How the crowd at Lumen won the game for the Seahawks

It’s no secret that the Seattle Seahawks upset the heavily favored Denver Broncos in front of a national audience in primetime on Monday Night Football, ruining the debut of Russell Wilson with his new team. While that has been widely known, what Seahawks linebacker Jordyn Brooks shared with the media on Thursday was that while the Hawks won on the field with a timely defensive performance, the crowd noise at Lumen Field played a huge role in the Hawks late defensive stop.

So, basically, the crowd noise saved the Hawks from a coaching call that could have been disastrous. To take a quick look at the play that Brooks referenced, here how it looked on the TV broadcast, with Barton knifing through to make a fantastic tackle on Javonte Williams behind the line of scrimmage.

And here’s a look at the play from the all-22 angle showing exactly how much open space Williams would have had if Barton were tied up blitzing rather than doing a phenomenal job reading the screen pass and blowing it up.

In short, rather than needing to make one of the longest field goals in league history to escape with the win, the Broncos could have had first down somewhere inside the Seattle 40 with all three timeouts still on the board and more than a minute on the clock.

So, for those fans who were at the game and were loud enough to disrupt Brooks’ ability to hear the playcall in his helmet, good work, and don’t let up in Week 3 when the Atlanta Falcons come to town. And for the Seattle fans heading to the game in Santa Clara this weekend, feel free to make Levi’s Stadium feel like a home game for the Hawks.