I don’t think I need to repeat the stakes of Saturday night’s matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks. It’s been well covered.
The 49ers will host their most important game of the 2025 season, with a chance to give themselves the easiest possible path in the playoffs, but the always tough Seahawks stand in their way in a rematch four months in the making.
With the future of the NFC playoffs on the line, these are the numbers to know for Saturday’s massive game to decide the NFC West crown and the No.1 seed in the NFC:
The Seahawks offense turns the ball over on 14.9 percent of its drives, the second-highest rate in the league.
Seattle turns the ball over as frequently as any team in the league — only the Vikings have more – but it’s almost a catch-22. While theyve turned the ball over plenty, it hasn’t affected them in the win-loss column as you’d expect. The Seahawks have turned the ball over at least twice in nine of their 16 games, but their record in those games is 6-3, with each of their last three such games resulting in a win.
If you extend it to games where Seattle has turned the ball over at least once, their record is 10-3. And of course, it would only make sense to mention that they’re 3-0 in the three games where they don’t commit a single turnover.
Where this becomes relevant for the 49ers is that one of the three losses Seattle had, committing two or more turnovers, came way back in September when San Francisco went into Seattle and started their season with a 17-13 win. Both turnovers were timely, coming in the second half, with Nick Bosa putting the game away with a strip-sack of Sam Darnold with 37 seconds remaining, giving the 49ers the ball and the win.
Forcing turnovers hasn’t been the 49ers’ defense’s strong suit this season; it’s 16 turnovers forced, ranking 22nd in the league, but nine of those turnovers have come over the last six games.
While the 49ers were held without a turnover last week against a Bears team that has the fewest turnovers in the league, San Francisco may take advantage of the turnover-prone Seahawks and earn a couple of extra possessions against one of the most formidable defenses in the league.
Seattle’s defense allows a score on 29.4 percent of drives, the second-best rate in the league.
The 49ers offense has been on a heater in recent weeks, scoring more than 35 points in each of their last three games. Those three games, however, have come against the No. 28 (Titans), No. 19 (Colts), and No. 22 (Bears) ranked scoring defenses in the league.
Only the vaunted Texans defense has allowed fewer points this season than the Seahawks, so it’s probably not a coincidence that two of the 49ers’ three lowest point outputs this season have come against Houston and Seattle. Seattle’s defense, which allows a score on almost 30 percent of its drives, faces a 49ers offense that has turned scoring into a virtual coin flip, with a scoring rate of 49.4, the second-highest rate in the league.
When these two teams faced off back in September, Seattle held the 49ers offense to just three scoring drives on nine non-end-of-half San Francisco drives, closer to the 49ers’ scoring rate allowed than their offensive scoring rate. But the 49ers’ scoring rate in that game was hurt by two missed Jake Moody field goals, where if they had, say, Eddy Pineiro, the scoring rate would have been higher than 50 percent in that game, tilting it in the 49ers’ favor.
But that was four months ago, and both the 49ers offense and the Seahawks defense have been playing their best ball over the last few weeks. While San Francisco is on its 35-point streak, Seattle’s defense has allowed fewer than 17 points in four of its previous five games. The only game they allowed more than 17 was when they allowed 37 to the Rams a couple of weeks ago. However, the Colts and Rams are the only two teams in that stretch that Seattle faced while ranked in the top 20 in points scored, and the Seahawks faced Indianapolis when Philip Rivers was making his first start in five years.
The 49ers offense has taken advantage of some poor-scoring defenses in recent weeks, while the Seattle defense has faced some bad offenses in the same span. Something will have to give as these two elite units clash on Saturday.
The Seahawks allow 3.7 yards per rushing attempt, the lowest average allowed in the league.
Christian McCaffrey has been heating up the past few games, posting his first back-to-back games with 100 or more rushing yards and his first back-to-back games with a higher than 3.5 rushing yards per attempt average over the last two games. If Seattle’s defense has anything to say about it on Saturday, McCaffrey’s recent good form will come to an end.
It’s been a tale of two halves to Seattle’s season in terms of stopping the run. Only once in the first seven games of the season did the Seahawks allow more than 100 rushing yards. That happened to come in Week 1 against San Francisco when McCaffrey (69 rushing yards), Brian Robinson (33), and Brock Purdy (17) combined for 119 rushing yards. After that, Seattle went six games in a row, allowing no more than 90 yards on the ground.
But the tides have turned for Seattle since their Week 8 bye week. They came out of the bye allowing at least 100 or more rushing yards in their next three games, and have finished the back half of the season allowing 100 or more in six of their last nine games.
While the rushing numbers have gotten worse, the front half of the season has been good enough to keep the Seattle run defense among the top in the league, with its 94.4 rushing yards allowed per game ranking third-best. What has helped Seattle manage the run game is not letting one rusher beat them. The Seahawks’ defense has yet to allow a 100-yard rusher this season, with Kyren Williams having the best game against the Seahawks a few weeks ago, amassing 91 rushing yards in the Rams’ Week 11 win.
While Seattle will be a tough test for McCaffery, just two weeks ago, he became the second running back this season to rush for more than 100 yards against the Colts, who rank fifth in the league in run defense. A repeat of that feat could only mean good things for the 49ers’ offense on Saturday.
