grandstands shake. The Seahawks love to point out that their "12th Man" of fans has caused 68 false-start penalties by opponents during the last three seasons. The New York Giants had 11 in one memorable mess of a loss at Seattle in 2005.
The Minnesota Vikings' home inside the Metrodome is second in the league in that span, having produced 57 opponents' false starts.
"I would think that an indoor facility would be louder than outdoor, but I hear that Seattle is louder," said Redskins quarterback Todd Collins, whose four consecutive wins included a key victory last month at Minnesota.
He was last inside Qwest Field in 2002, when he was a backup with the Kansas City Chiefs and the Seahawks were chronically mediocre.
At least one Redskins player - a native of Lacey, Wash., about an hour south of Seattle, no less - thinks the Seahawks' noise is artificially enhanced.
"That place had to be miked up because the last time we played there, it was ridiculous. We couldn't hear ourselves talk," running back Mike Sellers told The Washington Times this week. "For a stadium that small, it can't be that loud."
That made Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren - and presumably the 67,000 locals who hold tickets for Saturday's game - smile.
"Anyone who's been to a game here knows it's not artificial. It's all our fans," Holmgren said. "It's a learned activity for them. So you don't have to encourage them a lot.
"Now, I would suspect that if they think someone is accusing us of doing something like that, they might even come with a little more voice."
Holmgren grinned. About the only thing he didn't do was stamp his foot to emphasize his invitation to the fans.
This isn't the first time opponents have accused the Seahawks of piping in recorded noise. The Giants did after their false-start fiasco two seasons ago.
The NFL sent a memorandum early in the 2006 season, before the Giants played again in Seattle, about such complaints. A monitor from the league attended a game here that season to ensure there wasn't artificial amplification.
"It is quite an experience," Holmgren said of a Seattle home game. "The people that I have talked to this year - that I might bump into at a store or something, that went to the game for the first time - they can't believe it. They just cannot believe it.
"So, I suspect, if history tells us anything, that in the playoffs it will be noisy.
"It's one of the things when it is all said and done here for me I'll feel very, very good about: the fact that going to the game at Qwest Field is fun again. ... We need them Saturday, that's for sure."
Thats gotta be one helluva tailgate party!!! Cheers and Good luck Hawks!!!
Van 92.07.21 / Van 98.07.19 / Sea 98.07.22 / Tor 98.08.22 / Sea 00.11.06 / Van 03.05.30/ Van 05.09.02/ Gorge 06.07.22 & 23 / EV Van 08.04.02 / Tor 09.08.21 / Sea 09.09.21 & 22 / Van 09.09.25 / Van 11.09.25 / Van 13.12.04 / Pem 16.07.17 / Sea 18.08.10
"We've got to go into games knowing what our shifts are against various formations," Kerney says, "because if Eddie Vedder was out there screaming at the top of his lungs, we still wouldn't be able to hear the signals."
"won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom...cause all i've ever had, redemption songs"
--BOB MARLEY
when I was out and about today wearing my Redskins tee i got quite a few comments from complete strangers. I had two ladies tell me that I was "in the wrong Washington" everyone that said anything to me was very nice about it. though I did get alot of people givin me the skunk eye :mad: and i just smiled back at them
FUCK YEAHHHHHH!!! What a game!!!! Seahawks deserved to win that game, no doubt...and if you think otherwise, you're probably living on the east coast...next week for the hawks will be real tough, but not without a good chance...
"won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom...cause all i've ever had, redemption songs"
--BOB MARLEY
Save the Sean Taylor emotion argument. Sean isn't doing anything for the team from the beyond. Personally, I am sick and tired of hearing about him. He died the way he lived. Lets move on.
Call it sour grapes, but you my friend are ignorant. Must I remind you that Sean Taylor was murdered in his own home by a bunch of punks that were trying to rob him? You do realize that he died protecting his family? And he died (and lived) with more courage than I am sure your anonymous message board ass could ever muster.
Some people are just classless.
Congrats to the Seahawks for a great win.
Hail to the Redskins.
"Goddamn Romans. Sure know how to make a ... drum room." --Matt Cameron
Call it sour grapes, but you my friend are ignorant. Must I remind you that Sean Taylor was murdered in his own home by a bunch of punks that were trying to rob him? You do realize that he died protecting his family? And he died (and lived) with more courage than I am sure your anonymous message board ass could ever muster.
Some people are just classless.
Congrats to the Seahawks for a great win.
Hail to the Redskins.
Yeah, sorry about the "he died the way he lived" comment. I had no right to say that as I really have no idea how he lived his life.
But, the Redskins losing should prove that Sean Taylor had nothing to do with the Redskins 4-game win streak, and he had nothing to do with their loss to Seattle yesterday.
Yeah, sorry about the "he died the way he lived" comment. I had no right to say that as I really have no idea how he lived his life.
But, the Redskins losing should prove that Sean Taylor had nothing to do with the Redskins 4-game win streak, and he had nothing to do with their loss to Seattle yesterday.
Just try to remember that when you say things like that without really knowing the facts you make yourself seem less intelligent than I am sure you are.
To your second point, I disagree completely. I think their turnaround was very much inspired by the loss of Taylor. Think "Life Wasted" ...
"Goddamn Romans. Sure know how to make a ... drum room." --Matt Cameron
Just try to remember that when you say things like that without really knowing the facts you make yourself seem less intelligent than I am sure you are.
To your second point, I disagree completely. I think their turnaround was very much inspired by the loss of Taylor. Think "Life Wasted" ...
Comments
Save the Sean Taylor emotion argument. Sean isn't doing anything for the team from the beyond. Personally, I am sick and tired of hearing about him. He died the way he lived. Lets move on.
24-10 seattle.
The Seahawks have 24 wins at home since 2005. 12th man or not, the Seahawks do play better at home. Good luck!
That should be interesting to watch!
"The crowd was ridiculous," Sellers said thinking back to Washington's 2005 playoff loss at Seattle. "That's the loudest stadium I've ever played in. Crowd noise is an issure for us. The guy from Microsoft [Seahawks owner Paul Allen] when he built the stadium, I think he had a few little extras put in."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080103/SPORTS01/810398838/1005/SPORTS
Noisy Qwest Field not a top concern
By Ryan O'Halloran
January 3, 2008
James Thrash aggravated his ankle sprain enough that Joe Gibbs called it a "concern." (Joseph Silverman/The Washington Times)
No stadium has produced more false starts by the opposition than Seattle's Qwest Field.
Presented with that fact yesterday about the Seahawks' home stadium, the Washington Redskins responded with a collective, "So what?"
Center Casey Rabach: "I can't imagine playing anywhere that was louder than Minnesota. We know what to expect. I'm not too worried about it."
Associate head coach-offense Al Saunders: "We've played in some really noisy places — Philadelphia, Minnesota and our place. For our guys, it's part of the culture to be able to handle that."
Quarterback Todd Collins: "It sure is pretty loud, but you just deal with it. You can't do anything about it. Guys have to pay attention. Listen and try to make plays in your favor to quiet them down."
Opponents have 68 false start penalties (2.83 a game) at Seattle. The Redskins had two in their playoff loss in January 2006. The teams play Saturday in an NFC wild card game.
The Redskins are 4-4 on the road this season, silencing crowds in Philadelphia, Minnesota and the Meadowlands (twice).
The Redskins have 23 false start penalties, including 12 on the road. In their first road game (Philadelphia), they had four false starts. They had three against Minnesota but none at Dallas.
Fullback Mike Sellers thinks the Seahawks pipe in crowd noise.
"That place has to be miked up because the last time we played there, it was ridiculous — we couldn't hear ourselves talk," he said. "For a stadium that small, it can't be that loud."
The Redskins conducted a walkthrough yesterday and don't have to list the injury status of receiver James Thrash (ankle) until tomorrow morning. But coach Joe Gibbs said Thrash's injury is a "concern."
"He said he tweaked it some but not like he did before," Gibbs said.
Thrash sustained a high ankle sprain in the Week 10 loss to Philadelphia and missed four games.
"It's not frustrating, just painful," he said.
Linebacker Randall Godfrey (abdominal strain) is expected to practice today.
The Redskins' Week 1 starting lineup missed a combined 56 games with injury. Only eight opening day starters — Chris Samuels, Pete Kendall, Chris Cooley and Clinton Portis on offense and Cornelius Griffin, Andre Carter, London Fletcher and LaRon Landry on defense — started every game.
Collins was named NFC offensive player of the month yesterday. In December, Collins was 67-for-105 for 888 yards, five touchdowns, no interceptions and a 106.4 passer rating during four victories.
Collins will start his first postseason game Saturday.
"You always have some butterflies," he said. "That's part of the game — you have that experience ever since you've been playing football. ... This is going to be the playoffs, now but in terms of you have to win to keep playing, that hasn't changed. We've been playing playoff football the last four weeks."
Sellers grew up in the Seattle area and is trying to collect more than 40 game tickets.
"I need to take out a loan," he said. "I could use some help because it's 42 and it's steadily rising. I've stopped answering my phone."
Damn it, is it Saturday afternoon yet?
Cantilever roofs larger than 747s give Seahawks unique home-field edgeAssociated Press
Updated: January 4, 2008, 4:31 AM EST RSS digg blog email print SEATTLE (AP) - Joe Gibbs appreciates where his Redskins are as much as anyone.
Four consecutive wins to end the regular season sent Washington to the playoffs for the second time in three seasons.
The improbable, inspirational December surge, which followed the death of defensive leader Sean Taylor, also allowed Gibbs to rebound from what he calls the "lowest point" of his 16 years as a head coach. Gibbs called consecutive time outs at the end of a game five weeks ago, earning a 15-yard penalty and making Buffalo's winning field goal easier.
As for where the Redskins are going Saturday? Well, the Hall of Fame coach doesn't appreciate that so much.
"That's the good news," Gibbs said of the 10th playoff berth in his legendary career. "The bad news is we're going to Seattle. It's not a good place to go for a playoff game."
The Seahawks were 7-1 at home this season and are 34-7 at Qwest Field since Week 16 of the 2002 season. Only New England's 35-7 home mark is better during that span. Since 2001, Seattle is 42-14 at home, second only to the Patriots' 45-11.
That doesn't include the playoffs, in which the Seahawks are 3-1 at Qwest Field. That includes a 20-10 win over the Redskins in the teams' previous meeting, during the divisional playoffs in January 2006 on Seattle's way to the Super Bowl. That is Gibbs' only loss is six career games against the Seahawks.
"I think ... we went to Seattle not knowing," Washington running star Clinton Portis said. "That stadium was loud. The crowd was amazing."
It's not just that Seattle is starved for a title - though it is, not having felt a major men's professional sports championship since the 1979 SuperSonics won the NBA.
And, no, it's generally not the weather. Saturday is expected to bring - shocker! - steady rain and temperatures in the mid 40s during the game, with gusty winds that will make it feel like the mid 30s. But Seattle's FieldTurf, which is near real grass without the mud, and a high-tech draining system generally neutralize the effects of most weather.
Seattle's home-field advantage largely comes from Qwest Field's cantilever roofs along each sideline. Each is 760-feet long, the same as three 747 jets parked end-to-end. The roofs hang over each upper decks of each sidelines and cover 70 percent of the 67,000 seats. They are supposedly designed to keep fans semidry during the many rainy games.
But effectively, the roofs are noise traps that push the fans' roars back onto the playing surface, making players' ears ring and grandstands shake. The Seahawks love to point out that their "12th Man" of fans has caused 68 false-start penalties by opponents during the last three seasons. The New York Giants had 11 in one memorable mess of a loss at Seattle in 2005.
The Minnesota Vikings' home inside the Metrodome is second in the league in that span, having produced 57 opponents' false starts.
"I would think that an indoor facility would be louder than outdoor, but I hear that Seattle is louder," said Redskins quarterback Todd Collins, whose four consecutive wins included a key victory last month at Minnesota.
He was last inside Qwest Field in 2002, when he was a backup with the Kansas City Chiefs and the Seahawks were chronically mediocre.
At least one Redskins player - a native of Lacey, Wash., about an hour south of Seattle, no less - thinks the Seahawks' noise is artificially enhanced.
"That place had to be miked up because the last time we played there, it was ridiculous. We couldn't hear ourselves talk," running back Mike Sellers told The Washington Times this week. "For a stadium that small, it can't be that loud."
That made Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren - and presumably the 67,000 locals who hold tickets for Saturday's game - smile.
"Anyone who's been to a game here knows it's not artificial. It's all our fans," Holmgren said. "It's a learned activity for them. So you don't have to encourage them a lot.
"Now, I would suspect that if they think someone is accusing us of doing something like that, they might even come with a little more voice."
Holmgren grinned. About the only thing he didn't do was stamp his foot to emphasize his invitation to the fans.
This isn't the first time opponents have accused the Seahawks of piping in recorded noise. The Giants did after their false-start fiasco two seasons ago.
The NFL sent a memorandum early in the 2006 season, before the Giants played again in Seattle, about such complaints. A monitor from the league attended a game here that season to ensure there wasn't artificial amplification.
"It is quite an experience," Holmgren said of a Seattle home game. "The people that I have talked to this year - that I might bump into at a store or something, that went to the game for the first time - they can't believe it. They just cannot believe it.
"So, I suspect, if history tells us anything, that in the playoffs it will be noisy.
"It's one of the things when it is all said and done here for me I'll feel very, very good about: the fact that going to the game at Qwest Field is fun again. ... We need them Saturday, that's for sure."
Thats gotta be one helluva tailgate party!!!
"We've got to go into games knowing what our shifts are against various formations," Kerney says, "because if Eddie Vedder was out there screaming at the top of his lungs, we still wouldn't be able to hear the signals."
--BOB MARLEY
angels share laughter
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
angels share laughter
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
SEAHAWKS!!!!!
--BOB MARLEY
Looks like I'll be pulling for Seattle at least 2 weeks in a row!
do it this time, hasselbeck.
KAW!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/zoom/html/2004108397.html
!!!
no doubt they would win this game.
Esther's here and she's sick?
hi Esther, now we are all going to be sick, thanks
Stop by:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14678777351&ref=mf
Call it sour grapes, but you my friend are ignorant. Must I remind you that Sean Taylor was murdered in his own home by a bunch of punks that were trying to rob him? You do realize that he died protecting his family? And he died (and lived) with more courage than I am sure your anonymous message board ass could ever muster.
Some people are just classless.
Congrats to the Seahawks for a great win.
Hail to the Redskins.
But, the Redskins losing should prove that Sean Taylor had nothing to do with the Redskins 4-game win streak, and he had nothing to do with their loss to Seattle yesterday.
I'll be there next week for the game. I can't wait.
Just try to remember that when you say things like that without really knowing the facts you make yourself seem less intelligent than I am sure you are.
To your second point, I disagree completely. I think their turnaround was very much inspired by the loss of Taylor. Think "Life Wasted" ...
Good luck to the Redskins for next year.
On to Green Bay for THE SEAHAWKS!!!!
Hey what was with the green everybody was wearing yesterday at the game?