when i got tickets from a coworker for this game in Levi's a few months ago I had no idea it would be as huge as it is - pumped to see the Hawks take care of business!
Great article SSJ. (both 49er game week 18). Rich Eisen ranks Seahawks at 5 in power rankings . PFF is split on the who wins in a close game.
It did Mac a lot of good to see SF runs so many plays on Sunday night. Lot's of offensive scheme and looks to review.
SSJ is correct. SF's defense ain't so great this year due to injuries. I hear they have a pretty good young secondary but their pass rush and run defense is at the bottom of the rankings.
Seattle seems to have found a running game over the last two weeks. One guy from PFF also brought this up and stated he thought Seattle's running game could be the difference offensively this week. Couple that with a terrible 49ers pass rush and Seattle's offense might get well this week on the road in the bay.
In my last post I mentioned that Purdy only threw for 168 yards and CMC rushed for 53 yards against a top 10 Browns defense. Kittle was the leading receiver with 67 yards. Nick Emmanwori is playing this time around beyond the first quarter with 16 more games experience. Could make for a interesting night for a banged up Kittle.
CMC didn't play much at the end of the game with some sore lower back issue. He was a full participant for the first time today.
PFF brought up an interesting stat for Purdy. In the last 6 games he has had an average to 3.25-3.5 sec to thrown the ball. Mac has an app for that.
Again this is the real signature game Seattle also needs besides the Rams for momentum into the playoffs.
Seattle may actually have a breakout offensive game against the 49ers this week. If the running game and poor pass rush show up in week 18 in Santa Clara; that might make the San Jose 49ers mere mortals behind a complete Seahawks team performance going into final jeopardy (49er's exposed for 100 please)
If we assume we are going to beat the niners this weekend, who are our expected points in the playoffs? On the way to the super bowl. Will we have to play either the 49ers or Rams again?
The story line, one way or the other, is going to be Darnold and his demons. The setup for comparison to how his season ended last year is just too perfect for fans and media to ignore. If we lose this game it won' matter if the run game struggled and/or the O-line sucked. It won't matter if Kubiak couldn't figure out how to get the ball to his other play-makers. If the Seahawks were mediocre this year, no one would care and Darnold would be off the hook. But the Seahawks are really good and Sam is back in this position to win one game for the #1 spot. It's not fair to put it all on Darnold, but that'll be the story - hopefully KK and his offensive teammates can help vanquish those demons.
Careful there SSJ, putting this out into the atmosphere ahead of a key game, not sure that's wise. Football Gods, butterfly wings.....you know, ripples on a pond, and all that stuff. Bad mojo. Respect thy foe.
In an attempt to balance this out, 49ers CB Deommodore Lenoir is back to talking trash to JSN ahead of the game.
Now that's bad mojo. Don't poke the bear, especially when your first name is Deommodore.
Fun fact, the Seahawks opponents have the 5th most wins in the league this year. Top 5 are;
LA Rams - 142 opponent wins
Houston Texans - 135 opponent wins
Jacksonville Jaguars - 129 opponent wins
Buffalo Bills - 126 opponent wins
Seattle Seahawks - 123 opponent wins
San Francisco? They are at 121. So, not really much of of a difference as far as 2025 strength of schedule. They are legit.
Top 5 offences by points scored......
Seattle - 470
Rams - 457
Patriots - 452
Bills - 446
9'ers - 434
Points scored, like most metrics, is imperfect, but winning games is basically who gets the most points, so......
Inversely, the defenses rated by points allowed through 17 games.....
Texans - 265
Seahawks - 289
Eagles - 301
Broncos - 308
Patriots - 310
49'ers are just outside the top 10, at 334 points. So again, not horrible. I don't think it's fair to say San Fran's defense is 'bad' (not that SSJ said that). At the most important metric (points allowed) they are above league average.
But this does paint a flattering picture of the Seahawks. They have had one of the highest degree-of-difficulty schedules, lead the league in points scored, and are second in points allowed. Lets forget whatever the 49'ers are. Lets appreciate what the Seahawks are!
If we play our game, we should win on Saturday. But the 49'ers are plenty good enough to take the game if we don't play our best.
The 49ers pattern is thus: battle through injuries and adversity courtesy of Shanahan being the best coach in the NFL (sorry guys, he is) BUT eventually hit a wall and fall short of glory yet again.
Our wall is named Emmanowori, Jones, Okada, Witherspoon, Murphy, Lawrence and more. We are where the 49ers miracle ends. Period.
Most interesting is how the same picture can be painted using different perspectives, SSJ. Some may accuse you have broken a cardinal rule about Sports Writers becoming Fans. I would argue you are building on what you see and what it adds up to. Gutsy stuff though, predicting outcomes, loudly and boldly. HooAh. Year One. 3 to go, then the record books. Gonna make for a good story. 12 as 1, plus.
Amen, Bro! I suspect what JA/JS/MM have built will see us have an unusual number of our guys return. Their player-centric focus is real. Keeping The Team together will be a priority. JS won't be playing games with contracts. To ask for more than is budgeted is to take away from someone else, so good luck if you can get wild money.
All your confidence may allow me to sleep better until the game, but until we really destroy SF, and TWICE if necessary, I will worry and fret and my stomach will be swimming in acid until we reach the NFCC game, which is my minimum aspiration for a successful season.
All those numbers give hope, sure. And yet the 49ers are in position to be the #1 seed if they win on Saturday. And we have yet to beat them this season. So y'all will forgive me if I don't count those chickens just yet, not until the final whistle. (Roughly four dozen hens and three roosters huddled together up at the barn. Roosters lie, incessantly.)
Re: Ernie’s comment. Issac got real pissed off at me last night, and unfortunately deleted a post with good to great numbers in it so I cannot copy here. Wish had a bit of context with his post, but while none of us want to bring back AB at RG, our OLine is mid pack, or again Issac deleted post so don’t have the numbers, top 5, especially in pass protection. Low sack rate. League avg or better in T2T. Low scramble rate by SD. Multiple organizations have the Hawks oline top 5-10 overall. We don’t evaluate all Olines here thus see all our mistakes, but for the season we’re above most teams. Considering almost no improvement by AB and Sundell just ok, I’ll attribute this to coaching and Coach K play calling.
Coming back to Niners good vs great offense: I agree with you on the Bears not being a good test. But SF outscored us vs Titans ( we were 30-24 and they were 37-24), and in particular Indy seems glaring: we got the Colts in back-to-back weeks, including we both faced Rivers at QB. We scored 18 (and was a hugely frustrating offensive showing), Niners put up 48.
I REALLY hope you're right and see the stats that support your argument. But the Indy games in particular suggest they are much better offensively than we are, at least now with Purdy back and if Kittle plays. Trent Williams injury a tremendous benefit for us though
I agree and that’s why I also clarified that this not about comparing the Seahawks O to the 49ers O. The only question you posed was why I said the 49ers were good, not great. Not if they’re better than the Seahawks O. The Rams are great. They run the ball great; the 49ers run the ball bad. The have Puka; the 49ers don’t have a premier receiver weapon at all. They have a great OL when the OL is healthy. They have a more talented QB; Stafford recent struggles notwithstanding, he is talented AF.
So if the Rams are great, how can the 49ers also be great when they do so many things worse on offense than the Rams? McVay was reinventing the wheel with 13 personnel this season. I’ve never heard anyone praise Shanahan’s innovation. He’s just very good at the classics. That’s fine. I’m just saying this is recency bias because if the 49ers played the Texans last week, the tenor of the conversation would be much different.
Sure, Stafford in his 8th season went 24 tds/10 ints on 594 attempts. Darnold with less playing experience in his 8th season has so far gone 25 tds/14 ints on 451 attempts. Hot mic memes aside, Darnold is not really turnover prone. He is just average at it so far.
Fair enough, clearly I'm anxious on Seattle's recent offensive performance and jumped to a wrong conclusion on your comparisons. I do trust our defense and hope it's enough -- we'll know soon enough
Good article, thanks for trying to talk some sense into those of us that get heartburn from Shanahan and co. I'll be glad when kittle and McCaffrey are gone...they are a handful.
I'd love to see us pick up RG in FA. Draft a WR and RB. Then get whatever weapons we can wherever we can..re load and conquer. Begaw!
SSJ, thanks for the article and agree with all points.
Interestingly, the Seahawks weak strength of schedule was cited for their success early in the year by a few sites. I took a look at it now and found the Seahawks are at 5th for strength of schedule. The Rams are at #1 and the Niners at #10. New England is dead last.
Not sure it really matters in the grand scheme of things but I found it interesting.
By DVOA, according to Aaron Schatz of FTN Fantasy (https://ftnfantasy.com/nfl/week-17-dvoa-ratings-patriots-rising-up) the Patriots have had the 3rd easiest schedule of all time. The Seahawks and Rams, meanwhile, are the 6th and 7th best teams, by DVOA, of all time. Mike MacDonald should win.
Well, I am a Seahawk Homer so it will not take a lot to convince me. Unfortunately the folks casting the ballets that matter are likely looking at the teams' improvements over the previous year record and our guy MM was pretty good last year.
Mark, I appreciate the link you posted and giggled a bit when I saw the Hawks are #1 for weighted DVOA. Adds a little more confidence for the upcoming match.
Yeah, I don't think he'll get it. When he retires, I'm sure he'd be happy to have a CotY, but he'd also much rather have multiple Lombardis. And listening to him talk, I also kind of believe he thinks Awards are fluff. Wants them for his guys, but his job is to put his players in position to win the super bowl.
Re COTY. Unfortunately most voters don’t look at the strength of schedule. They will when it suits their biases and decisions then completely ignore for something like COTY.
My guess is Vrabel will win it this year, and frankly, he is a deserving candidate.
The COTY is awarded based on a tally of subjective opinions with some objective data sprinkled in. It is entertaining but does not really matter at the end of the day.
I thought you were in Southeast….yeah if you recall Lofa. He had a hat trick INT against Eagles. I was working in NYC. Actually heard guys at bar asking if Seattle Pacific NW had indoor plumbing. Also lost all respect for Sal Palatonio then with his asinine comments.
when i got tickets from a coworker for this game in Levi's a few months ago I had no idea it would be as huge as it is - pumped to see the Hawks take care of business!
Great article SSJ. (both 49er game week 18). Rich Eisen ranks Seahawks at 5 in power rankings . PFF is split on the who wins in a close game.
It did Mac a lot of good to see SF runs so many plays on Sunday night. Lot's of offensive scheme and looks to review.
SSJ is correct. SF's defense ain't so great this year due to injuries. I hear they have a pretty good young secondary but their pass rush and run defense is at the bottom of the rankings.
Seattle seems to have found a running game over the last two weeks. One guy from PFF also brought this up and stated he thought Seattle's running game could be the difference offensively this week. Couple that with a terrible 49ers pass rush and Seattle's offense might get well this week on the road in the bay.
In my last post I mentioned that Purdy only threw for 168 yards and CMC rushed for 53 yards against a top 10 Browns defense. Kittle was the leading receiver with 67 yards. Nick Emmanwori is playing this time around beyond the first quarter with 16 more games experience. Could make for a interesting night for a banged up Kittle.
CMC didn't play much at the end of the game with some sore lower back issue. He was a full participant for the first time today.
PFF brought up an interesting stat for Purdy. In the last 6 games he has had an average to 3.25-3.5 sec to thrown the ball. Mac has an app for that.
Again this is the real signature game Seattle also needs besides the Rams for momentum into the playoffs.
Seattle may actually have a breakout offensive game against the 49ers this week. If the running game and poor pass rush show up in week 18 in Santa Clara; that might make the San Jose 49ers mere mortals behind a complete Seahawks team performance going into final jeopardy (49er's exposed for 100 please)
Sam I am. Oh the places we could go.
If we assume we are going to beat the niners this weekend, who are our expected points in the playoffs? On the way to the super bowl. Will we have to play either the 49ers or Rams again?
The story line, one way or the other, is going to be Darnold and his demons. The setup for comparison to how his season ended last year is just too perfect for fans and media to ignore. If we lose this game it won' matter if the run game struggled and/or the O-line sucked. It won't matter if Kubiak couldn't figure out how to get the ball to his other play-makers. If the Seahawks were mediocre this year, no one would care and Darnold would be off the hook. But the Seahawks are really good and Sam is back in this position to win one game for the #1 spot. It's not fair to put it all on Darnold, but that'll be the story - hopefully KK and his offensive teammates can help vanquish those demons.
Careful there SSJ, putting this out into the atmosphere ahead of a key game, not sure that's wise. Football Gods, butterfly wings.....you know, ripples on a pond, and all that stuff. Bad mojo. Respect thy foe.
In an attempt to balance this out, 49ers CB Deommodore Lenoir is back to talking trash to JSN ahead of the game.
https://sports.mynorthwest.com/nfl/seattle-seahawks/49ers-cb-deommodore-lenoir-words-seattle-seahawks-wr-jsn/1833948
Now that's bad mojo. Don't poke the bear, especially when your first name is Deommodore.
Fun fact, the Seahawks opponents have the 5th most wins in the league this year. Top 5 are;
LA Rams - 142 opponent wins
Houston Texans - 135 opponent wins
Jacksonville Jaguars - 129 opponent wins
Buffalo Bills - 126 opponent wins
Seattle Seahawks - 123 opponent wins
San Francisco? They are at 121. So, not really much of of a difference as far as 2025 strength of schedule. They are legit.
Top 5 offences by points scored......
Seattle - 470
Rams - 457
Patriots - 452
Bills - 446
9'ers - 434
Points scored, like most metrics, is imperfect, but winning games is basically who gets the most points, so......
Inversely, the defenses rated by points allowed through 17 games.....
Texans - 265
Seahawks - 289
Eagles - 301
Broncos - 308
Patriots - 310
49'ers are just outside the top 10, at 334 points. So again, not horrible. I don't think it's fair to say San Fran's defense is 'bad' (not that SSJ said that). At the most important metric (points allowed) they are above league average.
But this does paint a flattering picture of the Seahawks. They have had one of the highest degree-of-difficulty schedules, lead the league in points scored, and are second in points allowed. Lets forget whatever the 49'ers are. Lets appreciate what the Seahawks are!
If we play our game, we should win on Saturday. But the 49'ers are plenty good enough to take the game if we don't play our best.
The 49ers pattern is thus: battle through injuries and adversity courtesy of Shanahan being the best coach in the NFL (sorry guys, he is) BUT eventually hit a wall and fall short of glory yet again.
Our wall is named Emmanowori, Jones, Okada, Witherspoon, Murphy, Lawrence and more. We are where the 49ers miracle ends. Period.
Grant Cohn would like a word!
"We've seen teams like the 49ers before and we know how those seasons ended" ~ KenJoe
Hah, hah, hah, hah, hah. Noice
Most interesting is how the same picture can be painted using different perspectives, SSJ. Some may accuse you have broken a cardinal rule about Sports Writers becoming Fans. I would argue you are building on what you see and what it adds up to. Gutsy stuff though, predicting outcomes, loudly and boldly. HooAh. Year One. 3 to go, then the record books. Gonna make for a good story. 12 as 1, plus.
4 to go? -- !!
Amen, Bro! I suspect what JA/JS/MM have built will see us have an unusual number of our guys return. Their player-centric focus is real. Keeping The Team together will be a priority. JS won't be playing games with contracts. To ask for more than is budgeted is to take away from someone else, so good luck if you can get wild money.
All your confidence may allow me to sleep better until the game, but until we really destroy SF, and TWICE if necessary, I will worry and fret and my stomach will be swimming in acid until we reach the NFCC game, which is my minimum aspiration for a successful season.
All those numbers give hope, sure. And yet the 49ers are in position to be the #1 seed if they win on Saturday. And we have yet to beat them this season. So y'all will forgive me if I don't count those chickens just yet, not until the final whistle. (Roughly four dozen hens and three roosters huddled together up at the barn. Roosters lie, incessantly.)
Re: Ernie’s comment. Issac got real pissed off at me last night, and unfortunately deleted a post with good to great numbers in it so I cannot copy here. Wish had a bit of context with his post, but while none of us want to bring back AB at RG, our OLine is mid pack, or again Issac deleted post so don’t have the numbers, top 5, especially in pass protection. Low sack rate. League avg or better in T2T. Low scramble rate by SD. Multiple organizations have the Hawks oline top 5-10 overall. We don’t evaluate all Olines here thus see all our mistakes, but for the season we’re above most teams. Considering almost no improvement by AB and Sundell just ok, I’ll attribute this to coaching and Coach K play calling.
I don't know how this will factor in, but by DVOA we are the #2 special teams and SF is #12. The Rams were #26.
Coming back to Niners good vs great offense: I agree with you on the Bears not being a good test. But SF outscored us vs Titans ( we were 30-24 and they were 37-24), and in particular Indy seems glaring: we got the Colts in back-to-back weeks, including we both faced Rivers at QB. We scored 18 (and was a hugely frustrating offensive showing), Niners put up 48.
I REALLY hope you're right and see the stats that support your argument. But the Indy games in particular suggest they are much better offensively than we are, at least now with Purdy back and if Kittle plays. Trent Williams injury a tremendous benefit for us though
Titans game was a road game for the Hawks, home game for SF. Bit of a difference there.
I agree and that’s why I also clarified that this not about comparing the Seahawks O to the 49ers O. The only question you posed was why I said the 49ers were good, not great. Not if they’re better than the Seahawks O. The Rams are great. They run the ball great; the 49ers run the ball bad. The have Puka; the 49ers don’t have a premier receiver weapon at all. They have a great OL when the OL is healthy. They have a more talented QB; Stafford recent struggles notwithstanding, he is talented AF.
So if the Rams are great, how can the 49ers also be great when they do so many things worse on offense than the Rams? McVay was reinventing the wheel with 13 personnel this season. I’ve never heard anyone praise Shanahan’s innovation. He’s just very good at the classics. That’s fine. I’m just saying this is recency bias because if the 49ers played the Texans last week, the tenor of the conversation would be much different.
Is there precedent for a QB at Sam's age/time in league reducing turnover rate/frequency?
Sure, Stafford in his 8th season went 24 tds/10 ints on 594 attempts. Darnold with less playing experience in his 8th season has so far gone 25 tds/14 ints on 451 attempts. Hot mic memes aside, Darnold is not really turnover prone. He is just average at it so far.
Fair enough, clearly I'm anxious on Seattle's recent offensive performance and jumped to a wrong conclusion on your comparisons. I do trust our defense and hope it's enough -- we'll know soon enough
Good article, thanks for trying to talk some sense into those of us that get heartburn from Shanahan and co. I'll be glad when kittle and McCaffrey are gone...they are a handful.
I'd love to see us pick up RG in FA. Draft a WR and RB. Then get whatever weapons we can wherever we can..re load and conquer. Begaw!
SSJ, thanks for the article and agree with all points.
Interestingly, the Seahawks weak strength of schedule was cited for their success early in the year by a few sites. I took a look at it now and found the Seahawks are at 5th for strength of schedule. The Rams are at #1 and the Niners at #10. New England is dead last.
Not sure it really matters in the grand scheme of things but I found it interesting.
https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/ranking/schedule-strength-by-other
By DVOA, according to Aaron Schatz of FTN Fantasy (https://ftnfantasy.com/nfl/week-17-dvoa-ratings-patriots-rising-up) the Patriots have had the 3rd easiest schedule of all time. The Seahawks and Rams, meanwhile, are the 6th and 7th best teams, by DVOA, of all time. Mike MacDonald should win.
Well, I am a Seahawk Homer so it will not take a lot to convince me. Unfortunately the folks casting the ballets that matter are likely looking at the teams' improvements over the previous year record and our guy MM was pretty good last year.
Mark, I appreciate the link you posted and giggled a bit when I saw the Hawks are #1 for weighted DVOA. Adds a little more confidence for the upcoming match.
Yeah, I don't think he'll get it. When he retires, I'm sure he'd be happy to have a CotY, but he'd also much rather have multiple Lombardis. And listening to him talk, I also kind of believe he thinks Awards are fluff. Wants them for his guys, but his job is to put his players in position to win the super bowl.
I also think that CotY goes to bad organizations that play a soft schedule. This Quora post (https://www.quora.com/Since-2000-fifteen-coaches-have-won-the-NFL-coach-of-the-year-and-nine-of-them-later-got-fired-from-the-same-team-Does-the-award-really-mean-anything) makes it seem like between 2000 to 2015, 9 CotY winners were fired. This article from November (https://atozsports.com/nfl/new-york-giants-news/coach-of-the-year-flawed-award-brian-daboll-mike-vrabel-matt-nagy-kevin-stefanski/) claims that 3 of the past 6 winners were fired within 3 years of winning (and Vrabel, on that list, has a strong chance to win it again). Would be happy for MM to win it, but CotY winners, historically, say more about the schedule than the coach.
That feels about right. Thanks for the link.
Re COTY. Unfortunately most voters don’t look at the strength of schedule. They will when it suits their biases and decisions then completely ignore for something like COTY.
My guess is Vrabel will win it this year, and frankly, he is a deserving candidate.
The COTY is awarded based on a tally of subjective opinions with some objective data sprinkled in. It is entertaining but does not really matter at the end of the day.
Agreed. And also big market, costal bias. (Note Pacific Northwest is not coastal and only recently received indoor plumbing).
Southern Alaska has never been so excited now that indoor plumbing is here!
I thought you were in Southeast….yeah if you recall Lofa. He had a hat trick INT against Eagles. I was working in NYC. Actually heard guys at bar asking if Seattle Pacific NW had indoor plumbing. Also lost all respect for Sal Palatonio then with his asinine comments.
Brought up a memory: "one fist of iron, the other of steel, if the right one doesn't get you then the left one weel", thank you Ernie
Another day older and way out of debt.
Load 16 tons and what do you get? Good song.