SEATTLE — The auditorium at Seattle Seahawks headquarters underwent a mini makeover this past offseason. Each wall on either side of the seats is now covered in a blown-up photo of the stands at Lumen Field, giving players the feel during team meetings that they're in the middle of the stadium.
It was a fitting change of decor for an organization that is trying to change its recent fortunes at home, and as legendary cornerback Richard Sherman stood at the front of the remodeled room during training camp, he spoke to his former team with that goal in mind.
Sherman was there to provide perspective from his time in Seattle (2011-17) during the most successful stretch in franchise history, when the Seahawks still owned one of the NFL's best home-field advantages. It has waned drastically in recent years, and the visit from one of their all-time great players was part of an organization-wide effort to get it back.
The Sherman-era Seahawks, particularly their Legion of Boom defense, would feed off the energy from the raucous home crowd at the team's 69,000-seat stadium — and the 12s would feed off them.
But Sherman's message on this mid-August day was that the players had to get the fans going, not the other way around.
«Make some big plays, get the crowd involved,» said defensive tackle Jarran Reed, a former teammate of Sherman's during the later years of the Seahawks' defensive heyday of the early- and mid-2010s. «Use our home-field advantage to our advantage.»
«They're not just going to come here and be cheering their butts off. You've got to earn it,» general manager John Schneider said on his Seattle Sports 710-AM radio show, relaying Sherman's words before the Seahawks' season opener against the visiting San Francisco
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