After an exciting (and well-viewed) but disappointing opener at San Francisco, the Packers’ home opener is Sunday, meaning the debut of the south end zone renovations.

I’m old enough to remember when Lambeau Field was one of the smaller NFL stadiums. Now, at 80,750, Lambeau Field is, depending on how you measure it, the third- or fourth-largest stadium in the NFL. FedEx Field — where Sunday’s opponent, Washington, plays, in Landover, Md. — is the biggest in terms of seats, at 85,000, but AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, where the Packers went for Super Bowl XLV and where they go Dec. 15, can be expanded via standing room to 105,121. (Super Bowl XLV’s attendance was 103,219.)

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:

If you are lucky enough to be one of the 7,000 Packers fans — or their surrounding neighbors — in the newly renovated south end zone of Lambeau Field this season, you might want to invest in a couple of other things.

Like sign-language lessons. Or lip-reading training. Definitely aspirin.

When the Green Bay Packers play the Washington Redskins on Sunday in the home opener, they will get their first look at a fully enclosed stadium crowd of 80,000-plus fans.

But more than anything, they hope to hear it.

“I would say if it can get loud, like we know it can? That can be huge for us,” said tight end Jermichael Finley. “I’m excited about that.”

Home-field advantage is no myth in the NFL and the Packers are hoping to make every voice count in the new Lambeau Field.

The new monolithic end zone wall with its 7,000 new seats and huge scoreboard reaches higher than anwhere else at Lambeau Field, where once the south end zone was open above the lower bowl.

The height of the place adds to the noise because there’s nowhere for sound to escape.

“The joke is, you gotta wear a seat belt,” said usher Nathan Amtmann, way up in section 742. He attended many games before he was hired this summer but they were in the regular bowl of Lambeau. He noticed after one scrimmage and two preseason games that Lambeau already had a new kind of roar.

The south end zone already has picked up a few nicknames: The Wall, the Wall of Sound, The SEZ, Mount Murphy (by WTMJ Radio’s Doug Russell in honor of team president Mark Murphy) and Lambeau Peak among them.

The renovation of the end zone brings added noise potential for a number of reasons. There are 5,400 additional seats in the just the “wings” of the end zone, the sections not directly beneath the jumbotron. The noise from the extra occupants is also projected back on the field with little overhangs. …

“Oh yeah,” said Packers defensive end C.J. Wilson. “Home-field advantage is great, but the louder it is? Talk to any offensive guy. It makes it that more difficult. As the defense, we draw off of that energy. I could see it helping a lot.”

The Packers do plan to measure decibel levels with a noise meter for games and the towel-waving defense will not be shy to ask for more.

“Heck yeah, we were noticing it in the preseason,” said defensive lineman Ryan Pickett. “It was that much louder. It is awesome. I love it. We noticed it Family Night. It’s just louder in the stadium. We loved it, especially as a defense.”

Added cornerback Tramon Williams: “Anytime you’re getting a lot of energy from the fans, you want to feed off of it.”

The Packers admired the crowd noise in Seattle last year at CentryLink Field. And everyone knows what they have up there in Minnesota, where the crowd noise is such a factor for the Packers that they prepare for it in practice by pumping in simulated cheering sounds. The Packers want to have their own cranium rattler. They want to be third row at the rock stage at Summerfest loud.

Let’s hope it works. After going the equivalent of three full seasons without losing a home game in the 1990s, the Packers have not been as dominant at home as they should be since years began in 2.

But perhaps the Packers shouldn’t be blamed for this. The Packers themselves point out that the Packers’ 26–2 home record since Week 10 of the 2009 season is best in the entire league, ahead of New England, which seems to never lose at home. That does not include the traveshamockery of losing the 2011 NFC divisional playoff to the (eventual Super Bowl XLVI champion) New York Giants, but number one is number one. Since 2010, Green Bay has more home (again, regular-season) wins than any other team.

It seems as if home field advantage means less than it used to, particularly in the playoffs. The 2010 Packers, who won three consecutive road playoff games on the way to winning Super Bowl XLV, can attest to that. Baltimore won two road playoff games on the way to winning Super Bowl XLVII, beating San Francisco, which won the NFC Championship at Atlanta.

Independent of the fact that both the Packers and Redskins lost their openers, and as Packers announcer Wayne Larrivee is fond of repeating no team wants to start 0–2, the Packers and Redskins have a long history against each other. They met twice in the playoffs, with the Packers winning their first NFL championship game over the Boston-on-the-way-to-Washington Redskins in 1936 (the Packers’ first three titles were by having the best record in the NFL), and the Redskins winning in the 1972 NFC playoffs.

In 1983, the Packers and Redskins played a game on the short list of the greatest Monday Night Football games of all time. Packers 48, Redskins 47, the highest scoring game in Monday Night Football history and the highest scoring game in Packer history. (More points than Dodgeville 48, Platteville 45, a game I announced two weeks ago that was the length of a Super Bowl, but fewer points than Ripon 56, Oconto 42 in 2003.)

On the Redskins side was a defensive back named Mark Murphy, now president of the Packers. (Not to be confused with the other defensive back Mark Murphy, who played for the Packers around the same time. The difference is Packers president Murphy has hair; the other Murphy has alopecia.)