Seahawks work to combat Rams’ Matthew Stafford’s no-look passes in title game

The last pass Matthew Stafford threw on the Seahawks is his most dastardly one.

It’s a move that has the Seahawks working overtime in preparation to face it again Sunday, in the NFC championship game between Seattle’s top-ranked defense and the Los Angeles Rams’ top-ranked offense at Lumen Field.

The Stafford No-Look Pass.

The Rams’ likely NFL most valuable player for this season at age 37 has been doing it better for longer than anyone in the sport. Stafford looks one way to get defenders to follow his eyes. Then, without looking to the guy he is throwing to, Stafford zips a pass to the area where he wanted to throw all along, the area his eyes moved the primary defender away from. The NFL on FOX, which is broadcasting Sunday’s conference title game at Lumen Field, has called Stafford “the OG of the no-look pass” this season.

He did it the last time the Seahawks and Rams played, Dec. 18, one month after L.A. had beaten Seattle 21-19 in southern California. In overtime at Lumen Field last month, Stafford looked hard and long to his right. Ernest Jones, Seattle’s middle linebacker who won a Super Bowl with Stafford and the Rams at the end of the 2021 season, followed his former quarterback’s eyes. Jones went outside to his left. Stafford zipped a pass away from his eyes, to the middle of the field right of where Jones just vacated. That’s where Puka Nacua was running free from right to left.

The result: a 41-yard touchdown. One of the easiest pitches and catches of Stafford’s 457 yards passing and Nacua’s 225 yards receiving that night put the Rams ahead 37-30 midway through overtime. It was the second time in two quarters Stafford threw a no-look TD pass to Nacua. He did the same thing looking far outside right on Nacua’s slant route in front of Riq Woolen early in the fourth quarter Dec. 18. Woolen reacted too late to the 1-yard touchdown pass Stafford’s eyes told Seattle’s cornerback was going somewhere else.

Sam Darnold and the offense rescued the Seahawks with an answering touchdown pass to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, then a two-point conversion pass to Eric Saubert that beat L.A. 38-37 in a wild, thrilling game.

“That was the best-case scenario. We played like s**t, that second (Rams) game, but we won,” Seahawks safety Julian Love said Thursday.

“Now, there’s improvement to be made. That’s the best, when you can win a game and still have stuff to improve on.”

“I remember that week after that game Mike, we were talking, we were sitting in his office,” Love said. “And he said to me along the lines of, ‘What’s special about our team is, we’re just going to get it right. I mean, we’re going to figure it out.’

“It might not be the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, whenever that happened in that game. But we have the guys that know that we are going to get it right.

“And that’s powerful.”

So powerful, it could be what puts Seattle back into the Super Bowl for the first time in 11 years.

Cooper Kupp marvels at Matthew Stafford

Jones said he hasn’t seen a quarterback throw no-look passes, Magic Johnson 1980s NBA style, like Stafford does.

“No, not really. Not as much as he does. It’s pretty unique,” Jones said on his way out to practice Thursday. “He’s able to look one way and throw another.

“Gotta take that into account when you are dropping (into assigned pass-coverage areas).”

Sam Darnold again a limited participant in #Seahawks practice. He did throw today, progress.

LT Charles Cross did not practice again. Coach Mike Macdonald confident across will play Sunday.

Uchenna Nwosu back to full go.

⁦@thenewstribune⁩ pic.twitter.com/GH7XksIr1B

— Gregg Bell (@gbellseattle) January 23, 2026

Another of Stafford’s former teammates is Seattle’s 32-year-old veteran wide receiver who was MVP of the Super Bowl Stafford, Jones and the Rams won four years ago.

Cooper Kupp thinks Stafford is the best in the world at no-look passes.

In Feb. 2022, Stafford threw a no-look to Kupp with 3 minutes left in the Super Bowl, and the Rams down 20-16 to Cincinnati. Stafford’s eyes tricked Bengals safety Vonn Bell out of the spot Kupp ran a crossing route into for a key, 22-yard gain. That set up Stafford’s title-winning touchdown to Kupp with 85 seconds to go.

Last week in the Rams’ win over the Bears in Chicago in the NFC divisional round, Stafford completed a no-look pass to the left sideline to Davante Adams in overtime.

“Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. It’s uncanny,” Kupp, in his first Seahawks season playing his former team for the NFC title, said Thursday. “It’s pretty amazing.

“He’s obviously got an incredible ability to do it. He’s been doing it for a long time. ...This year, you watch the tape, it seems like...I mean, he’s getting a little aggressive, egregious, with some of these throws that he’s got on tape.

“But, it’s impressive. In my book, he’s one of the best to ever play the position. Everyone else can have their opinions on it. But as someone who was in the room with him, on the field with him, it’s hard to play at a higher level than he’s capable of playing at, and shown over and over again.

“So obviously a great challenge anytime you are on the field playing against Matthew Stafford.”

Seahawks defending the no-look

Macdonald and his Seahawks defense are spending a lot of time this week drilling ways to counter Stafford’s no-look passes. They are coming up with new ideas the star quarterback, his coach Sean McVay and the Rams defense haven’t seen.

Not that they are about to specify what they are going to do, exactly.

“Just trusting your drops, and trusting what you see,” Jones said.

The drops are the areas where defenders move after the snap into their assigned areas of pass coverage, usually in zone. Seattle plays a ton of zone with its base defense of five and six defensive backs.

On KJR-FM radio Thursday with The News Tribune, NFL analyst Hugh Millen noted most of Stafford’s successful no-look passes come out of throws to receivers running in-breaking routes from right to left. That’s what Nacua’s was last month for the OT touchdown. That’s what Kupp’s was late in the Rams’ Super Bowl four years ago.

Stafford beat Jones and fellow Seahawks linebacker Drake Thomas on a 54-yard throw to Nacua, again from right to left on another deep crossing route, late in the first quarter of that game Dec. 18 at Lumen Field. That play led to a field goal for L.A. So more than a third of Nacua’s 225 yards receiving that night came on no-look passes from Stafford.

“It’s hard to simulate (in practice), you know?” Macdonald said. “But he hasn’t just gotten us. He’s gotten everybody (with the no-look pass), up to this point.

“So it’s going to take discipline in our drops (into coverage) to try to mitigate that the best we can.

“But he’s dang good at it. In the moment, it’s hard to not go where he’s looking.”

The play call Macdonald has the Seahawks in dictates who the primary counter man is to the no-look pass. The key for that guy is to not follow Stafford’s eyes and stay true to the drop area that defender is assigned to.

That takes supreme discipline — especially when you are trying to make a play on a ball that could mean the difference between going to the Super Bowl and going home for the winter and spring after Sunday night.

It would also help the Seahawks if they could get to Stafford with a pass rush more than they have in two games against L.A. this season. It’s a lot more difficult to pull off no-look passes when the quarterback is staring into the facemask of a defender about to hit and sack him.

Seattle has zero sacks in Stafford’s 77 drop backs to pass over two games this season.

More than in any other game in their careers, the players in the back-seven of the Seahawks’ top-ranked defense need to trust in the jobs and areas Macdonald assigns them in pass coverage for this NFC title game.

“It goes back to one of those things: You can’t let how they operate affect how we operate. That’s just a core principle,” Macdonald said of his Seahawks.

“Again, easier said than done. It’s something that we’re working on.

“But he’s good at it.”