Seahawks faithful: Their Qwest is a din of inequity

SEATTLE – It’s right there in black and white – and blue. With a 9-0 record at Qwest Field this season, the Seattle Seahawks have one of the NFL’s biggest home-field advantages.

The home crowd, which helped force the New York Giants into 11 false-start penalties in a game this season, played a similar role in last Saturday’s divisional playoff win over Washington and figures to be louder Sunday in the NFC championship game.

The problem is, the Carolina Panthers are the best at tuning it out.

If the Panthers should win Sunday – and continue a surprising trend this postseason – they would break the record for consecutive road playoff wins, with five. On their way to the 2004 Super Bowl, the Panthers won in St. Louis and in Philadelphia. This time, they have gone on the road to beat the Giants and Chicago.

The “12th Man,” represented by that blue flag that was waving atop the Space Needle, was unquestionably a key player at Qwest Field last Saturday. Washington coach Joe Gibbs, familiar with seismic crowds at RFK Stadium in his earlier playoff runs, said after his team’s 20-10 loss that Seattle fans “were tough on us.”

Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said: “I’ve played in a lot of stadiums, and this is the loudest stadium. We appreciate that we get to play at home.”

It’s the way the playoffs are supposed to work in the NFL: A team earns home-field advantage during the regular season and rides its fans’ enthusiasm to the Super Bowl. In the AFC, Denver is trying to parallel Seattle’s success, taking a 9-0 home record into Sunday’s conference championship game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Only one team, the 1985 New England Patriots, has won three road games to reach the Super Bowl (in early 1986). But two teams have a chance to join those Patriots in accomplishing the feat this season. Carolina is 8-2 away from home this season, and Pittsburgh already has made it further than any other sixth seed in NFL history.

Denver – which is 5-0 at home or at neutral sites in the playoffs under Mike Shanahan – and Seattle might be two of the least hospitable places in the NFL, but in the conference championship round, home-field advantages tend to lessen. The best teams, of course, are having to play better teams.

Since 1993, five of 11 home teams have won the AFC championship game. Four of the past eight NFC champions won on their home turf.

Seattle coach Mike Holmgren knows this, and it’s one reason he has tried to muzzle his players in hopes of keeping the Panthers’ bulletin boards free of quotes by Seahawks.

“We know Carolina is good, and hopefully they think we’re pretty good – it’s the championship game, for Pete’s sake,” Holmgren said. “No one gets there by just walking in the back door usually.”

That’s one method of getting into the proper road mind-set, as Carolina coach John Fox calls it: to search for inspiration to take players’ minds off what they can’t hear. Holmgren said he stressed that point to his players this week.

“There are coaches that concoct bulletin board material if you don’t say anything,” Holmgren said. “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything. The players are human, too, and they are going to be fired up for the game, so why do you need to give them any extra ammunition?”

Fox used the words of Chicago defensive end Adewale Ogunleye to fire up his team last week. Before his team lost at Soldier Field, Ogunleye said the Panthers get “more credit than they deserve.”

Under coach Bill Cowher, the Steelers seem almost to prefer playing on the road. Cowher is 1-4 in championship games at home. On Sunday, Pittsburgh beat the Indianapolis Colts, who figured to prosper in the dry environment of the RCA Dome.

That followed a week in which just one of four home teams (New England) won its wild-card game.

But the road runs of Pittsburgh and Carolina are unusual. Before last weekend, 16 of the past 18 divisional playoff games had been won by the home team.

Nobody is taking the Qwest Field advantage lightly, either. Not only were the Seahawks 9-0 at home this season, but they were also 8-0 in 2003 with an otherwise ordinary team.

“They were going nuts before the game even started,” defensive end Grant Wistrom said of the fans last Saturday.

“They wanted this one as badly as we did.”

Injury update

Wide receivers Darrell Jackson and Bobby Engram, and defensive tackle Rocky Bernard all missed a second straight day of practice for the Seahawks.

Coach Mike Holmgren was optimistic that all three could practice some, but none of them participated in team drills.

All three are listed as questionable on the injury report.

Jackson is still recovering from Oct. 12 surgery on his right knee, but he also has a back bruise from a block in last week’s 20-10 win over Washington.

Jackson briefly left the game, but returned and finished with nine catches for 143 yards and a touchdown in the win over the Redskins.

Engram also has a sore back and Bernard has a left foot injury.

Engram had two catches against Washington and Bernard had two tackles.

Bernard had a career-high 8 1/2 sacks for Seattle this season, which led the NFL with 50 in the regular season.

With two days of practice under his belt, running back Shaun Alexander said he’s feeling better and doesn’t expect last Saturday’s concussion to hamper him at all against the Panthers.