This Saturday at 5PM in Seattle, the feisty and resilient San Francisco 49ers will take field against the Seattle Seahawks in the divisional round of the playoffs. There will certainly be a massive buzz all week about this game from a national perspective. Richard Sherman, who famously played for and supports both arch rivals, will be on interviews throughout the week giving his perspective of this heated rivalry.

My guess is that there will exist, on a national level, some rooting interests in wanting to see Brock Purdy and the 49ers prevail in this game. Kyle Shanahan has perhaps done the best coaching of his career this season getting a team into the playoffs that has played without its best defenders all year, and even without Purdy, himself, for several games. Even though they have achieved this feat going against the easiest schedule of any team this season, it is easy for that fact to get lost in the feel good nature of their scrappy campaign. When you are winning games decisively with Mac Jones at quarterback, you are looking pretty damn good as a head coach, and organization.

If you simply do not have any horse in this race, I imagine it is easy to see San Francisco, and want to get behind them, perhaps. Their quarterback has a very likable, none threatening, every guy, boy next door quality that people can find easily relatable, and he has a knack for making big plays when big plays are needed. Rich Eisen, in particular, feels like a sports media giant who is very drawn them, and this quarterback, in particular.

If you just zero in on Purdy (and perhaps Christian McCaffery), everything about your midwest Christian conservative upbringing will settle into your chest, and make you want to see these guys get a ring this year. It can pull you so much so that you can easily look past that fact that Kyle Shanahan can come across as a bit of an arrogant prick as he permits players such as Jauan Jennings and Deommodore Lenoir to play the game with extra toxic underhandedness, and then will often complain about circumstances, and officiating if things do not go his way for his team, if they lose. That Brock Purdy, though, he’s just something special.

Then way up North of them, you have the Seattle Seahawks. From a distance, while you might be impressed by him because of his defensive minded prowess, you do not know their head coach very well, and not enough of his personality has been brought forth onto the national stage to feel like you are behind him greatly. You admire the Seahawk defense, and Jaxon Smith Ngijba on offense, but you are clinging onto persistent old narratives about Sam Darnold as a quarterback.

You just don’t know enough about this team to want to sign off, and neither does your editors or network producers. You have little to no history with them other than a couple Super Bowls the organization played in over a decade ago with players and a coach that are long past them now. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Buffalo, you know pretty well, though, and New England and Chicago are more storied long standing teams that reside in larger markets with greater viewerships.

The reality of this, however, is that the Seattle Seahawks do not care about how you feel about them. Their coach is a sharp, grounded, level headed sort who does not seek out bulletin material to motivate his players. Therefore, they will not get caught up in the psychological warfare games that the 49ers seem to want to play in the media and press within this rivalry.

Instead, Mike Macdonald demands that they stay the course of the focus and discipline that they possess on defense that allows for them to play fast and furious, and he encourages them to seek explosive plays, offensively, and on special teams to round out how they want to win ball games. In fact, when he answers questions about how his team can win the following game, he almost always lands on the praise “staying true to our process,” meaning that if they stay the course of doing all the things mentally and physically that they have routinely been doing, that allows them to play their brand of ball that got them to 14 wins this year, and therefore gives them their best chance to get the win whatever it ends up looking like after the final whistle is blown.

If you look at the overall nature of their defense, the impressive point differential that they have earned all season long, and the top DVOA numbers that they possess, you can easily see that Macdonald is clearly doing things right as a second year head coach, if nothing else. Even if you do not buy into them as a team to win it all this year, Vegas betters are looking at all these collective numbers, and they are buying. The raw data favors Seattle this year.

To be clear, I am not predicting that the Seattle Seahawks are going to the Super Bowl and winning it in a few weeks’ time. I am not in the market of making predictions heading into this divisional round of the playoff games. Seattle has to get past San Francisco first, and if they do so, they will have to get past another team next weekend in either the Bears or Rams.

The NFL feels very wide open, however, and I do not sense a clear outstanding favorite within this collection of remaining playoff teams. This is what happens when there is no dynasty team in this dance. Therein lies the reason why I think Seattle should be considered as good of a contender as any remaining in this dance.

In the NFC, the Rams have the best quarterback and head coach combination, I believe. Their offense is a well oiled machine with arguably the best receiver duo in the dance, and defensively, they can get after a quarterback. I don’t fully trust their secondary, though, and it does feel like their defense has regressed to a point that it can be ran on, if they get drawn into the marshes of a physical game. Their special teams, as we know, has been a mess.

I will be honest and say that I don’t have much faith in the Bears or 49ers with those defenses. Could they both upset the Rams and Seahawks? Certainly. It is the NFL playoffs and anything is possible, and Chicago and San Francisco have made it to the second round of the playoffs showing all kinds of grit, and moxie. I just feel the deeper the playoffs get, the more it favors the teams with stronger defenses, and because of that, my skepticism remains with both teams.

In terms of the AFC, I think the New England Patriots, Houston Texans, and the Denver Broncos all have defenses built to win a championship, and they have offenses capable of doing enough. I know many folks don’t buy Bo Nix much, but Sean Payton does know a thing about winning a Super Bowl, and I would not underestimate Denver’s unique Mile High home field advantage in January.

In summary, there are teams at this point that I do not put much stock into, but then there are teams that I find compelling. Objectively, I find the Seattle Seahawks a highly compelling playoff team, and that is with stripping away my deep blue and green colored fandom of theirs.

Seattle’s defense is championship caliber, as is their special teams. People get down on their offense a bit, yet they remain one of the most explosive offenses in the league, and this is why Klint Kubiak is a hot name currently in the coaching hiring circuit. If you just stared at their overall point differential, that, above anything else, should give one faith that they can make it to the Super Bowl.

I say all of this noting that a month ago I stated, after the game against the Colts when Seattle came out a bit flat and unfocused, and they only narrowly won against a 44 year old grandfather who came out of retirement to QB against them, any Super Bowl hype for the Seahawks was way too premature. I congratulated them for winning their 11th win, but I also felt like they were erratic Little Brother in the NFC West to the 49ers, and Rams, and that there were things about themselves that needed sorting out. This was my honest assessment of them at that time.

Since that game against the Colts, however, it does now feel like the Seahawks have taken some significant steps forward figuring it out for themselves. They defeated the Rams on TNF in one of the most dramatic come from behind overtime wins I have ever seen. They then traveled to Carolina and took apart a Panther offense that had been playing good ball up until that game, and then they completely took apart Kyle Shanahan’s offense down in the Bay Area, and made red hot Brock Purdy look like the second coming of Max Brosmer.

Now, objectively speaking, divorcing myself of my fandom, the Seattle Seahawks legit have my attention as Super Bowl contenders, and they should have every else’s attention, as well. They are a rightful winners of the NFC West, and they sport the top playoff seed in the NFC, and they possess the best overall DVOA marks in the league matched with what is likely the best overall defense without splitting hairs with some of the defenses in the AFC. On top of this, they are coming into their home matchup against San Francisco well rested, self scouted, and ready to tumble.

Offensively, it feels like they have properly adjusted to what defenses are presenting them. The style points in the pass game has not been there like it was through the first half of the year, but their effectiveness to remain explosive has remained by way of their suddenly explosive run game.

Simply stated, they are leaning more into the run against defenses that are paying extra attention to JSN to not give up chunk plays downfield, and the result has been a highly effective run game against lighter boxes, as demonstrated against the Rams, Panthers, and 49ers (all playoff teams they played against to finish out their season). Coming out of the game in Santa Clara, specifically, it feels like Darnold is perhaps taking more comfort accepting a game manager role at quarterback knowing that Seattle can win with defense, and a supportive run game while being more judicious throwing the football. You can have whatever opinion you want to about Darnold, but I would not underestimate how important this potential shift in the Seattle offense is for this team heading into this divisional round playoff game.

For many weeks, people have been looking at the Seahawks with the incorrect lens, I believe. They have been zeroing in on Sam Darnold too intently with memories of what happened to him last year in the playoffs. What they haven’t been considering nearly enough is how dominant the Seahawk defense had been performing, how well their special teams had been, and how, despite the turnover moments of Darnold, the Seahawk offense had remained explosive either through the run game, or downfield passing when needed.

In fact, I think what is perhaps the most underrated aspect of Seattle’s offense right now is how clutch Darnold has been late in games either coming from behind, or guiding long sustained drives to secure victory. There appears to be something about his makeup where he is able to overcome a mishap (or two), and lock in late. If you have watched every Seahawk game this year, you have seen this trend of his.

Outsiders will zero in on Darnold because of that one playoff game last year against the Rams when he was sacked all game long, and Kevin O’Connell seemed allergic to calling run plays to help him out. It is unfathomable for East Coast Fan to accept the suggestion that Sam Darnold can lead Seattle to playoff wins, but, at the same time, I don’t necessarily think that East Coast Fan is the sharpest stick in the pile when looking at Seattle, overall.

Considering how Seattle has found an explosive run game late in the season, think of it this following way, East Coast Fan, or anyone else who wants to hit the laugh reaction button on Facebook at the notion Seattle is a true contender.

Now, as we head into the playoffs, how do you want your team’s defense to play Seattle’s offense considering how potent their run game has been humming? Do you want to follow what defenses have been doing to them as of late, playing more shell coverage to limit JSN, and leave yourself more vulnerable against the run? Or would you load the box with extra defenders trying to limit the run and dare Darnold to go deep with arguably the top receiver in the league to throw at?

If you choose to play coverage, you risk the explosive running back duo of Ken Walker and Zach Charbonnet to put up big numbers like they have been generating the past several games. If you load the box up against them, you risk making Darnold look like a MVP candidate in the playoffs much like he was looking during the first half of the season when defenses were loading up to stop the run while not believing in Seattle’s pass game.

My guess is that defensive coordinators are more likely going to continue paying extra attention to JSN, playing more coverage not wanting to be the one responsible of Darnold looking like an MVP in the playoffs. Personally, I think this is exactly how Mike Macdonald would have it.

Seattle has not won the way your fantasy football led minds think they should win these past few games. Macdonald probably does not give two solid squats about your fantasy team.

These Seahawks are being built to win titles with the defense leading the charge, and a ball control offense being complimentary towards it as they run the rock is probably exactly what they prefer. If their defense continues to hum, it feels clear that they’d be perfectly willing to win playoff games with 10-17-ish final scores. They will take that. It might not get Sam Darnold a Super Bowl MVP award, but it might give Leonard Big Cat Williams one.

Pete Prisco can scoff all he wants to about the Seahawks only putting up 13 points on the road against the 49ers the last time these teams met. The truth of the matter is that if Jason Myers made two field goals he would normally make, the Seahawks would have beaten the Niners 19-3, and the domination would have felt even more impressive, but the reality of that game was that Seattle only needed to beat the Niners by scoring 4 points. That’s it.

So if folks like Prisco want to scoff at the Seahawks, he is certainly free to do so. If Stephen A Smith wants to continue bringing up his doubts on Darnold, he can doubt away. Seattle’s pathway to winning the Super Bowl this year isn’t led by their QB looking like an MVP, and any style points of their offense you think they need to have to be a true contender.

Nay, it is led by their defense, their special teams, and their offense running the football, and taking whatever is there with good game management decisions from the QB. That is it, and this is the way, unless you want to load up the box and leave JSN wide open downfield with Darnold’s high level deep ball proficiency.

Last thing about why I like the Seahawks this year to perhaps shock the world by making the Super Bowl, and winning it outright. Aside from the supportive data that favors this team, there exists the largely unconsidered want-to-factor from a series of savvy, older badass vets on this roster.

Leonard Williams and Julian Love are former New York Giants rescued by John Schneider that I would expect to see hyper focused in these playoffs understanding the opportunity they possess with having this home field advantage. Ditto for former Cowboy DeMarcus Lawrence who chose Seattle, specifically believing in this defensive coaching staff, for a chance to finally get a ring. These are high level veteran defenders who have been in this league a while, and probably do not want to see this opportunity squandered, and will therefore play these games according.

Also, do not think for a second that long time Seahawk Jarran Reed doesn’t want to see his career through by earning a Super Bowl title with the team that drafted him in 2016. Shoot, I think Cooper Kupp would love nothing more than to win another title by way of earning it playing for the team he rooted for as a kid, and have the distinction of winning two Super Bowls on two different teams.

And then there is Darnold, Slingin’ Sammy D, himself, as Colin Cowherd calls him, with the keys to the offensive knowing they have home field advantage and are two games away from the Super Bowl. Don’t you think he would love nothing more in the world than to erase years of negative narratives by guiding Seattle to a Super Bowl win?

This is my hunch about Seattle as we get into the divisional round, and they host San Francisco. I think we are likely to see a more confident and dialed in Sam Darnold. I just do. I think that dramatic come from behind win against the Rams a few weeks back did something for this team, and him.

There was an easy calm to him shown through his press conference heading into the season finale against San Francisco, and I thought that carried through much of the game despite missing an opportunity to hit Zach Charbonnet for an early touchdown score. He, more than anyone else, has probably had time this past week to self scout, study tape, refine, and this Saturday is his grand opportunity to start rewriting a few narratives out there.

Can this carry on through the playoffs? I believe it can.

If Seattle’s defense plays their game, if Seattle stays impressive on special teams, and steadfast with the run, and if Darnold plays like he did on the road in Santa Clara, I think these Seahawks can most definitely win Super Bowl this year. When you peal back the layers, it does become easier to see this.

They still have to do it, though, and it is understandable that doubts will remain until postseason wins are earned. They do not possess the playoff pedigree of the 49ers, and the LA Rams, and if you place more stock into proven commodities than analytics, I get it. The been there done that factor of teams can be a compelling one in the midst of playoff madness.

I will just say in conclusion, that this Saturday, at 5PM, it will be Seattle’s grand opportunity to do the things that they need to do to secure a divisional round win, and then have that same opportunity at home for the conference championship the following week. This is their opportunity to show any doubters the significance of staying true to their process, and being a process over results oriented franchise.

I like their chances.

Go Hawks.