TAMPA, Fla. -- In what would be the curtain call to his short but stellar coaching tenure with the Arizona Cardinals, Bruce Arians stood at a podium on New Year's Eve 2017 -- nearly 1,500 miles from his home stadium -- and proclaimed, “Thank you all for coming to my house. Hope you get home safe.”

The Cardinals had just beaten the Seattle Seahawks 26-24 at CenturyLink Field, without quarterback Carson Palmer and running back David Johnson, to finish 8-8. Arians announced his retirement the following day, long before the Tampa Bay Buccaneers lured him back into coaching in 2019.

While Arians, who finished below .500 (7-8-1 in 2016) once in five seasons in Arizona, finds himself in unfamiliar territory, coaching a 2-5 team, there’s one place he could always count on for a W, and that’s where he returns this week: Seattle.

"There is no better place to celebrate than in this [visiting] locker room," Arians said back in 2017.

He did it often, even though the Seahawks have enjoyed the NFL's best home-field advantage.

The Seahawks' regular-season home record under coach Pete Carroll is 55-21 (.724). Including the postseason, it's 61-21 (.744), third-highest of any team in that time. Arians’ Cardinals teams went 4-1 at Seattle, by far the best visiting coach record in the Carroll era. Only two other NFL coaches have multiple wins at CenturyLink Field against Carroll: Sean McVay and Mike Smith.

"As far as outside stadiums, it's unbelievable," Arians said of playing in Seattle. "It's a soccer crowd. It's nonstop, and when they crank it up, the whole place is shaking. It's a fun place to go for me. I enjoy that environment.

"A lot of those games were really close games where we won at the end. If you can hang in there with the crowd and the environment and everything that's so unique about the place and don't get overwhelmed, you'll have a chance to win the game."

Added former Cardinals and current Bucs inside linebacker Kevin Minter: “We always won there. I’ve had some of the biggest games I ever played in in this league in Seattle. I don’t know [what it is]. We win there. We show up there. We always have ... anytime I’ve played with him.”

Here’s a closer look at how those went down:

Dec. 22, 2013: Karlos Dansby delivers

Despite four interceptions by Palmer, the Cardinals stunned the Seahawks 17-10, thanks to a stout defense that held them to 2-for-13 (15.4%) on third down. With less than three minutes to go, Palmer found Michael Floyd for a 31-yard touchdown and grabbed a 17-10 lead on a 2-point conversion. With two minutes left, Russell Wilson was picked off by Dansby. Although the ball appeared to hit the ground, officials upheld the ruling, eliminating any shot of a Seahawks comeback.

Nov. 13, 2014: A perfect drive for Russell Wilson

The only time Arians lost in Seattle was in 2014, when he started backup Drew Stanton (Palmer was out with a torn ACL) and was without Larry Fitzgerald. The Cardinals lost 19-3 and were held to a season-low 204 yards. It was just the Cardinals’ second loss of the season, and the team finished 11-5. Todd Bowles’ group blitzed the heck out of Wilson, sacking him a whopping seven times, with three coming from Calais Campbell. But Wilson went 6-for-6 for 70 yards on the Seahawks' lone touchdown drive, with the Seahawks giving him a moving pocket to offset the rush.

Nov. 15, 2015: Palmer giveth and taketh away

Palmer threw for 363 yards and three touchdowns on Sunday Night Football. But he was picked off by Earl Thomas and fumbled twice, with both fumbles setting up Seahawks scores -- and the Cardinals allowed a 19-point lead to dissipate. Andre Ellington’s 48-yard touchdown run with 1:58 left -- capitalizing on the Seahawks’ inability to stop the run in the fourth quarter -- sealed a 39-32 win. That Seahawks team struggled to hold fourth-quarter leads. The Seahawks were also penalized a season-high 14 times that game -- tied for seventh-most of any team in a game that season. It marked the first time that the Seahawks lost twice at home in a season with Wilson at QB.

Dec. 24, 2016: Special teams comes up stellar

Chandler Catanzaro nailed a 43-yard field goal as time expired to win 34-31, costing the Seahawks the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye in the playoffs. Wilson was sacked five times in the first half. The Seahawks trailed 14-3 at halftime before mounting a 28-point comeback in the second half, including scoring 21 points in the fourth quarter (two touchdowns were in the final three minutes). Rodney Gunter blocked a Steven Hauschka field goal in the first quarter and missed an extra point with a minute remaining, and Alex Okafor deflected a punt from Jon Ryan that set up one of three David Johnson touchdowns.

Dec. 31, 2017: Phil Dawson the difference-maker

In 2017, Phil Dawson kicked four field goals, and Blair Walsh missed a 48-yard attempt with 37 seconds left to give the Cardinals a 26-24 win and Bruce Arians his 50th victory. Dawson was perfect from 46, 49 and 53 yards before delivering a 42-yarder that was the decider. Again, Seattle found itself in an early hole, trailing 20-7 at halftime with Wilson throwing for 36 yards in the first half. The Cardinals were aided by a Bobby Wagner roughing-the-passer penalty on third-and-7 on the Cardinals’ last drive.

“That was a fun game,” said then-Cardinals backup quarterback Blaine Gabbert, now with the Bucs. “His house was Seattle. It’s beautiful. He had some big wins there.”

Why has Arians been so good in Seattle? For one, his defenses were smothering, sacking Wilson 22 times (by comparison, the Seahawks sacked Arians’ QBs a total of 10 times). The Cardinals' special teams were not only efficient but also stellar, nailing 86.8% of their field goals, compared to the Seahawks' 69.2%, and going 8-for-9 for 40-plus. The Seahawks were 3-for-6 from 40-plus.

Arians’ teams also jumped to early leads, outscoring the Seahawks 62-29 in the first half of those five games. They made fewer mistakes and had far fewer penalties: 30 compared to Seattle’s 43. Interestingly, though, the Cardinals turned the ball over 10 times in those contests, with quarterbacks throwing six touchdowns and seven interceptions, but the defense was able to make enough plays to overcome those setbacks, something Arians’ Bucs have struggled with.

Information from ESPN’s Brady Henderson and the Associated Press was used in this report.