This should be easier than they think

There is a wider gap between Seahawks Defense and 49ers Defense than there is between 49ers Offense and Seahawks Offense

The Seahawks are better than the 49ers. There’s a lot of momentum around the 49ers right now because San Francisco just won an exciting game against the Chicago Bears on Sunday Night Football and Brock Purdy appears to be playing a lot better than Sam Darnold recently (we’ll get to that later), but that’s just “pomp”.

Don’t forget about the other half: The “Circumstance”.

The difference between the Seahawks and Rams is that L.A.’s offense against Seattle’s defense is a battle of two greats, whereas Seattle’s offense against L.A.’s defense is a battle of two averages. However, the difference between the Seahawks and 49ers is not the same:

It’s a great Seahawks defense against a good 49ers offense.

It’s an average Seahawks offense against a BAD 49ers defense.

Although I wrote last night that the 49ers were 4.5-point favorites, cooler heads must have prevailed because now the line is SF -1.5 points. Home teams tend to get +3 points, meaning that we know the Seahawks are better, but they’ll have to prove it in a tougher environment than if it was in Seattle.

San Francisco could win on Saturday because it’s a division rivalry game and they’re at home and the 49ers might just catch that one break in their favor, as they did in Week 1’s win over Seattle. Or last night’s win over the Bears, of which the Niners escaped because Caleb Williams couldn’t find one more play.

Which is surprising given that Williams probably had the best game of his career and he did it against San Francisco’s defense.

It’s the only time in Caleb’s career so far that he wasn’t sacked and lost the game. It’s the second-most points that a Caleb offense has ever scored, with the only exception being his 5-TD game against the terrible Bengals defense.

The 49ers defense isn’t quite as bad as the Bengals, but it’s close:

• 49ers defense is 25th in EPA/play, Seahawks are 2nd.

• 49ers defense is 24th in yards per play, Seahawks are 2nd.

• 49ers run defense is 22nd, Seahawks are 1st.

• 49ers create QB pressure at the 2nd-worst rate, Seahawks force it at the 4th-highest.

• 49ers have the lowest sack rate of any defense, Seahawks are 16th.

• 49ers defense is 24th in third down defense (EPA/play), Seahawks are 1st (by a HUGE margin).

This probably won’t be a blowout, but the “circumstances” are reminiscent of Seattle’s 42-13 win over the 49ers in 2012. The Niners defense was great until the end of the season and playoffs, when it became really, really bad.

If it wasn’t for the fact that San Francisco was scoring so many points (1st since Week 8), the topic of conversation would be their defense (21st in points allowed, 26th in yards per play allowed in that same time frame) and how they’ve given up a combined 89 points to Caleb, Cam Ward, and Philip Rivers in the past three games.

Now how does the number offense react when it faces a number one defense instead of the Colts, the Titans, and the Bears?

Purdy has faced a Mike Macdonald defense four times in his career (once in 2023 against the Ravens, two last season, and Week 1 this year) and aside from one clean game in Seattle last year, I’d say Macdonald had him right where he wanted him: 7 interceptions in the other three games.

If Macdonald knows what went wrong in that 36-24 loss to the 49ers last year, then it shouldn’t be hard to see the Seahawks hold the 49ers to the 17 points that they’ve averaged in the other three.

• The 49ers are 32-6 with Purdy when they score over 17 points.

• The 49ers are 1-8 with Purdy when they scored 17 points or below.

That single win was Week 1’s 17-13 win over the Seahawks.

The player who made the game-winning play was Nick Bosa, who is on IR. Fred Warner was active then, he’s on IR now. Has Klint Kubiak come up with a better plan in Game 17 than he had in Game 1? I would hope so.

If the Seahawks can find 24 points on Saturday, I will be surprised if they aren’t the number one seed on Sunday. The 49ers are 2-4 when they give up over 24 points, with wins over Caleb and Rivers. They had to score over 40 points in those games and they don’t have the firepower that the Rams had to keep the pressure on Seattle in Week 16.

The Seahawks are 11-1 when they score 20 points. The 49ers don’t have the defense to keep any offense under 20 points unless it’s Shedeur Sanders or Bryce Young and unfortunately Darnold in his first start with Seattle. Darnold may be struggling lately, but there’s good evidence out there that his cold streak ends against the 49ers.

And I expect Seattle to get out to a fast start:

• In the first quarter, the Seahawks are allowing -0.23 EPA/rush (first) and 3.6 yards per carry, while the 49ers are allowing +0.11 EPA/rush (31st) and 4.5 YPC.

• In the second quarter, the Seahawks are allowing -0.29 EPA/pass (second) and the 49ers are allowing +0.21 EPA/pass (31st).

I know that’s surprising given Seattle’s halftime scores recently. But the Seahawks ARE a better team than the 49ers and I don’t actually think the comparison is as close as their records. Furthermore, as I’ve pointed out for a few weeks, nobody’s special teams is as good as Seattle’s.

The Seahawks were one play away from beating the 49ers in Week 1 and for almost four months they’ve been trying to catch up to that loss. Now they’re one win over the 49ers away from atoning for that loss and finishing the regular season as strong as they possibly could have.

Maybe the Seahawks weren’t better than the 49ers in Week 1, but given 16 games to figure out why they weren’t back then, I’m confident that the Seahawks are better than them now. That’s not even close to the same as actually winning though, so Seattle still has to prove it in six days.

After every game you post your reactions in the Seaside Joe recap newsletter and then I share some of them. If you want to join the discussion moving forward, join Regular Joes to get access to the comments. It’s only $5 for a month or 10% if you sign up for an entire year:

zezinhom400: Honestly it’s been awhile since Darnold has looked confident. Since the Rams game actually. Think that got into his head and every sign of trouble (inherent in the job) saps his confidence. Agree the OL was pretty weak last two games and that’s part of it, but he needs to be more confident and purposeful.

And I think Coach Mac and KK have decided to take the air out of the ball and let the defense win this thing. Thankfully we’re pounding out 150+ on the ground which is the necessary complement. But…Anyone remember the last true “go” route? To anyone?

I’m going to share some stats and I need to preface the number by saying that I like Sam Darnold. Maybe I’m blinded by the lights (Seahawks have won 10 of their last 11 games), maybe I just think Darnold is clutch, or maybe I’m overrating his arm talent, but I’m still confident that Seattle can win a Super Bowl with him…if not because of him.

In those ways, an Eli Manning comparison could be fair to Darnold. I’m not saying that it’s awesome to have someone like Eli as your quarterback, just that a team did win two Super Bowls with Eli as their quarterback.

It just speaks to the Seahawks defense and special teams and coaching that Seattle is one win away from getting the number one seed despite a quarterback who has posted these numbers over the last eight games:

• (151/235) 64%, 9 TD, 9 INT, 7.5 Y/A

• 9 INT (2nd-most behind only Shedeur Sanders)

• 7 fumbles (most, tied with Daniel Jones)

• 83.7 passer rating (27th)

Forget the context and “the why” for a second: It should be impossible for a team to go 7-1 in the NFL when they turn it over this many times. Especially if the QB isn’t scoring a ton of touchdowns, which Darnold isn’t.

In some respects, Darnold has played worse in the last two months than quarterbacks like Cam Ward, Tyler Shough, B Young, Jacoby Brissett, Jaxson Dart, D Jones, Tua Tagovailoa, Marcus Mariota, Aaron Rodgers, and yes, Geno Smith.

Geno has a combined 9 INT+Fumbles in the last 8 games. That’s just the number of INTs that Darnold has, plus 7 fumbles.

Now, I’m NOT saying that Darnold is worse than all of these quarterbacks and Geno. I’m only saying that in some respects he’s had worse stats in the last two months. But my eyeballs still tell me that Darnold is good and therefore if you give him more time with these teammates that he’s going to be better in 2026.

Or he won’t be. I don’t know! I can’t stand it when people say a player will get better with more time when they don’t really know. But Darnold seems talented to me in spite of the turnovers, so I’m hoping that’s the case.

The Deep Ball Question

As you say, the deep ball has disappeared in Seattle. Darnold went 0-of-1 on passes over 20+ air yards in Week 17, and that pass was intercepted.

So I went back game-by-game to look at Darnold’s recent deep passing stats:

• Gamelog last 5 games: 0-1, 1-2, 1-2, 1-3, 0-1, 1 TD/1 INT

• Last 5 games total: 3-of-9, 1 TD, 1 INT

• vs Titans: 3-of-5, 132 yards, 2 TD

• vs Rams week 11: 1-of-6, 1 INT

• vs Cardinals week 10: 0-of-0

I think I (and others) have falsely assumed that Darnold’s deep ball shyness is directly related to losing to the Rams. Except that the week before, he threw 0 deep passes and the week after he went off with 132 yards, 2 TD on deep passes.

Circumstances may have merely dictated that Darnold deep passes weren’t always necessary, although it was a little frustrating that the Seahawks only dialed up one pass over 20 yards yesterday and Mike Jackson picked it (but I still don’t quite think he technically picked it).

You know what defense is begging for a quarterback to beat them with deep passes? The San Francisco 49ers.

Last night, Caleb Williams went 4-of-4 with 2 TDs on deep passes against the 49ers defense. It’s the sixth game in a row that the 49ers have allowed at least one deep touchdown pass, including scores by Rivers, Ward, Sanders, Young, and Brissett.

Compare that to Seattle’s deep pass defense:

• Week 17 vs Panthers: 0 catches, 0 yards

• Week 16 vs Rams: 102 yards, 0 TD

• Week 15 vs Colts: 0 catches, 0 yards

• Week 14 vs Falcons: 30 yards, 0 TD

• Week 13 vs Vikings: 0 catches, 0 yards

• Week 12 vs Titans: 0 catches, 0 yards

• Week 11 vs Rams: 0 catches, 0 yards

• Week 10 vs Cardinals: 0 catches, 0 yards

• Week 9 vs Moons: 1 catch, 25 yards, 0 TD

The Seahawks have held six of their last eight opponents without a completion over 20 air yards. They haven’t allowed a deep pass touchdown since Week 5 against the Bucs!

So I think maybe Darnold isn’t throwing as many deep passes because defenses know by now that they have to have a plan for Jaxon Smith-Njigba and then Rashid Shaheed was injured early on Sunday so Seattle was running out of options against the Panthers. The 49ers have struggled so badly against deep passes that I’m not sure if Robert Saleh’s “plan” will even matter and I expect Darnold to air it out more and have more success.

More To Come!

Sorry I ended up so exhaustive on these particular topics (49ers overrated, Seahawks defense underrated, maybe Darnold will rebound this week) that I have run out of time and space. Will follow up with more of your comments this week so be sure to be subscribed and share Seaside Joe with other fans headed into the playoffs!

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