The Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks will face off in the NFC Championship Game on Sunday. For the past week, analysts have been going through their regular pre-game commentary to decide who has the advantage. Many believe the Seahawks have an edge, but not solely because of the talents of the roster. Rather, many have given the Seahawks the upper-hand because of their home-field advantage.
Having home-field advantage has been key to many of the teams participating in the NFL postseason. While the altitude is the key for the Denver Broncos and the frozen tundra is crucial at Lambeau Field for the Packers, the noise of the Seattle fans gives the Seahawks a major edge.
The noise of the fans, or “12th Man” as it is known in Seattle, has actually set a Guinness World record [137.8 decibels] at CenturyLink Field and triggered Seismic events that measure as minor earthquakes.
Could these Seattle Seahawks fans have caused an earthquake? Stadium took precautions: http://t.co/mje2Nr9S0e pic.twitter.com/7rhpbquMeY
— NYT National News (@NYTNational) January 15, 2015
CenturyLink Field squeezes 67,000 seats into a bowl at a steep incline. As an homage to Husky Stadium, fans are seated closely to the field. And due to the frequent rain in Seattle, a roof covers about 70 percent of the seating bowl. When closed, the metal roof amplifies the noise and redirects it to the field. Thus, the structure of the stadium helps the Seahawks have one of the loudest and most effective home-field advantages in American sports today.
Cornerback of the Seahawks, Richard Sherman, has stated that there is a sensory overload for a visiting team during a playoff game at Seattle’s CenturyLink Field. And since there is no way to simulate that experience, visiting teams’ performance often falter. Verbal communication is almost impossible due to the freight-train-like noise of the crowd. The Seahawks often use hand gestures to communicate, since they are fully aware of their inability to hear over the crowd’s roar.
While the Seahawks are acclimated to the sounds of CenturyLink Field, the Packers are not and will have to adjust quickly. Despite the Packers having one of the top quarterbacks in the league, they are not accustomed to solely using sign-language and hand gestures to communicate.
So in order to combat the sound advantage the Seahawks have, the Packers are going to have to strategically use some technological methods.
Using technology to produce sound at practice is a way the Packers can attempt to simulate the noise they will be facing in Seattle. The Packers already use this technology when preparing to matchup against the Seahakws and the Kansas City Chiefs–the two loudest stadiums in the NFL. The New Orleans Saints also used a similar technology to practice for their matchup against the Seahawks in 2013. Last week, the Carolina Panthers attempted to replicate the noise while practicing as well. Although Seattle’s Richard Sherman stated it is impossible to simulate the noise produced by the Seahawk fans, any practice with sound can help a team prepare.
Practicing in an enclosed facility, while using artificial crowd noises, would help pump the volume even more. While artificially enhancing the sound of the crowd during an NFL game is not legal, there are no rules about enhancing sound during practices, so a team can practice in as noisy of an environment as they’d like.
But since it is so difficult to truly simulate the noise from CenturyLink Field, the Packers can go a different route–practicing while using some sort of noise-cancelling headset. Although they would be practicing in complete silence instead of complete chaos and noise, it would help adjust each player into playing without being able to verbally communicate.
With Bose as a partner of the NFL, their noise-canceling technology can become very useful to the Green Bay Packers. Bose used their technology to create a headset for the NFL, the Quiet Comfort 25. The headsets can be found in both a one-eared and two-eared model. The Quiet Comfort 25 has the capabilities of transforming booming CenturyLink Field into subtle noises and vibrations to NFL players wearing the gear. Regardless of players using these headphones, verbal contact will have to be minimal to prepare for what’s to come in Seattle.
Mitigating the noise advantage that the Seattle Seahawks have is an ambitious task. It becomes even more difficult during the playoffs. It is particularly difficult on the quarterback.
But Aaron Rodgers showed that he fully understands what the environment will be when playing the Seahawks: “It’s going to be loud. They will feed off the energy, and you have to control the clock and convert first downs and try to keep drives alive, not turn the ball over. All the things that you usually have to do on the road. It’s just a tad bit louder than most places.”
There is ample technology (hi or low tech) that the Packers can utilize when facing the Seahawks. Since everyone in the NFL is fully aware of the advantage the Seahawks hold while playing at home, teams should start employing technology that will truly acclimate them to this environment, battling the Seahawks’ home-field advantage.