Do you believe in Sam Darnold?
At this point, that’s the largest question looming over the Seattle Seahawks. By the numbers – and especially by our numbers – the Seahawks are significant favorites not just for this week, but for the rest of the season as a whole. They’re the top team in DVOA, both regular and weighted, with the top defense and top-10 offense and special teams. They’re slight betting favorites to win it all, and significant favorites in our odds, winning the title 27.1% of the time.
They are coming off of a bye week. They get to play all their games at home. They get to face the San Francisco 49ers this week, the team they just handled easily two weeks ago, who are coming off of a short week and have, somehow, found ways to get even more injured between then and now. It’s not that the 49ers can’t win or that it won’t be a tough matchup; it’s just that the Seahawks are the biggest favorites of the week, and rightfully so.
And yet, until we see Darnold do it when the lights are brightest…
SF (13-5)
SEA (14-3)
DVOA
9.9% (10)
41.2% (1)
WEI DVOA
14.6% (7)
42.3% (1)
49ers on Offense
SF OFF
SEA DEF
DVOA
17.5% (2)
-24.2% (1)
WEI DVOA
21.7% (3)
-30.1% (1)
PASS
43.6% (3)
-20.2% (1)
RUSH
-4.0% (15)
-30.1% (1)
Seahawks on Offense
SF DEF
SEA OFF
DVOA
9.0% (27)
8.5% (10)
WEI DVOA
11.5% (27)
3.4% (14)
PASS
17.1% (26)
32.5% (5)
RUSH
-2.0% (25)
-4.0% (14)
Special Teams
SF
SEA
DVOA
1.4% (13)
8.6% (2)
Let’s start with the Seahawks having the ball, because that’s where the biggest chinks in Seattle’s armor have popped up. Seattle is 10th overall in offensive DVOA, but that’s fallen to 18th at -1.2% since Week 10; they haven’t hit a double-digit offensive DVOA in a game since their November win over Tennessee. Even in games they’ve ended up winning comfortably, there’s been stretches of tension where you’re just waiting for the offense to do something.
Too often over the back half of this season, Seattle has been in situations where they’ve been stuck in the muck against an inferior team for a half, only for defense and special teams to kickstart them into gear later. Comfortable wins without much in the way of offensive production – that describes the Vikings game (no offensive touchdowns until the fourth quarter), the Falcons game (tied 6-6 at half until special teams and turnovers popped things open), the Colts game (six Jason Myers field goals), the Panthers game (3-3 at the half) and even, to an extent, the 49ers game in Week 18. That’s five of their last six games – all of them comfortable Seattle wins, with only the Colts putting them in any real jeopardy of losing, and yet all of them having the score linger closer than it should have been because a lack of production on offense. Seattle has been a defense- and special teams-led team all year long, so there’s no surprise there. But in September and October, Seattle was a great defense backed by a very good offense. Since then, they’ve been a great defense backed by an average offense, and that’s a concerning dropoff.
Rushing, Seattle’s been mostly OK, with a 2.0% DVOA since midseason – their 44% success rate is maybe less than they’d love, but they’re fifth with 33 explosive runs over the back half of the year. They have an 18.4% rushing DVOA with zone blocking, and San Francisco is the worst defense in the league over the back half of the year defending against zone runs, inside or outside, so that sounds really good for Seattle. In Week 18, the Seahawks only had a 42% success rate and 0.4% DVOA rushing against the 49ers, but you can break that down to a 25.9% DVOA when running zone and a -16.7% DVOA when running everything else. Some of that low success rate comes from just trying to grind clock in the fourth quarter, too; they had six explosive carries for 99 yards and averaged 3.6 yards before contact against the 49ers. It might not be a running game you can count on for regular yards, but it can absolutely pick up big chunks against a defense very vulnerable to giving up those big chunks. It’s probably more of a Zach Charbonnet day than a Kenneth Walker III one in all likelihood, but both backs should have room to run against the 49ers front – Walker leads the duo with 6.2 yards per zone rush over the back half of the season, but Charbonnet has the superior DVOA at 29.6%. Pick your poison.
But the passing game? That’s where things get concerning. It’s a two-headed backfield, but a one-headed passing attack.
Darnold ended the year with a 15.2% passing DVOA, but that drops to -15.9% when you exclude Jaxon Smith-Njigba, by far the biggest drop off for any of the actually good quarterbacks this year. Over the second half of the season, that’s been even worse, going from -6.6% to -30.5%. Heck, even if you throw out sacks and throwaways, Darnold’s DVOA over the back half of the season is just 7.0% if you exclude JSN targets. That would rank 29th out of qualified quarterbacks, and while, yes, everyone’s DVOA goes down if you exclude throws to their best targets, no one relies on one guy to the same extent Darnold does.
To be fair, JSN is extremely good. And while the 49ers held him to his worst game of the season in Week 1 (-25 DYAR, -38.1% DVOA), he had a much more solid day in Week 18 (24 DYAR, 23.3% DVOA), and that’s the defense he’ll be facing this week. In Week 18, he was either targeted against Renardo Green or a linebacker; they never tried him against Deommodore Lenoir two weeks ago. It’ll be interesting to see if the 49ers give Lenoir his wish and give him more snaps against JSN, or if they’ll cross their fingers and double him with Green and a safety. Either way, the 49ers probably can not win if JSN has a big day; they can’t count on him dropping passes in big moments like Philadelphia did.
It would also be useful if they could get some pressure, as a couple big sacks against Darnold kept them in the Week 18 game longer than they probably deserved to be. Darnold has a -105.4% DVOA against pressure since Week 10, 10th worst in the league. But the 49ers can’t get pressure. Over the back half of the year, they’re fifth worst with a 25.6% pressure rate – and they were below that against Seattle and Philadelphia, despite cranking up their blitz rate. Left tackle Charles Cross was lowered to limited with hamstring and knee injuries, his backup Josh Jones did not practice, and there’s a slight chance – emphasis on slight – that Fred Warner, who was bouncing around practice just months after breaking his ankle, could play. But this is a weakness San Francisco isn’t really in position to attack.
Cross is one tick in the negative injury box for Seattle. Now we turn to the 49ers’ injury box, which is overflowing with ticks.
The big addition now is George Kittle, tearing his Achilles in the win over Philadelphia. This is a huge blow, both in the passing and running games. On/off splits for San Francisco are hard because so many different players have gone down at different times, but in games where Kittle has played at least 50% of snaps, San Francisco has a 45.6% passing DVOA and -0.6% rushing DVOA. Without Kittle, that drops to 42.1% and -9.0%, respectively – even though he’s San Francisco’s most effective receiver, his impact has been felt more in the running game. You saw some of that in the second half against Philly – the 49ers were able to recreate some of Kittle’s passing role with the surprising Jake Tonges, more Kyle Juszczyk than normal, and somehow leaning even more on Christian McCaffrey. But you can’t really replace his blocking prowess, and he drags more attention away from the running game than Tonges or Juszczyk does; his loss will really, really hurt.
With or without Kittle, the 49ers’ offense has been smoking hot over the last month and a half, with the only team that’s been able to stop them being … these Seattle Seahawks. In Week 18, they held San Francisco to a -5.2% DVOA, the 49ers’ second-worst performance of the year and their worst with Brock Purdy under center. The 49ers could not sustain drives, with just nine first downs and a success rate of 36%. The one time all game they did extend a drive in the fourth quarter, it ended with Boye Mafe knocking a pass off target with that pass bouncing off of Christian McCaffrey’s hands and into Drake Thomas’ arms to essentially seal the game. This is not the first time a Mike Macdonald defense has shut down Brock Purdy – remember that four-interception Christmas game against the Ravens in 2023 that both killed Purdy’s MVP push and likely clinched the Seattle job for Macdonald? Purdy actually averages a 6.2% passing DVOA in his five games against Macdonald, but that’s well below his average and being boosted by his two early season games against Seattle in 2024 and 2025, when Macdonald was still sort of assembling his defensive pieces. When his defense is fully healthy and gelling, Macdonald offers schematic tweaks and puzzles that the Shanahan offense hasn’t really been able to solve yet.
In exchange for Kittle, the 49ers do get back Trent Williams, who was sorely missed in Week 18. It also looks like Ricky Pearsall will play, though the man’s joints and ligaments are made out of cotton candy and hope so we’ll have to see how that goes. Without solid left tackle play, and without their field-stretcher receiver, the 49ers really had no answer for Seattle’s pass defense. Purdy was pressured on 31.3% of his dropbacks, was hit 25% of the time, saw his time to pressure fall to 2.42 seconds and had his aDOT fall to 4.8 yards. These are all significant steps back from his average since returning from injury (27.4%, 8.4%, 2.85 and 7.9, respectively), and derailed most drives before they got started. That’s not solely because of the absence of Williams and Pearsall, of course, but having them both back might give San Francisco at least a chance of actually doing something offensively.
But Seattle’s defense doesn’t need to rely on injuries to shut someone down, and even a fully healthy 49ers unit would find the Seahawks tough to get through. Seattle is third in pressure rate despite having one of the 10 lowest blitz rates in the league – they beat you with four, letting them sit back and take away anything deep. They will sit in two-high zone coverage and force you to throw, under duress, towards someone who isn’t open. They do it sitting in dime most of the time, where their -20.1% pass defense DVOA is tops in the league, thanks in large part to Nick Emmanwori’s ability to play in the box or as a slot corner as needed – they didn’t play a single snap in base against the 49ers in Week 18, despite San Francisco coming out in heavier personnel, and they still held McCaffrey to under three yards a pop while terrorizing Purdy at the same time. They’re in the top quartile in broken up passes, interception rate, explosive pass rate allowed, turnover-worthy throws forced and success rate allowed, and allow the lowest yards per completion in the league. You’re unlikely to beat Seattle with one or two big plays; you’re going to need to sustain a drive.
The 49ers do have the second-lowest three-and-out rate and the most plays per drive in the league this season, but that didn’t help them in Week 18. CMC, who forced 112 missed tackles this year, didn’t have a single one in the finale, and hasn’t been a dramatic force on the ground all year. This may put more pressure on Purdy to try to win the game by himself, and that’s when you get that gunslinger mentality that can come back to bite him. Sometimes, that results in 50/50 balls that result in fabulous touchdowns to Jake Tonges in the corner of the end zone. Other times, it leads him to target Skyy Moore being covered by Quinyon Mitchell. Since he entered the league, Purdy is eighth with 10 multi-interception games; things can spiral when they start going bad. Purdy’s actually 3-1 in those games this year, including a win over Seattle in Week 1, but the Seahawks are not a team you want to be giving a bunch of free stops.
Barring a surprise Carolina upset, the 49ers were the best team the Seahawks could have drawn in the Divisional Round. No new schematic surprises, the worst defense still standing, a boatload of injuries and an offense which, while great, they know they can shut down because they’ve done it before. They have every reason in the world to be confident, and the most likely scenario is for them to see the 49ers out in the Divisional Round for the first time since 2002.
And as soon as we see Darnold do it, we’ll believe in them, too.
