Cowboys asking fans to “whiteout” AT&T Stadium. Jerry Jones plans on wearing white suit.
Did Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll take a shot at AT&T Stadium and Cowboys fans heading into Saturday’s wild-card playoff game?
Seattle is known for having one of the best home-field advantages in the NFL with their 12th man crowd at CenturyLink Field.
Despite the Dallas Cowboys’ 7-1 record at home in 2018, glitzy AT&T Stadium has never been considered a tough place play for the opposing team from a crowd noise standpoint.
Carroll thinks he knows why.
“I think the scoreboard may get in the way of the sound, bounces back at you or something. I don’t know,” Carroll said jokingly this week.
He then took a shot the fans and the field level seating behind the bench which he compared to a party at a nightclub.
“It’s a real glitzy place you know,” Carroll continued. “When you come out of a football locker room ready to play football and you go into a nightclub, it’s kind of like, ‘We’re in the club. No, wait a minute, we gotta go play ball.’ And then you come back to the club and they’re all — anyway — it’s unusual. And then they’re right with you too. Those people that are sitting behind you, I don’t know how they see the game. It doesn’t look like they care; they’re having such a good time. It is an unusual place.”
In hoping to create an advantage on Saturday, the Cowboys may have fed into Carroll’s jokes.
Taking a page out the college handbook, the Cowboys have billed the game as “a whiteout” and are encouraging fans to wear white to match the traditional white home jerseys.
The Cowboys want to rattle Carroll and the Seahawks with a loud, raucous rave.
Owner Jerry Jones says he has a white suit and wants the fans to get loud Saturday night.
“Well, I think that Seattle is such a challenge for us when we play them in Seattle,” Jones said. “They’ve got the loudest stadium in all of sports, maybe the loudest. And it has been a real difference maker in their won-loss record whether they’re playing at home or on the road. We can do that at our stadium. We’ve got a loud stadium. Our fans, we urge you. We’re going to whiteout out there, and I would just ask for all of us to be a part of this effort that we’re making to beat a fine Seattle team by making it hard for them to get their count, making it hard for them to get their signals to each other.”
Quarterback Dak Prescott expects an epic environment and atmosphere just as it was in the 34-31 loss to the Green Bay Packers in divisional playoffs in 2016.
But he has some advice for Cowboys fans: Be loud at the right time.
“I can only think back to just two years ago, obviously my rookie year, playing the Packers and just how crazy that atmosphere was of going down early, like we did and being able to come back and have that game being close right there at the ending and just remember the crowd and everybody going crazy,” Prescott said. “I just hope when I signal for everyone to be quiet, they will be quiet, knowing how important it is for us to communicate. Hopefully, the fans are working well with us. But when we’re on defense, showing how loud they can be.”
This story was originally published January 4, 2019 at 12:24 PM.