Lumen Field is home to the Seattle Seahawks. It is a notoriously loud stadium, partially because of the “12th man” as the Seahawks put it. They use that mantra to suggest they have an additional player on the field due to the overwhelming crowd noise from fans, who wear the “12th man” title proudly. The other reason why it is known for the noise is the way it was built. The architect who designed the stadium told Seattle’s Kiro News, the structure itself contributes to the noise levels.
The stadium is more compact than others in the NFL, so fans are closer together. There also is a partial roof to shield fans from the rainy weather that Seattle is known for. The acoustics from the roof reflect a ton of noise onto the field. In 2011, during the Wild-Card round of the playoffs, the Seahawks famously registered seismic activity as a minor earthquake during a 67-yard run from Marshawn Lynch now known as the “Beast Quake.” Here is a video of that play posted by Field Yates on X. Just listen to the crowd noise.
Mike Tomlin talked about this environment in his Tuesday press conference and the challenges that it will present Sunday for the Steelers Sunday when they play the Seahawks in a 4:30 PM/ET game.
“We obviously respect their venue,” Tomlin said in a video of the press conference posted on the team’s YouTube page. “It lives up to its reputation in terms of hostility, crowd noise, et cetera. You can’t be behind the sticks in an environment like that. They got 45 or so sacks, so you get one-dimensional facing a [pass] rush like that in an environment like that, it’s not a good thing.”
As of now, QB Mason Rudolph is in line to start with Kenny Pickett is still in play. But similar to last week the Steelers will see how he responds in practice working his way back from ankle surgery a few weeks ago. Rudolph is a veteran, but he just logged his first start since 2021, so there might be some slight growing pains in communication with the starting offense. As the third-string quarterback, he did not log a ton of snaps in practice with that group up until last week. Fortunately for the Steelers, they have a league-low eight false start penalties called against them. That will be put to the test on Sunday.
More often than not for the Steelers, away games end up feeling like home games with plenty of Pittsburgh fans in the stadium. There will, of course, be some in Seattle, but don’t expect a full Black and Gold takeover.
