RENTON — Remember the 2010s? It feels forever ago.
At least in these parts, that decade in football terms was defined by an acronym — L.O.B. — a Skittles-loving running back, a few angry wide receivers, a quarterback that reminded us all that the field width is 53 1/3 yards and a championship. To this day, still the only title.
In the broader perspective of the NFL, the rivalry between the Seahawks and the 49ers for the better part of those 10 years were meaningful chapters in telling the story of what the 2010s were like. They were teams filled with star players whose stories transcended the football field, coaches with a contentious history, meaningful regular-season games, singular plays that were part of every highlight reel and an NFC championship game matchup no one in Seattle will ever forget.
The games were important. They were must-see viewing. They were names everyone knew: Wilson, Kaepernick, Sherman, Crabtree, Davis, Chancellor, Thomas, Willis, Gore, Lynch, Baldwin, Harbaugh, Carroll, Shanahan, to name a few.
There were heroes and villains on each side, depending on the colors you chose to support. It was, by all account, the definition of a rivalry.
“I love the rivalry that’s been created over time,” said Seahawks cornerback Shaquill Griffin, who is currently on practice squad, but started six times against the 49ers during his first tenure in Seattle. “One thing I remember, I just really hated the way they talked. Some of them, not all of them. Some of them hyped themselves up a little too much and that’s what I remember.”
What once was filled with animosity seemed to cool when the 2020s arrived. It lost some of the fury for reasons mostly filled with what happened on the field. There’s been flickers in recent years, but it’s hard to reignite a flame when one side — the 49ers — has won seven of the past eight meetings. That includes a 41-23 win by San Francisco in opening round of the playoffs three seasons ago and in the past two seasons with Mike Macdonald in charge, a pair of 49ers wins at Lumen Field.
But Saturday night at Levi’s Stadium has the chance to spark a renewal of that acrimony. A game between foes with the kind of meaning that’s been lacking in the rivalry since the final NFL game that was played in the 2010s.
It’s a big game, no matter how much some involved try and downplay the significance. The winner gets to hang a banner as NFC West champs, the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs, home-field advantage until the Super Bowl and a welcomed bye for two teams dealing with some key injuries.
The loser? Well, if it’s the Seahawks, they’d be bound for a cross-country flight next weekend to either Carolina or Tampa Bay for the wild-card round and plenty more air miles to come if they intend on getting back to Levi’s Stadium for the Super Bowl.
“You love this. You love opportunities to play meaningful games in January. That’s a really cool thing. You don’t take that lightly,” Seahawks wide receiver Cooper Kupp said. “At the end of the day it’s just the competition of this league. I mean, it’s just as competitive as can be, best football players in the world that you get to go up against day in and day out week in and week out. And so obviously when you play at a high level and then you see some of those teams twice in one year, sometimes you see them three times in one year, that competitiveness gets tied in so that is fun.”
The last time a game carried this much meaning in the regular season for the Seahawks and 49ers was Dec. 29, 2019. It was the final game of the season, the final game played in the 2010s, the final regular-season game played before a global pandemic.
Pete Carroll was Seattle’s coach. Marshawn Lynch, in his second go-round, scored a touchdown for the Seahawks. Richard Sherman was in a 49ers uniform. Only three players currently on the Seahawks’ 53-man roster played in that game: Jarran Reed, Michael Dickson and Jason Myers.
A lot of time has passed since that night. Memories can be fickle and fade into a blur. But not a game like that.
“That’s when Jacob Hollister got stopped at the 1-yard line and the linebacker was Dre Greenlaw. See, I remember that play like it was yesterday,” Reed said. “You don’t forget those types of games.”
The 49ers won that game 26-21 which gave them the NFC West title and home-field advantage in the playoffs. Had the Seahawks won that game in 2019, they would have claimed the division title but only been the No. 3 seed in the NFC playoffs.
While Griffin is currently on the Seahawks practice squad, he was the starting cornerback that night against the 49ers six years ago. Seattle trailed 19-7 going into the fourth quarter when Lynch scored on a 1-yard TD run to pull the Seahawks within 19-14. San Francisco responded with a TD drive, but Wilson’s 14-yard TD pass to DK Metcalf with 3:36 left gave the Seahawks a chance.
And then, chaos. Seattle converted fourth-and-10 from the San Francisco 12 with a pass from Wilson to John Ursua to the 1. A delay penalty backed up the Seahawks to the 6 and eventually on fourth down, Wilson hit Hollister and Greenlaw stopped him just 3 feet shy of a division title.
“I remember everything,” Griffin said, who noted that the game and the way it ended organically came up in conversation with Quandre Diggs — another player from that 2019 team — this week.
“One-yard line. It’s [expletive] hard to forget.”
Saturday has the chance to create another one of those indelible memories. It’s only the fourth time in league history a game in the final week of the regular season will decide the No. 1 seed for the playoffs.
“It’s a big moment. We’re not going to shy away from that. It’s down to it, everything is on the line right now and we know that,” Reed said. “Like I said, we’re not making it bigger than any other game that we’ve had because overall, we’re just going to be right here. We want to be 1-0 and be where our feet are.”