SEATTLE – Like many recent college graduates, Jonathan Fleming, Jesse Tofte and Collin Vincent spent a good part of the night playing cards, tossing a football and fighting off sleep.
It’s just that most recent grads don’t do it in 30-degree weather outside Qwest Field.
Stricken with playoff fever, Fleming, Tofte and Vincent spent Sunday night outside the Seattle Seahawks’ box office to get first dibs on tickets to this Saturday’s game between the Seahawks and St. Louis Rams.
Saturday
St. Louis at Seahawks, 1:30 p.m. N.Y. Jets at San Diego, 5 p.m. Sunday Denver at Indianapolis, 10 a.m. Minnesota at Green Bay, 1:30 p.m. Byes NFC: Philadelphia and Atlanta AFC: Pittsburgh and New England |
“We told each other that this was the year,” said Fleming, who was among about 30 people outside the stadium at 8 a.m. Monday. “If the Seahawks were going to host a playoff game this year, we were going to come here and get tickets.
“Anytime your local sports team goes to the playoffs, you want to be there.”
Fleming got his ticket to the Seahawks’ first home playoff game in five years, as did about 60,000 other fans after tickets went on sale Monday morning at 10 a.m. Approximately 6,000 tickets for Saturday’s game remain available.
After suffering with their schizophrenic football team all season, the fans are back on board for the playoffs. Sunday’s victory over the Atlanta Falcons not only clinched the NFC West and a home game, but it also started to win over a lot of the fans.
“A win against St. Louis will really validate that,” Vincent said. “This team hasn’t lived up to the promise it had, and it’s been a frustrating team, but the playoffs are a different story.”
The fact that the Seahawks are getting a clean slate seemed impossible earlier in the season, when heightened expectations and unfulfilled promise had the hometown crowd booing on numerous occasions.
“You can’t go in with big expectations because you can get disappointed,” defensive end Chike Okeafor said after Sunday’s game. “You take things as they come, take them one game at a time. Take short steps. If you got caught up in all the hype of the preseason, you could be pretty down on yourself right now; you could be pretty disappointed.”
While the fans are happy to have the Seahawks in town for one more game, the players look forward to the home-field advantage Qwest Field brings. Seattle is 13-3 over the past two seasons at home, and the loud atmosphere at Sunday’s game contributed to two false-start penalties on the Falcons’ final drive.
“It’s huge for this team, for these players, for this city,” wide receiver Bobby Engram said after the 28-26 win Sunday. “It’s huge to get a home game in the playoffs.”
Since joining the NFC West in 2002, the Seahawks are 2-1 at home against the Rams, as compared to 0-3 in St. Louis. The only game that was won by the visiting team came on Oct. 10, when St. Louis rallied from a 17-point deficit in the fourth quarter to win in overtime.
The Rams have won both meetings this year and are hoping to become the 10th team in NFL history to beat an opponent three times in the same season. Six of the last seven teams that have faced a team a third time after beating it twice during the regular season have gone on to win the playoff rematch.
None of those statistics mean much to the Seahawks, or their fans, as Seattle and the Rams prepare to do battle again.
“We know what they’re going to do, they know what we’re going to do,” Seahawks defensive lineman Cedric Woodard said. “We just have to line up and play football. At the end of the day, the best team will win.”
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