SEATTLE – The Seahawks’ first home playoff game in five years is set with the 49ers coming to Lumen Field for a divisional round game Saturday.
Seattle Times sports reporters Bob Condotta and Tim Booth offer some thoughts on the matchup and the first weekend of the NFL playoffs.
What are your thoughts on the matchup with the 49ers and the oddity of them playing again so close to their last game?
Booth: It must be strange for players and coaches alike to go almost four months between seeing a division rival like the 49ers and play them twice in a 14-day span. Of all the potential matchups for the Seahawks coming out of the wild-card round, this might be the most favorable short of seeing Carolina again.
San Francisco is beat up and keeps losing stars to injuries and will be playing on a short week with cross-country travel involved. To be fair, the 49ers are a resilient team, but there’s a lot more in favor of the Seahawks between rest, health and recent results.
Condotta: At least a short week shouldn’t matter much in terms of devising game plans since each side just did this two weeks ago. Otherwise, I’m not sure how much the closeness of the game to the last matchup matters much.
The Seahawks did face something similar in 2020 when they beat the Rams at home on Dec. 27, 2019, to clinch the NFC West, then had to host the Rams in a wild card playoff game on Jan. 9 after each team had played a game in between. The Rams won that game 30-20.
That was the COVID-19 year with no fans in the stands and a weird season in general, and I’m not sure there’s a lot of lessons to draw from that.
The 49ers will certainly have revenge on their collective mind – though I’d think the stakes of a playoff game would matter more – and the defensive players will surely be tired of hearing about the Seahawks’ third-and-17 play by the end of the week.
Holding the 49ers to three points seems unlikely, but should there be concern that the 49ers will have a lot more success?
Booth: If the Seahawks can choke the run game like they did in Week 18, then no. The 49ers essentially abandoned running the ball that day – their 10 designed run plays went for all of 32 yards – and more or less erased Christian McCaffrey as a major factor.
Throw in the Seahawks’ ability to limit any big plays – the longest play for San Francisco was a 20-yard pass to George Kittle, who is out – and it all led to a suffocating performance by the Seahawks that was stunning because of what San Francisco had done offensively in the previous weeks.
Kyle Shanahan will have some new wrinkles and having left tackle Trent Williams and wide receiver Ricky Pearsall (potentially) should help, but it’s hard to imagine San Francisco suddenly carving up Seattle’s defense.
Condotta: I think the 49ers will probably score more than three points. But I don’t think they’ll score 30, either.
Aside from what Tim accurately noted, another thing the Seahawks did so well in the most recent game was make the 49ers have to go long fields. San Francisco’s average drive start was its own 24. Its best start of any drive was its own 40, which led to the 49ers only points of the game on a field goal.
The 49ers’ last four drive starts in the game were its own 12, 9, 30 and 20. The Seahawks made nothing easy for the 49ers in that game and need to repeat that Saturday.
But as Tim mentioned, I’d expect Shanahan to have some new things to throw at the Seahawks, especially early, and weathering that storm will be critical.
The 49ers have a lot of playoff experience and beat the defending champs. Is there concern about the stage being too big for the Seahawks?
Booth: Without question, yes. Sam Darnold has played in one career playoff game last season with Minnesota and that didn’t go well. He was sacked nine times. Mike Macdonald has yet to be a head coach in a postseason game. His offensive and defensive coordinators spent the weekend interviewing for other jobs.
Take away Cooper Kupp and Ernest Jones IV, and this Seahawks roster is void of significant playoff experience for a No. 1 seed. That lack of experience or concern about the stage they’re on will matter until they prove otherwise.
Condotta: The first Seahawks team to ever get to the playoffs in 1983 seemed to put a rest to the idea that experience matters much, going to Miami and beating a team that had gone to the Super Bowl the year before in one of the bigger postseason upsets ever.
This Seahawks team is in a unique situation of not winning a playoff game in six seasons yet considered as the favorite to go to the Super Bowl. While they were favored against the 49ers two weeks ago by 2.5 points that game was in San Francisco, which had more than a few still thinking the 49ers were going to win.
This time, the Seahawks have the home field and is favored by as much as seven.
You have to go back to the final game of the 2020 season – when an injury-riddled San Francisco team finished the year playing with C.J. Beathard at quarterback – to find the last time the Seahawks were favored by as much as seven against the 49ers (Seattle won 26-23).
The Seahawks won lots of big games this year to get to this point. Count on Macdonald leaning on the process that won those games to prepare for this one.
What did you think of the Rams game and do they remain as a looming presence if the Seahawks get past the 49ers?
Booth: It’s almost like Rashid Shaheed’s punt return touchdown in the fourth quarter of Seattle’s Week 16 comeback infected the Rams’ machine with a virus. They haven’t been the same team in the 12 quarters (plus one overtime) since.
That said, the winning drive against Carolina was masterful by Matthew Stafford and the Rams remain the biggest threat to the Seahawks if – and that’s a big if – they can escape the frozen landscape of Chicago on Sunday.
Condotta: The biggest takeaway is that the Rams defense suddenly seems to be a lot more vulnerable than it was earlier this season. Five of the six highest point totals L.A. has allowed have all come since Nov. 30, including Saturday when the Panthers put up 31.
A bigger overall takeaway is that the NFC West is proving to be the behemoth it looked like it was all season, with the second- and third-place teams going on the road to beat division winners in the playoffs. The NFC winner may well just be which NFC West team is left standing.