Seahawks Looking to End Home Field Blues With Alvin Kamara-Led Saints Coming to Town
RENTON, Wash. - For most of their 50-year history, the Seattle Seahawks have held one of the NFL’s strongest homefield advantages, whether at their first home inside the Kingdome or their current stadium at Lumen Field.
Dating back to 2001 when the Seahawks moved into their new home following the demolition of the Kingdome, the franchise has posted a stellar 128-67 record, including winning seven or more home games five times from 2012 to 2020. On three different occasions, they have posted a perfect 8-0 record, most recently achieving the feat in 2012 in Russell Wilson’s rookie season.
But over the past four years, what once stood out as one of the fiercest road environments for opponents in the league with decibel levels capable of generating seismic readings has become far less imposing for visitors. In fact, since going 7-1 during a fan-less season amid the COVID pandemic in 2020, the Seahawks have posted a dreadful 16-19 home record on their own turf.
Since hiring Mike Macdonald as Pete Carroll’s successor prior to the 2024 season, Seattle’s struggles have reached a new low with the team winning just one of its past eight home games, including a Week 1 loss to San Francisco earlier this month. 49ers fans came in droves with tons of red in the stands, but the coach felt 12s brought it and the team has to perform better to fully reignite their once feared homefield advantage.
“Look, I know you see red across the field and stuff, but when you look at the totality of the stadium, our 12s were rocking and they were into it,” Macdonald told reporters on the Monday following Seattle’s season-opening defeat. “We need them when we're at home. We are absolutely determined to play better at home and win games so we can make this thing come to life.”
With the goal of getting right in front of the hometown crowd remaining a top priority for players and coaches alike, the Seahawks will get their next shot to redeem themselves with the winless Saints coming to the Emerald City on Sunday. On paper, rebuilding New Orleans would seem to be an ideal opponent to right the ship and get back in the win column for the first time at Lumen Field since November 2024, but recent history pours water on that narrative fire.
Back in 2019, ironically in Week 3, the Saints flew into town without starting quarterback Drew Brees and nearly ran the Seahawks out of their own building behind dual-threat running back Alvin Kamara, who produced 161 all-around yards and two touchdowns in a 33-27 upset. Two years later, Seattle took a quick 7-0 lead on a touchdown pass from Geno Smith to DK Metcalf on Monday Night Football, only for New Orleans to ride Kamara again with 179 total yards to take a 13-10 prime time victory.
Interestingly, those two losses don’t carry all of the same trends that have hurt the Seahawks at their own stadium over the past year and change. Smith’s opening drive touchdown pass to Metcalf in 2021 would have been an anomaly, as the team went 22 consecutive games from December 2023 until finally snapping the drought last week against the Steelers without an offensive touchdown to open a game. That stretch included all 10 home games during the past two seasons.
While Seattle’s offense has chronically started slow in home games, the same has unfortunately been true for the defense, even with Macdonald calling plays last year. In five of the past nine home games, the Seahawks have surrendered four touchdowns and a field goal, creating an ugly point differential of negative 31 on opening drives at Lumen Field. They didn’t give up any points on defense out of the gate in the two aforementioned losses to the Saints, though they did allow a punt return for a touchdown early in the first quarter in the 2019 matchup.
But away from those issues that have plagued Seattle rain or shine at home during the Macdonald era thus far, those two defeats at the hands of New Orleans had many of the same problems rear their ugly heads. For one, the inability to slow down Kamara as a runner and a receiver carried over into most of their games at Lumen, as they have yielded 124 rushing yards per game in their past eight contests. Not surprisingly, poor run defense has contributed to consistently losing the time of possession battle, as they have held the ball for an average of six minutes per game less than their opponents in that span.
After giving up a 65-yard catch-and-run to Steelers running back Jaylen Warren last week and a couple big catches to 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey in the opener, while the Seahawks have generally played stout run defense so far and did hold San Francisco to under 3.5 yards per carry at home, Kamara’s pass catching prowess and slipperiness breaking tackles with the football in his hands jumps out as a major concern for Macdonald that must be shored up heading into Sunday’s matchup.
“He has been a really good player for a while now in our league,” Macdonald said of Kamara, acknowledging Seattle’s defense must be better limiting yards after the catch to running backs. “He has a smooth speed about him. There is such a smoothness to his running style. He doesn’t lack physicality. He has a smooth change of direction. Obviously, the contact balance, body control and all that type of stuff along with his ability catching the ball out of the backfield has always been something that you have to account for with him. He is playing at a high level right now, so he’s doing a good job.”
As for other areas that have persistently dogged the Seahawks at home in recent memory, protecting the quarterback has been a major issue. Geno Smith and Sam Howell took a whopping 30 sacks in the final seven home games at Lumen last year, with the former managing to wiggle his way out of several other pressures that could have easily added to that total if not for his pocket presence.
On the flip side, while sacks aren’t everything when it comes to disrupting the pocket, Seattle generated only 13 sacks in the past eight home games, or roughly a third of the total for opponents against their own quarterbacks. That’s not a winning formula at all and undoubtedly contributed to the Seahawks turning the ball over more than twice as often (16 to 7) as their opponents did, far from the standard Macdonald has set for his defense.
Busting out the full pads on a rare occasion for an in-season practice on Wednesday, Macdonald believes maintaining an elite level of physicality holds the key to both protecting Darnold and creating the havoc that leads to turnovers.
“Games can go all sort of different directions. Turnover differential is very important. How physical you play does factor into that,” Macdonald explained. “How you affect the quarterback is going to be a big indicator. Situational football. It’s a driving force behind how we want to play and the formula of how we want to win games. It’s important to us to play that way.”
Thus far, Seattle has done a better job of keeping new starter Sam Darnold upright through the first two games. The veteran quarterback has been sacked three times and pressure did lead to an ugly interception against the Steelers, but he has only been hit a total of seven times, which statistically demonstrates an encouraging improvement from last season.
With that said, the Saints have a veteran-laden group along the defensive line capable of turning up the heat on quarterbacks. Leading the charge, Carl Granderson already has 3.5 sacks in the first two games, tying for the NFL lead in a breakout season thus far. Even at the tail end of his career, Cameron Jordan can still pack a mean punch, while former top-five pick Chase Young may or may not be back in action after sitting out the first two weeks with an injury and twitchy rusher Chris Rumph has also seen an increased role, giving defensive coordinator Brandon Staley plenty of options to unleash off the edge.
In the interior, former first round pick Bryan Bresee registered five pressures in the first two games and set a new career-high with 7.5 sacks last year, offering the athleticism and penetrating ability to create problems as a pass rusher from the 3-tech defensive tackle spot.
“They play hard, they play physical,” Macdonald said of New Orleans’ defensive line. “They play a lot like how we want to play, like square, and they put five guys on the line a lot. They're doing a good job.”
To snap their current three-game losing streak at Lumen, as Macdonald has emphasized from the early stages of the offseason until after their season-opening defeat, the Seahawks will need to start much faster on both sides of the ball. Scoring on their first drives in both the first and third quarter in Pittsburgh last weekend, that success could provide the momentum needed to score points out of the gate for the first time at Lumen in 10 home games, while the defense can’t afford to give up a fast touchdown to the Saints as they did against the 49ers, which would give the underdogs early hope.
And stating the obvious, winning the turnover battle against an inferior opponent would go a long ways toward helping restore some of the roar from the 12s. But that may be easier said than done, as quarterback Spencer Rattler has yet to throw an interception and the Saints have only turned the ball over once so far, playing clean football for first-year coach Kellen Moore.
If there’s reason for optimism on that front, the Seahawks have assembled one of the most fearsome defensive lines in the NFL with the trio of Leonard Williams, Jarran Reed, and budding star Byron Murphy II. Per Next Gen Stats, Macdonald’s unit leads the league with a 49.4 percent and they have done so while blitzing at the 31st lowest rate, illustrating the dominant effectiveness of the front line to torture quarterbacks such as Rattler, who will be making just his fourth career start on the road in his first trip to Seattle.
Regardless, Macdonald wants to see the Seahawks continue to set the tone as the most physical team on the field, to the point where he decided to have his players in full pads for practice on Wednesday. He hopes to see that extra work on everything from pad level to tackling form manifest onto the game field on Sunday, where slowing down Kamara, limiting yardage after the catch, and winning in the trenches on offense and defense will be pivotal to taking the first step towards reclaiming Lumen Field’s reputation as one of the toughest places to play in the sport.
