Went to the game Sunday. A really amazing experience for me, as it was my first Hawks game in person. Some quick notes:
* Even my wife noticed the crowd was friendly, even to Dolphins fans, of which there were quite a few at this game. The only sad thing for them was the majority of folks wearing jerseys had on Marino or Zach Thomas, almost no current players. I saw one Tannehill, one Cameron Wake and a couple of Suhs and that was about it.
* Crowd never got angry drunk, even when the Hawks fell behind with 4 minutes to go. Lots of happy drunks and the mood never got dark. It was almost like they knew there was a good shot at a comeback.
* The crowd chants were great, really enthusiastic. The entire crowd stood and made noise while the defense was on the field (and it got really loud, as I expected), and you could hear watches ticking when the offense was on the field.
* The stadium is just awesome, lots of room everywhere, nothing felt cramped even with a sellout as usual. The North Plaza had plenty of entertainment pre-game and the whole thing was generally a blast. Seats were roomy, even up where we were in the nosebleeds.
* Went to a Friday night free happy hour-type event at the stadium where they had a DJ, games, and the opportunity for free autographs from my 2 favorite Seahawks of all time, Steve Largent and Jim Zorn, who were basically the guys that got me hooked on the Hawks in the late 70s. They couldn't have been nicer guys to meet either. I got an old-style Seahawks logo hat signed by both and that will be prominently displayed in my office.
* We sat in the upper deck about 15 rows or so from the top. The pitch was so steep, it turned into a hell of a stair master workout. But the benefit was an awesome view that was like watching all-22 film.
* O-line played like total crap, but that was kind of expected going in, and I didn't even know Ifedi was going to miss the game (didn't get any pregame updates).
* I noticed Russell limping after Suh stepped on him, but it wasn't obvious he was hurt as he was only limping a little.
* The defense played great as usual, really only blowing the one crossing route that went for 50 or so yards on their TD drive.
With the Rams laying down against the Niners last night, that gives me hope that maybe they'll still be off their game this week, because the Hawks always seem to struggle against them. We'll see.