Seattle Seahawks photo
Biggest Home-Field Advantage in All of Sports?
The Seattle Seahawks moved on from the outdated Kingdome in 1999. For the next two seasons, they borrowed the University of Washington’s Husky Field. Then in 2002, they began play in what is now known as CenturyLink Field.
Long story short -- as the road team, you do not win NFL playoff games there.
The first postseason affair at the stadium was in 2005. The Seahawks lost a tight ballgame to the high-flying Rams. This place ain’t so tough, the rest of the league thought.
Fast forward to 2017 and things have changed quite a bit. The Seahawks have now played 10 playoff games at deafening CenturyLink, and that defeat to the Rams remains the only blemish. Mike Holmgren started the winning streak and Pete Carroll has kept it right on going: a stunning nine consecutive home victories in the playoffs after that initial stumble.
This isn’t wonderful news for the Detroit Lions. They are a franchise that is notorious for struggling on the road, especially against quality competition. Now they are being asked not to just win a game away from Ford Field, but to do so in a place that has literally been death for postseason opponents over the last decade.
(And they went 7-1 at home this year, too. Yikes.)
Not the Same Russell
The Lions will obviously have their hands full with the dual-threat Russell Wilson on Saturday night, but if it’s any saving grace, he’ll be coming off his least productive pro season yet. For the fifth consecutive year, Wilson started all 16 games, an almost unheard-of statistic in today’s NFL where even the sniff of a concussion could put you out for 2-3 weeks. However, perhaps all of the miles (and extended playoff runs) caught up a bit with Wilson in 2016.
He tossed just 21 touchdowns, down from 34 the year before. He coughed up 11 interceptions; not a shockingly high total, but it still represents the most of his NFL career. And the area you worry about Wilson most -- scrambling and making plays with his legs -- has taken a major dip. He registered just 259 rushing yards on the year; typically that number will be over 500, and once eclipsed 800.
This is also the first season in which Russell has failed to have even one rushing play over 20 yards. So while the threat still remains that #3 will get out of the pocket and turn into Randall Cunningham, it’s not quite the danger zone it used to be.
Up, Down, Up, Down . . .
The Detroit Lions enter the playoffs without a sliver of momentum. They were 9-4 and riding high; then crash landed with three straight losses and a division title gone up in smoke. But the Seahawks find themselves in a similar momentum-less boat.
Seattle over the season’s final seven weeks went like this: win, loss, win, loss, win, loss, win. It’s not exactly a pattern that would suggest a huge postseason run is on the horizon. The team finished with an impressive 10-5-1 mark overall, but this last month and a half of football has been very ordinary. Not that this trend is at all a surefire predictor of things to come, but if this were a problem on the ACT’s, the next word in the sequence would most definitely be loss.
It Will Be Won Through the Air
It’s no secret that the Lions are, for the most part, lacking any real rushing attack. Ameer Abdullah got hurt, then Theo Riddick got hurt, and now it’s the Zach Zenner show. Double-Z has been serviceable the last few weeks as the main guy, but he’s not really a home run threat and is obviously being asked to do far more than he’d ever expected. The Lions are the 30th ranked rushing team in the NFL, gaining just about 82 yards a game on the ground.
But the Seahawks are not a whole lot better. They’re just a few pegs above the Lions at 25th in the league. Seattle’s leading rusher for the season, Christine Michael (469 yards), isn’t even on the team anymore, having been released in November (and since picked up by the Packers). Thomas Rawls, a former CMU Chippewa, is now the lead back entering the playoffs, but his close to the ’16 campaign was not especially thrilling. Over the final three games, Rawls ran the ball 37 times and amassed just 56 yards.
So while the onus will be on the right arm of Matthew Stafford to do most of the heavy lifting for Detroit, the same responsibility falls to Wilson for the Seahawks. Neither team is likely to touch the 100-yard mark on the ground, but it’s very possible both squads could sail past 300 in the air -- whichever quarterback comes out and plays the sharpest game is likely the one that will be moving on to the Divisional round of playoffs the following week.
