SEATTLE – In honor of the 12th division title in franchise history for the Seahawks, here are 12 numbers and notes that stood out from Saturday night’s 13-3 victory over San Francisco (victory cigars sold separately):
1 – The number of times the Seahawks and Mariners have won a division title in the same year. AL West champs in September. NFC West champs in January. It only took 50 or so seasons for it to finally happen.
3 – Kyle Shanahan has now coached 149 regular-season games in charge of the 49ers. His first game came in 2017 and in that opener, the 49ers suffered a 23-3 loss to Carolina. In the 147 games between that 2017 opener and Saturday night, the 49ers had scored at least six points in every game and nine or more points in every game but one. And then came Saturday when the Seahawks not only held the 49ers to just three points for only the second time with Shanahan as head coach, but also limited them to 173 total yards. It’s only the 10th time in the last 50 seasons the 49ers were held to three points or less and 175 yards or less. Six of those came against the Seahawks.
7 – One more catch might have gotten Jaxon Smith-Njigba into incredibly rare company in NFL history. Smith-Njigba finished with six catches for 84 yards in the finale, but it left him 7 yards shy of reaching the 1,800-yard mark for the season. He would have been the seventh pass-catcher in league history to reach the 1,800-yard mark, but had to settle for finishing the year at 1,793 and the eighth-most all time.
If Smith-Njigba’s foot does not hit the white paint running down the sideline on a first-half reception, he might have collected the yards he needed.
9 – San Francisco was held to just nine first downs and only one came via the run. That doesn’t seem like an extraordinary number, but it’s the first time the Seahawks held an opponent to less than 10 first downs since Dec. 6, 2015, against Minnesota. Seattle accomplished the feat three times during that 2015 season. Saturday against the 49ers was the Seahawks’ 14th time in franchise history in a regular-season game holding an opponent to less than 10 first downs.
17.2 – The Seahawks at 17.2 points allowed per game won the NFL scoring defense title on Sunday thanks to Indianapolis putting up 30 points against the Texans in the season finale. It’s the first scoring defense title for Seattle since 2015, but not quite where the Seahawks were in 2012 to 2014. In those three seasons, the Seahawks allowed an average of 15.3 (2012), 14.4 (2013) and 15.9 (2014) points per game.
26 – The Seahawks went an entire regular season without allowing a 100-yard rusher after limiting Christian McCaffrey to 23 yards on eight carries. Seattle’s streak is now 26 consecutive games since last allowing a 100-yard rusher. The last player to run for 100 yards against Seattle remains James Cook of Buffalo in Week 8 of 2024.
26, Part 2 – This very easily could have been a 26-3 Seahawks victory. Jason Myers missed two field goals inside of 50 yards in the same game for the first time since Nov. 3, 2019, against Tampa Bay. Klint Kubiak called an odd first-and-goal pass from the 1 on Seattle’s opening drive where QB Sam Darnold was sacked for a big loss and the Seahawks failed to convert on fourth-and-goal at the 4. The scoreboard didn’t properly show how close this game was to becoming a true blowout that would have defined the dominance of this win.
28 – Say what you will about the stat on QB wins, but Darnold has won 28 games over the past two seasons, tied with Tom Brady for the most wins by a quarterback in a two-year span. There are a multitude of factors that go into the success or failure tied to that stat, but you can’t argue with the raw numbers that state Darnold has figured out a way to be a winning quarterback the past two years.
42 – Who had Drake Thomas, who wears No. 42, on the bingo card before the season for making one of the biggest defensive plays of the entire year? Thomas’ interception off the hands of McCaffrey turned away San Francisco at the Seattle 3 after its best offensive drive of the game. It was the first interception of his career and after having 16 career tackles entering the season, Thomas finished the year with 96 having established himself as the starter alongside Ernest Jones IV.
“Drake has been playing great football for us and he deserves a massive shoutout,” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said.
99.7 – Abraham Lucas was so close to a perfect season. The Seahawks right tackle finished the year playing 99.7% of the offensive snaps. He played every snap in 16 of 17 games. He missed three plays in Week 15 against Indianapolis, the only offensive snaps he missed in 1,061 offensive plays run by the Seahawks in the regular season.
120 – 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy was held to 120 net yards passing when the three times he was sacked were taken into account. In 17 games, that was the fourth-fewest net yards passing allowed by the Seahawks defense. The other three: Carolina’s Bryce Young (40 net yards passing), Minnesota’s Max Brosmer (96 net yards passing), Indy’s Philip Rivers (118 net yards passing) and Purdy.
Since becoming a full-time starter in the 2022 season, it’s only the third time a team has held Purdy to 120 net yards passing or fewer.
275 – Following the victory, the latest odds for NFL coach of the year had Macdonald at +275 to win, per DraftKings. He has the second-lowest odds behind only New England’s Mike Vrabel. Macdonald is going to be the last person to campaign for himself, but his players were more than willing to provide statements in support after the victory.
“We’re here today as No. 1 seed because of Mike. Not just the way he calls it, but the community that he’s building in that locker room. We play for each other, we fight for each other,” Jones said. “I’ve said this before, we got here to this point and it started last year. It started through those ups and downs that we had last year when I came here. It started then and we were able to pick it up this year and just keep rolling.”