Rashid Shaheed, Kenneth Walker and Mike Macdonald’s dominant defense blow away San Francisco to put Seattle in the NFC title game.
Sam Darnold had just thrown his zippiest pass, for a touchdown.
He hopped. He roared. He was looking to his Seahawks teammates on the sideline. The supposedly hurting, Pro Bowl quarterback was smiling so broadly you could see his grin through his helmet from the field halfway up Lumen Field’s packed, shaking, roaring stands. Who needs a fully healthy oblique — when there’s a Rashid Shaheed? And a Jaxon Smith-Njigba? A Kenneth Walker?
And this Seahawks defense?
Questionable to play, Darnold did with a protective wrap around his torso. And with the best, most comprehensive support any quarterback could dream of.
Shaheed ran back the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown that had the packed house in SoDo partying like it was 2013 and the Legion of Boom. Smith-Njigba followed that with a touchdown catch on a bullet throw by Darnold. Walker, at the end of his contract looking for a job for next season, ran for three touchdowns plus 116 yards on 19 carries. Walker joined Shaun Alexander (Jan. 4, 2004, at Green Bay) as the only Seahawks with three rushing touchdowns in a playoff game.
And Seattle’s top-ranked defense, the NFL’s best in allowing the fewest points, absolutely annihilated the San Francisco 49ers again.
By the time Walker hopped across the goal line like a carefree bunny early in the fourth quarter, it was Seahawks 41, 49ers 6. It ended that way, a 35-point annihilation.
This would have been wild for a Sunday in September. For it to be the NFC divisional playoffs, putting top-seeded Seattle (15-3) into the conference championship game next weekend for the first time since 2015 — one home win from its first Super Bowl in 11 years — it was bonkers. The Seahawks will host either the Los Angeles Rams or Chicago Bears next Sunday, Jan. 25, in the NFC title game at Lumen Field.
Like waves off the Olympic Coast, the noise just kept coming. The more than 68,500 at Lumen Field shook.
Shaheed jolted the joint on the very first action of the game.
Seconds after Seahawks legend Doug Baldwin, a member of the last Seahawks teams to play in the Super Bowl at the end of the 2013 and ‘14 seasons, raised the 12 flag atop the south end zone, Shaheed met him at that end. He took the opening kickoff at his 5-yard line. He sprinted straight up the field through three blocks.
Only one 49er touched him. Or two, if you count the shoe of the kicker as Eddy Pineiro tried to trip Shaheed past midfield.
As he crossed the goal line to end his 95-yard touchdown on the kickoff return, Shaheed stood in the end zone and crossed his arms. Baldwin, watching three levels above him, approved.
It was Shaheed’s second kickoff return for a touchdown of his four-year career. Both of them have been over the latter half of this season for Seattle since the 2023 All-Pro return man’s trade from New Orleans in early November.
Those two, third-day draft choices general manager John Schneider traded to the Saints to get Shaheed continue to feel so worth it for the Seahawks.
RASHID SHAHEED 95-YARD KICKOFF RETURN TO START THE GAME.
— NFL (@NFL) January 18, 2026
SFvsSEA on FOX/FOX One
Stream on @NFLPluspic.twitter.com/buR0WrfA6x
The trade kept paying off late in the second quarter. Shaheed took an end-around pitch from Darnold and gained 30 yards. Rookie left guard ran 35 yards down the left sideline ahead of Shaheed, blocking multiple 49ers, on the play.
Then Jake Bobo, his offensive snaps reduced from about a third to just 17% this regular season partly by Shaheed’s arrival, made a Doug Baldwin-like move off the line on a third down. Bobo juked fill-in cornerback Darrell Luter with a jump and shoulder fake outside, then cut inside him to get open down the right seam for a 16-yard pass from Darnold.
That first down set up Walker cutting sharply left immediately getting the handoff on a play designed to run right. His sprint free around left end for a 7-yard touchdown gave Seattle its largest lead of the first half, 24-6.
Sam Darnold’s oblique
Darnold’s had an interesting couple days, eh?
He didn’t throw a pass from the oblique injury he felt Thursday, while throwing one in practice, until pregame drills Saturday. His first attempt in the game: A deep pass was 20-plus yards down the seam he intended to throw to Smith-Njigba breaking free behind his defender for a possible touchdown. Darnold’s throw died softly, well short of the receiver and the 49ers defensive back. That seemed to be on the quarterback’s mind later in that first offensive possession for Seattle. Darnold had Smith-Njigba breaking open deep early on a roll-out pass to the QB’s right. It would have been another 20-plus-yard throw. Instead, Darnold chose to throw an 8-yard pass to Cooper Kupp.
That drive ended with a field goal by Jason Myers two plays later. Seattle led 10-0 not even 10 minutes into the game.
After he sat down on the bench following Myers’ field goal, Darnold had a Seahawks assistant adjust his padding around his torso protecting his left oblique injury. It was a quick adjustment. He didn’t need to take off his shoulder pads or jersey or anything.
As the Seahawks defense kept stopping San Francisco’s offense, Darnold got the ball back. He drove Seattle into the red zone. Then he rolled left. It did not appear any receiver was open. Smith-Njigba really wasn’t. But Darnold threw it to him back left of the end zone, anyway.
His zippiest pass of the night suggested no restriction from the oblique injury. The ball whizzed to Smith-Njigba past Darrell Luter, whom the 49ers put in at cornerback for starter Renardo Green. That was after 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan was berating Green on the sideline earlier for a 20-yard catch there by Cooper Kupp.
The 4-yard score past Luter came after a defensive pass-interference by San Francisco’s fill-in starting safety Marques Sigle, pulling down Shaheed. It was 17-0 Seattle 13 minutes in the game. The Seahawks couldn’t have started more perfectly if they had been playing against themselves.
Mike Macdonald’s defense. Again.
The Seahawks hired defensive guru Mike Macdonald from Baltimore before the 2024 season to do two things: Beat Shanahan and the 49ers. Beat Sean McVay and the Rams.
In three of Seattle’s last four games, with the season and the division title on the line, Macdonald has beaten McVay — and absolutely routed Shanahan.
Saturday night, Shanahan’s 49ers offense turned the ball over three times, to Seattle’s none. San Francisco turned the ball over on downs three times because they couldn’t gain on or even move the Seahawks defense on fourth downs. That included Pro Bowl defensive end Leonard Williams sacking Purdy for a 14-yard loss in the third quarter. That set up a 24-yard field goal by Myers to up Seattle’s lead to 27-6.
You knew Shanahan was desperate against Macdonald when he called a fourth-and-1 play in the first quarter. Shanahan had Purdy hand the ball to fullback Kyle Juszczyk.
On San Francisco’s ensuing drive, middle linebacker Ernest Jones, so sick Wednesday he couldn’t practice and still sick wearing a mask through Thursday, intercepted a pass over the middle from Purdy. The Seahawks offense turned that into a touchdown. Walker ran around left end 15 yards for his second score in two quarters. The lead was 34-6. The fans in Lumen Field were partying like it was 2014.
#Seahawks come out for their first playoff game with fans inside Lumen Field since Jan. 7, 2017.
— Gregg Bell (@gbellseattle) January 18, 2026
And this place is already rockin’.
@thenewstribune pic.twitter.com/BAcqmLZJku
Beyond that, the Seahawks did what it did in week 18 of their 13-3 throttling of the 49ers in Santa Clara Jan. 3 that won Seattle the NFC West and the top playoff seed. They dropped Niners running back and receiving threat Christian McCaffrey as soon as he caught the ball. Devon Witherspoon made an immediate tackle of him early in the first half.
Early in the second quarter on a third and 10, Witherspoon did it again. The three-time Pro Bowl cornerback in his first three NFL seasons with Seattle would not let McCaffrey get away on a check-down pass. Witherspoon tackled him 3 yards short of the line to gain. It was a four-point tackle. Instead of a first down in the red zone, the 49ers settled for a field goal.
Instead of potentially 17-7, the Seahawks’ lead was 17-3.
That’s two games in a row Seattle took away a huge part of McCaffrey’s game and thus the 49ers’ offense: Yards after the catch. Those instant stops resulted in 49ers punts instead of first downs.
That’s the difference between San Francisco staying in the last two games, and not scoring a touchdown in eight consecutive quarters against Seattle to end its season.
Doug Baldwin raising the 12 flag just before Rashid Shaheed took the 49ers’ opening kickoff back 95 yards for a #Seahawks instant touchdown.
— Gregg Bell (@gbellseattle) January 18, 2026
@thenewstribune pic.twitter.com/GI1zpxMQS7
Zach Charbonnet, Charles Cross injured
The Seahawks lost second running back Zach Charbonnet to a knee injury in the second quarter. He got hurt running a sweep on third down that got Seattle a first down. He walked into the locker room with trainers.
Charbonnet’s status for the NFC championship game wasn’t immediately known.
He leads the team with 12 rushing touchdowns. That’s the most for the Seahawks, and first double-digit TD regular season for Seattle since Marshawn Lynch in 2014. In the third quarter, as Jones was intercepting Purdy, left tackle Charles Cross was walking into the Seahawks locker room with trainers, with an injured foot. Backup Josh Jones was inactive for the game with a knee injury. He had started the previous three games Cross missed with an injured hamstring.
So third-stringer Amari Kight, a third-stringer, played left tackle for the last 1 1/2 quarters.
As LB Ernest Jones intercepts Brock Purdy, starting LT Charles Cross goes into the #Seahawks locker room injured. Backup Josh Jones injured and inactive.
— Gregg Bell (@gbellseattle) January 18, 2026
So third-string undrafted rookie Amari Kight is in at left tackle.
Seattle leads 27-6 pic.twitter.com/o1R5nUzABb
Category: General Sports
