Seahawks-Rams NFC Championship: 5 most important players

Seattle's most important offensive player behind center isn't Sam Darnold

Whichever teams win the NFC Championship on Sunday could still be feeling it next season. Look at the hard-fought 2013 NFC Championship in Seattle between “equals” in the Seahawks and 49ers, a loss that sent San Francisco into a death spiral in 2014 and led to the unexpected firing of Jim Harbaugh after one 8-8 season.

I don’t think that Sean McVay is in danger of being fired any time soon, but this game probably does mean more for the Rams than the Seahawks because of Matthew Stafford’s age and the decisions he has to make about his career. Aaron Donald retired after 2023, seemingly because he felt he had gone as far with this team as he could go. What will Stafford expect next?

If the Rams lose the NFC Championship, it’ll cap off a run of L.A. playing relatively mediocre (for them) football in the last two months, coinciding with the Seahawks potentially returning in 2026 as the best team in the league. If Seattle doesn’t slam that door, they’ll blow an incredible opportunity to change the fortunes of one of their rivals again.

These are my “5 most important” for the NFC Championship. Hit this if you are a free subscriber and want to support a Seahawks newsletter for just $5 per month or if you’ve never subscribed at all because it’s mostly free:

I haven’t watched this yet, but Alex Rollins does good work:

QB Matthew Stafford, Rams

There’s a ton of focus this week on Sam Darnold and if he’s going to turn the ball over and the six picks he had against the Rams in the regular season and “do you trust this quarterback?” but for me I don’t see how this week’s gameplan for Klint Kubiak should be significantly different than the last three.

(This is a quote from Kam Kinchens, who had both of his only two picks this season off of Darnold, but also had his worst game of the season the last time L.A. played Seattle, which he conveniently leaves out here.)

Darnold has thrown 70 passes in the past three games:

• 50/70 (71.4%)

• 469 yards (156 yards per game)

• 2 TD/1 INT

• 7 sacks (3 fumbles)

• Combined score: 81-19

Yeah, Darnold and Kubiak can’t exactly control how Seattle’s defense performs, which is the main reason for Seattle’s success, but they do kinda (if the Seahawks run effectively and complete their short passes) by winning time of possession and beating their opponents in the exact opposite fashion that most NFL fans would want to see:

The Seahawks passing game gets half as many yards as what “the average fan” would want. Oh well. It’s working. 156 passing yards and not even one passing touchdown per game. It’s a HORROR movie. But at least if you’re a Seahawks fan you get to live in the POV of Jason and Michael Myers.

Even during Seattle’s 38-37 OT victory, Darnold only had 27 pass attempts against the Rams prior to overtime. He added seven more in OT, including the touchdown, not including the successful two-point conversion. I’ll gladly take Darnold in those small doses, but he’s not the absurdly high-volume passer that Matthew Stafford is…

Probably sometimes to L.A.’s detriment.

When Stafford wins MVP this year because he threw 46 touchdowns, there’s a lowkey decent argument that Sean McVay helped him inflate his stats to win the award before retirement. Where you’d tend to see Kyren Williams score inside the 5, nearly HALF of Stafford’s scores came that close to the goal line or closer.

Darnold only had 4 touchdowns inside the 5, none at the 1, and only one TD pass from the 2 or the 3.

So if you take away Stafford’s absurd TD/INT ratio from 11 games (25 TD/2 INT), he’s been a lot less MVP-like since then:

• 59.7% completions in his last 8 games

• 19 TD/7 INT

• 52% completion rate in two playoff games

Stafford is just 44-of-84 in the playoffs, leaving 40(!) incomplete passes on the field in two games. He had no touchdowns and two fumbles against the Bears (with OT) last week. People will say I’m crazy for thinking this on the back of an “MVP” season, but given Seattle’s defensive prowess and Stafford’s recent struggles (plus the struggles of his #2 WR, which I’ll get to later), I think there’s a chance of some retirement contemplation after this one.

But IF I’m wrong about that and Stafford shoves this newsletter down my throat by slicing/dicing the best defense in the NFL in his 20th start of the season, third playoff road start, nearly 700 pass attempts into the year…by all means, put him in the Hall of Fame before the Super Bowl.

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RB Kenneth Walker III, Seahawks

Months ago, I wrote a newsletter praising Seattle’s strategy to pair Walker and Zach Charbonnet for a long-term vision that would keep one or both running backs fresh for the playoffs. (Maybe one of Seaside’s sleuths out there can help me remember the title of that article, unless I’m thinking of this one about him being “the modern version of a great running back”.)

So at the sacrifice of having Walker be an All-Pro with 300 carries, Walker had another solid yet unspectacular 1,027 yard season with 5 touchdowns. And as unfortunate as Charbonnet’s torn ACL is, Walker is now arguably the best and healthiest back left in the playoffs.

There was some panic over Walker’s first game of the season against the 49ers, but my feeling at the time was that fans couldn’t ignore the difference in run blocking and situation that he had compared to Charbonnet in the same game.

Cut to Walker’s last 2 games against the 49ers:

35 carries, 213 yards, 6.1 YPC, 3 TD, 7 catches for 65 yards

With Charbonnet out and George Holani back in, Walker is primed for his biggest role yet after tying a season-high with 19 carries in the divisional round, which wasn’t even a full game’s workload. Walker has just 240 carries in 18 games, which puts him 24th in the NFL in rushing attempts per game.

It’s maybe a hard sell to tell a football skill player that you want him touching the ball fewer times in every game…

but this now means that Walker (who is averaging 6 yards per carry in his last four games with three of his four best rushing totals or the ENTIRE season) could be Seattle’s biggest star when it matters most.

In comparison, the Rams have two healthy running backs who are good at their jobs (Kyren Williams and Blake Corum) but both lack the explosiveness and game-carrying abilities of Walker.

L.A. had an average run defense during the regular season, but allowed over 300 total to Seattle in two games and 160 to the Bears last week. I think guards Anthony Bradford and Grey Zabel can overpower the Rams undersized defensive tackle in Kobie Turner and Braden Fiske in the run game (which is where Poona Ford comes in) and if they can do that then Walker’s going to easily establish himself as the biggest threat on the Seahawks offense, even more than Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

TE Colby Parkinson, Rams

Something that I brought up in the newsletter this week is that Davante Adams is playing like a receiver who waited two months too long to retire. I’ve heard others mention that Adams didn’t play in the last Seahawks game as if he’s something L.A. could have used but maybe the Rams offense looked so good that night because he wasn’t there.

Adams’ last 7 games:

• 55 targets

• 25 catches (45% catch rate)

• 317 yards (5.8 yards per target)

• 5 TD (none in the last four games)

People become so obsessed with “stars” that they consistently ignore their deterioration and erosion every year, regardless of how obvious it should be. Yes, Adams made a spectacular sideline catch last week, but what about the 30 incomplete passes from Stafford in the past two months? That’s over four incomplete passes per game, which is fewer than complete passes. And they’re not picking up many yards!

And you already know I’ve said the exact same things about Cooper Kupp. This is not a bias. Adams is cooked.

Which is why Parkinson has become Stafford’s new number two.

The former Seahawks tight end was a major free agent bust in 2024, gaining just 294 yards and scoring one touchdown despite a healthy season and a need at tight end. Yes, these numbers fall in line with Parkinson’s totals in Seattle, but he was sharing the spot with two other “starters” on the Seahawks.

The Rams paid Parkinson $7 million per season with an expectation that he’d improve but instead he got worse.

However, he set new career highs in catches and yards in 2025, mostly thanks to a surge in the second half that has seen him gain 375 yards and score 7 touchdowns in the last nine games. That’s essentially the same touchdown pace that Davante Adams had and Parkinson had more targets than Adams against Chicago last week.

Although Parkinson still has his moments as a liability with regards to drops and leaving yards out on the field, stopping him could prove to be the second-most important goal for Seattle’s defense behind stopping Puka Nacua.

Seahawks interior OL/Rams interior D

Without wanting to be too unoriginal because I already mentioned Zabel and Bradford, if Seattle can run the ball straight down L.A.’s defensive throats, it’s going to be a long night for the Rams defensive tackles and especially a linebacker who has been struggling lately.

Nate Landman.

The Rams had an average run defense but per Next Gen Stats, L.A. was ranked 31st in “stuffed runs” in between the tackles:

• 32nd ranked defense: Bengals, 6.7% stuffed rate

• 31st ranked: Rams, 10.5% stuffed rate

If Seattle can break through to the second level on runs, they’ll meet up against a linebacker who missed three tackles against the Bears last week. That was the most by any player in the game and the most by Landman all season.

In fact, missed tackles has been a HUGE problem for the Rams in the second half of the season.

Once on a historic pace for not missing tackles, L.A.’s defensive players are slipping off of ball-carriers like suspender-less clown pants:

The Rams missed 11 tackles against the Bears, compared to only 5 by Chicago. Landman and safety Quentin Lake each had multiple missed tackles.

Landman had 7 missed tackles in the first 13 games. He has regressed to 8 missed tackles over his last 6.

And the irony of THIS particular player in THIS particular game is that the Rams traded Ernest Jones last year because they didn’t want to pay him, signed Landman for cheap, then broke a trend by extending Landman to a three-year contract in the middle of the season (before his play fell off a cliff), and Jones is a second-team All-Pro on the Seahawks who just got his sixth interception.

One more interception by Jones IV and he’ll tie the most by a linebacker in a season (including playoffs, obviously) since Derrick Brooks in the historic 2002 season by the Bucs defense.

It all goes back to punishing defensive coordinator Chris Shula’s* defense right up the gut, forcing L.A. to bring another defender into the box and opening up deeper passing opportunities for JSN and Rashid Shaheed and A.J. Barner later in the game. Given this matchup for Zabel, Bradford, and Jalen Sundell (who I wrote about on Friday), I would bet on those odds.

Who are your 5 most important^^? Join the Regular Joes to comment and also to join our LIVE CHAT during the NFC Championship on Sunday! Get the Substack app and join us here:

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