Ernest Jones IV knew this was possible. He’s been looking forward to it.
On Nov. 16, after a devastating loss to his former team, the Los Angeles Rams, Jones was asked to take a big-picture look at the Seattle Seahawks’ season.
Do you expect to see these guys again, more than just the second game in Seattle?
“That’s our goal,” Jones replied. “Hopefully they’re on the same page as us.”
It turns out they were.
Jones’ Seahawks will host the Rams in the NFC Championship Game at 6:30 p.m. ET Sunday at Lumen Field. It will be the third installment of what has been an excellent battle between the division rivals. Jason Myers’ missed field goal attempt as time expired gave the Rams a 21-19 win in Week 11 at SoFi Stadium. Five weeks later, Seattle outlasted Los Angeles in a thrilling rematch, winning on a 2-point conversion in overtime, 38-37.
The Seahawks opened as 2.5-point favorites over the Rams, per BetMGM.
These were the conference’s two best teams during the regular season. Seattle’s Week 16 triumph cleared a path for head coach Mike Macdonald’s team to secure home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, which they did by winning road games over the Carolina Panthers and San Francisco 49ers the final two weeks of the season.
After that loss in Seattle, the Rams suffered a Week 17 defeat against the Atlanta Falcons. During his postgame news conference in Atlanta, Rams coach Sean McVay said he planned to play his starters in Week 18 against the Arizona Cardinals so his team could get back on track heading into the playoffs. The Rams have won their past three games, including back-to-back road games in the playoffs against the Panthers (34-31) and the Chicago Bears (20-17). All-Pro quarterback Matthew Stafford led game-winning drives in both games.
Los Angeles is the last team to beat Seattle, which has won seven straight and outscored its opponents by 90 points in that span. The Seahawks’ 41-6 divisional round win over the 49ers on Saturday is the most lopsided result of the playoffs thus far.
McVay’s squad is also one of only two teams to get the best of Macdonald’s defense, which led the league in scoring, points per drive and EPA per play (all stats provided by TruMedia). The Seahawks allowed only 17.2 points per game this season but surrendered 38 at home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 5 and 37 to the Rams in the overtime nail-biter.
Given all the injuries the Seahawks were dealing with at the time, the Bucs game was an aberration. They began the game without Pro Bowl outside linebacker DeMarcus Lawrence, All-Pro cornerback Devon Witherspoon and safety Julian Love, and lost outside linebacker Derick Hall on the first drive and cornerback Riq Woolen midway through the third quarter.
The Week 16 game cannot be viewed the same way. Seattle had its defense intact for most of the game while giving up over 500 yards of offense. Woolen, safety Coby Bryant and rookie defensive back Nick Emmanwori exited with injuries in the fourth quarter, but Los Angeles — without star receiver Davante Adams — notched 30 points in regulation against a healthy Macdonald defense. All-Pro receiver Puka Nacua had a season-high 225 yards and two touchdowns, the latter giving his team the lead in overtime.
McVay versus Macdonald will be one of the biggest matchups in this game. The other will be Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula against Seattle quarterback Sam Darnold, who is dealing with an oblique strain sustained in Thursday’s practice. Despite feeling “great” against the 49ers, Darnold said the oblique strain is “absolutely” something he’ll have to manage the remainder of the season.
Darnold had another Pro Bowl season but delivered two uneven performances against the Rams. He threw four interceptions in Week 11 and two more in Week 16. In both games, Darnold responded and gave Seattle a chance to win the game. But he was also part of the reason the Seahawks needed come-from-behind drives in the fourth quarter and overtime.
Though Darnold has played clean football in Seattle’s past two games, those performances against the 49ers might not be instructive. Shula’s Rams have demonstrated an ability to get to Darnold unlike any other defense he has faced this season. Whereas some of his league-high 20 turnovers have been bad luck, all six of his interceptions against the Rams came from either bad decisions or bad throws, or both.
The Seahawks are good enough to overcome those mistakes — they were a 61-yard kick away from winning in Week 11 — but that’s not the world they want to live in with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line.
A more positive difference for the Seahawks is that they seem better equipped to support their quarterback on offense this time.
Darnold and All-Pro receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba were so hot to start the season that it appeared all Seattle needed was a credible run game to complement what they were doing through the air. For a while, the Seahawks didn’t even have that, but it didn’t matter because of how prolific Smith-Njigba was.
Seattle seemingly found its groove on the ground when Walker began to get more touches, but then the run game cooled down. The team had one of its worst rushing performances of the year in a Week 15 win over Indianapolis as Walker and Zach Charbonnet combined for just 48 yards on 17 attempts.
The last month has been a different story entirely. Walker and Charbonnet have combined for at least 130 rushing yards in each of the past four games. In that span, they’re averaging 150 rushing yards, 5.5 yards per carry and eight first downs with a success rate of 42.7 percent; the league average this year on running back carries was 39.2 percent. They’ve recorded eight rushing touchdowns in the last four outings.
“It’s really just details and execution,” Walker said Saturday after joining Shaun Alexander as the only other Seahawk with three rushing touchdowns in a playoff game. “We go over it, we watch film, and then we go execute it at practice, and it shows in the game.”
Walker had 116 rushing yards Saturday, eclipsing 100 yards for the third time this season and the second time in the past four games. He also had 97 yards rushing against the 49ers in Week 18. All three of Walker’s touchdowns Saturday came in the red zone; he had only four red zone touchdowns in the regular season.
“When we have the dynamic backfield that we do, we’ve just got to give them a chance,” left guard Grey Zabel said. “You’ve got to move the line of scrimmage to give them a chance. When (Walker) is running the ball like he is, it’s pretty incredible. It’s super fun to block for a guy like that. We just love doing our job up front.”
The run game isn’t just functioning as a complement to the passing game. Now, it’s something Seattle can lean on.
“Our coaches deserve a ton of credit,” Macdonald said Saturday. “A lot of it is coming on wide zone — that’s something that we’ve been having to work all year, and that’s what we hang our hat on. So it’s great to see it come to life.”
Seattle finished Saturday’s game without Charbonnet (knee) and left tackle Charles Cross (foot), who missed the win over the Rams with a hamstring injury. Macdonald said Charbonnet would need an MRI to determine the extent of the injury. Cross left the game midway through the third quarter and didn’t return, though Macdonald said that his $104.4 million left tackle stayed on the bench out of caution. (Update: On Monday, Macdonald announced Charbonnet will have season-ending surgery, while Cross is day to day.)
“We were in a position where we didn’t need (Cross) to come back, but still we’re going to have to work through it with his foot,” Macdonald said. “I don’t have an indication of what that’s going to look like.”
Cross’ playing status looms large this week ahead of a meeting with a talented Rams defensive front headlined by Pro Bowl edge rushers Jared Verse and Byron Young. Jones, Seattle’s star inside linebacker, will be the focus of another subplot leading into this game. Jones was a starter on the Rams defense that won Super Bowl LVI. The Rams traded him in August 2024, a transaction that Jones took personally. The MVP of that Super Bowl was receiver Cooper Kupp, who was released by Los Angeles this offseason, paving the way to sign with his hometown Seahawks.
Hall was suspended one game without pay for stepping on Rams right guard Kevin Dotson in Week 16, which Hall said was an accident. Dotson, who was carted off with an ankle injury and missed the next several weeks, believes Hall’s step was intentional and said Wednesday he plans to “get my get back” the next time he faces Hall.
“I’m not gonna step on nobody,” Dotson told reporters. “I’ll get it between the plays.”
Both sides will be plenty motivated in the third act of this trilogy. The Seahawks have been anticipating this for a while. Now it all comes down to one final showdown in Seattle.
