Can the Packers Crack the Code to Seattle's Dominant Home-Field Advantage?
Since Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson rose to power in 2012, CenturyLink Field has been an all-but-impenetrable fortress.
The Seahawks have gone an astounding 25-2 at home over that stretch, playoffs included, compared to a respectable 16-11 on the road. Neither of those two losses came in the postseason, nor to their NFC Championship Game opponent, the Green Bay Packers.
If Aaron Rodgers and the Packers are going back to the Super Bowl, they'll have to do the all-but-impossible: Go into the Hawks' nest and win.
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To overcome Seattle's dominant home-field advantage, Green Bay will have to understand exactly what that advantage is.
"The fans," you should all be saying out loud right now, and yes, the legendary "12th Man" is one of the loudest crowds on Earth. From time to time, Seattle fans have even been certified by Guinness as the loudest, though Kansas City Chiefs fans reclaimed the title this past September.
Crowds can definitely impact the game, as Dr. Daniel Wann, Professor of Psychology at Murray State University, told me in 2013.
"What the research suggests is if it's a very difficult task, something the athlete is going to fail at more often than succeed, the distraction of the crowd is going to inhibit their performance. If it's something they're good at, if they're likely to get it right, then the crowd should support their performance and make them better."
Does Wilson's natural confidence help him ride the tidal wave of support to new heights? Does he play better at home than on the road?
Nope:
| Home | 62.9% | 6.76% | 2.19% | 101.8 |
| Road | 63.7% | 5.15% | 1.91% | 96.6 |
Across the board, Wilson's equally effective wherever he's playing. He completes slightly more passes on the road for fewer touchdowns and interceptions. This suggests he plays more conservatively away from CenturyLink, taking fewer risks and getting fewer rewards.
That idea is backed up by his usage rates:
| Home | 23.8 | 8.19 | 6.4 | 5.13 |
| Road | 28.3 | 7.74 | 6.4 | 7.05 |
Interestingly, the Seahawks have Wilson carry the offense when they go on the road.
Wilson has run exactly as many times at home as on the road (153), but he's averaged over two more yards per carry away from home. Given his average of 6.4 rushes per game, that makes for 12.4 more yards of offense, but it's a significant difference.
More significantly, Wilson's thrown 18.9 percent more often on the road than at home, gaining an average of about half a yard less with each attempt.
So he's throwing much more frequently, and a little less effectively, on the road. That's surely affecting the offense but not enough to explain the massive swing in team strength between CenturyLink and everywhere else.
What about Marshawn Lynch?
The workhorse back has been key to the Seahawks offense before Wilson got there. Since Wilson arrived in 2012, here are Lynch's numbers:
| Home | 20.1 | 4.43 | 1.04 | 1.9 |
| Road | 17.2 | 4.87 | 0.46 | 2.1 |
We already saw that Wilson throws it much more often on the road; it follows that Lynch has averaged 2.9 fewer carries. Lynch gains nearly half a yard more per carry away from CenturyLink. Stunningly, he has scored more than twice as many touchdowns at home than on the road.
That's not just true of the last three seasons. Over Lynch's entire career, he's scored 46 home touchdowns and 25 road TDs—with an 11-2 split in 2014 alone. As we see in the above table, he's running less effectively at home and getting just a couple more carries, so how can he be punching it in twice as often?
It must have something to do with where on the field he's running the ball. If Lynch and Wilson run more effectively on the road, but Lynch punches in fewer touchdowns, they must be starting further away from the end zone.
A quick glance at Football Outsiders' drive stats confirms it: The Seahawks defense does an amazing job of getting Wilson the ball back. Despite ranking in the middle of the pack (14th) in average starting field position after kickoffs, Seattle is near the top (fourth) overall.
Either the Seahawks defense gets a lot of turnovers or it forces a lot of punts.
Let's look at the defensive splits:
| HOME | 6.21 | 4.17 | 59.6% | 5.92 | 3.25% | 6.40% |
| AWAY | 6.03 | 3.84 | 59.6% | 5.48 | 4.18% | 6.75% |
There's a lot of counterintuitive data here. Seattle's defense has actually allowed more yards on the ground and through the air at home and has forced more interceptions and sacks on the road. The Seahawks must just be outrageously good at forcing teams to punt, especially at home.
Home/road splits are tough to come by for this data, but in 2014 the Seahawks allowed opponents to convert a first down on 9.8 percent of plays from midfield to their own 20-yard line. Seattle's offense nearly doubled that rate, at 16.4 percent, per Pro-Football-Reference.
So the Seahawks offense gets the fourth-best starting position in the NFL and is incredibly effective at moving from "good" position to "scoring" position. Meanwhile, their opponents have the worst average starting position in the NFL, as Football Outsiders notes, and the Seahawks defense is slightly better than average at keeping opponents from getting into scoring position once they cross midfield.
Every football person will tell you: The more first downs you have to make to complete a scoring drive, as NFL.com's Pat Kirwan wrote, the less likely you are to score.
At the ear-splitting CenturyLink Field, it's very hard to execute your offense well enough to string together long scoring drive after long scoring drive.
Cheering can drown out offensive huddles, audibles and cadences at the line, impacting an offense's ability to function. As former Seattle defensive lineman Lawrence Jackson told me in 2013, it impacts line play in other, subtler ways:
"The offensive tackle, in a normal environment, would like to get his eyes on his man so he can attack, and not just react to my attack. In an environment where you can't hear, you either have to peer into the ball a little—'periph' the ball while still trying to keep an eye on your man—or you have to look at the ball the whole time and rely on getting back in your stance before the defensive lineman can shoot.
There's the head bob [referring to a signal centers commonly use to coordinate their silent count], and you try to time that up, because teams can be predictable. Cliff [Avril] was really great at it. He's very explosive in his takeoff [referring to the former Lions defensive end, now with the Seahawks]. So, if you've got a guy like that who can capitalize on it, the results speak for themselves.
"
The key to a Packers victory won't just be in turning up practice volume or working on their silent counts to overcome crowd noise and throw the Seahawks off.
The Packers will need to force turnovers, avoid turnovers of their own and get great special teams play if they want to neutralize Seattle's home-field advantage. Working with a shorter field will make finishing drives with points much, much easier. It will pressure Wilson to throw early and often, hamstringing the offense the way road stadiums seem to.
If they do that, an NFC Championship Game upset is no longer impossible.
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