Grand Finale: The Seahawks-Niners Game and what the Matchups Tell Us

• 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy is better than the Seahawks’ Sam Darnold.
• 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey is better than the Seahawks’ tandem of Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet.
• 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan is better than the Seahawks’ Mike Macdonald.

Those are the three key pro football spots. Any other answers you need about the outcome of Saturday’s clash of the velociraptors at Jurassic Park Santa Clara?

In terms of spectacle per cubic foot, San Francisco last weekend even topped the Seahawks’ astonishing 38-37 win over the Rams two weeks earlier in Los Angeles that knocked the Rams down the playoff seedings ladder. Heralded as the game of the year by many, the title lasted until Sunday night. The 11-4 49ers beat the 11-4 Chicago Bears 42-38, a punch-for-punch howler decided only after the Bears reached the SF 3-yard line before QB Caleb Williams’ attempt at a game-winning pass a little after :00 splattered untouched into the end zone.

Since the Niners not only have the home field advantage Saturday in the final game of the regular season, they also are coincidentally inspired as the host team/city for the Super Bowl in February. Defeating Seattle for the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs means they get a first-round playoff bye and the home field for the remainder of their postseason. They don’t have to pack a business travel bag until August. Staying out of airports, even when chartering, may be the Niners’ biggest incentive of all.

Plus, SF already has beaten the Seahawks in the season opener, 13-7, although in the NFL’s perpetually compressed state of urgency, that’s pre-Jurassic. Relevant stats from that game require carbon-dating equipment unavailable to Post Alley.

Aside from spectacle, incentives and the advantages mentioned above, the match-up’s real mystery is the defenses. In the game against the Bears, San Francisco gave up touchdown drives of 77, 65, 65 and 80 yards, plus an 80-yarder that produced a field goal, and had no sacks and just three quarterback hurries. On the Seattle side against the Rams, they allowed 581 yards (including overtime). Never in the franchise’s 50 years had it surrendered so much acreage in a single game.

At least the Niners had the excuse of missing-to-injury their two best defenders, DE Nick Bosa and LB Fred Warner. The Seahawks, with lesser injuries, came nowhere close to their reputation as one of the NFL’s top five units.

Yet they won, somehow. Somehow, they won 13 times this season, tying the franchise record, despite having the second-most turnovers (28) in the NFL.
Significant credit goes to special teams, especially after the mid-season trade by club boss John Schneider for returner/WR Rashid Shaheed. Significant credit must also go to Macdonald. In his second year as a head coach at any level, he has regularly found ways to veer around in-game crack-ups, a skill usually the province of guys named Shanahan, McVay and Reid. 

In his training-wheels year of 2024 and with a first-time NFL offensive coordinator in over his head, Macdonald coaxed the Seahawks to 10-7 record and barely missed the playoffs. Now, they could be the best team in the NFC around 8:30 p.m. Saturday.

The moment calls to mind the community worry that attended the firing of the esteemed Pete Carroll and the hiring of a low-profile assistant with the Baltimore Ravens. Truth was that while Carroll will always be at or near the pinnacle in the franchise pantheon, there was no getting around the fact that the Seahawks had won one playoff game since 2016.

The transition has turned out well, although I must admit that the arrival of a winner-takes-most game between the Seahawks and 49ers evokes sentiment about the greatest game ever played on the home rug — the NFC Championship on Jan. 19, 2014.

The winner-to-the-Super-Bowl stakes elevated the game to a week-long tension in these parts that resembled violin strings. Enriching the backstory was the long-running contempt between Carroll and his nemesis, Niners coach Jim Harbaugh, dating to their days in college ball at USC and Stanford. We in the media labored heavily to induce the rival camps to say something provocative. Nobody bit.

When Richard Sherman, himself a player for Harbaugh at Stanford, tipped away a potential game-winning touchdown in the end zone, preserving the Seahawks’ 23-17 win, the exhalation and exuberance was unmatched. Carroll had pulled his Excalibur from the stone.

Pity there’s no such subplot Saturday. Then again, every legend has to start somewhere. Maybe Shanahan isn’t better than Macdonald. To the stone, gentlemen.

Seahawks, 31-27.