Five feats from NFC title game vs. Rams that got the Seahawks to the Super Bowl

The TV people only wanted the team owner, the coach and the quarterback who had just silenced a football world of doubters up on the stage.

Seattle legend Kam Chancellor, the honorary captain for the NFC championship game, was up there celebrating with them.

But Lumen Field was still rockin’ from the fans’ constant roars. The confetti was flyin’. Coach Mike Macdonald had just uttered his instantly renowned response to FOX Sports television’s Michael Strahan asking him about his Seahawks being overlooked and having to beat the division-rival 49ers and Rams in succession to be on this stage: “We. Did. Not. Care.”

Yet the moment demanded more.

So Seattle’s players defied the TV folks. Almost ALL of the starters crowded on stage. They joined team chair Jody Allen, coach Mike Macdonald and Chancellor Sunday night to celebrate, front and center, the franchise’s fourth NFC championship for a fourth trip to the Super Bowl.

“It’s like ‘Head-coach sticker, quarterback sticker.’ So of course I’m going to stand where the sticker is,” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said on his day-after show on KIRO-AM radio Monday. “And I’m like, ‘No, Sam, you’ve got to be over here.’

“And then I turn around and all these guys start bleeding up (onto the stage). They don’t care. “They. Did. Not. Care.

“So they walked up on stage. It was awesome. Leo was up there. ‘Spoon.’ Yeah, great. ‘Jax.’”

It figures that stage was packed.

These NFC champion Seahawks, winners of a franchise-record 16 of 19 games this season, get contributions from far more than just Pro Bowl defenders Leonard “Leo” Williams, Devon “Spoon” Witherspoon, NFL-leading receiver Jaxon “Jax” Smith-Njigba and Pro Bowl quarterback Sam Darnold.

They were among the five moments, among many, that stood out most to The News Tribune in the Seahawks’ 31-27 victory over the Rams to win the NFC title on one of the most tense, thrilling nights in the franchise’s 50-year history.

1. Sam Darnold’s brilliance

It goes beyond the take-that theme that dominated the postgame scenes. Darnold “shut up a lot of people,” as Macdonald said about his 28-year-old quarterback defying his many doubters with the game of his career to get to his first Super Bowl.

Darnold never had a playoff win in his eight NFL seasons for five teams until eight days earlier. Yet especially considering the stakes, he played perhaps the best game by a Seahawks quarterback.

Ever.

He completed 25 of 36 throws. He threw for 346 yards. He threw three touchdown passes. Most important for the NFL leader in turnovers this season, he had zero interceptions, zero lost fumbles.

The completions, attempts, yards and touchdown are all the most in a conference championship game in Seahawks history.

All three of Darnold’s TD throws — to Smith-Njigba, Cooper Kupp and reserve Jake Bobo — came staring into the face of a Rams defender about to nail him. Darnold is the first quarterback since NFL NextGen Stats became a thing in 2014 to throw three TD passes against pressure in a postseason game.

In two games against L.A. in the regular season against pressure, he threw zero touchdown passes with three interceptions.

Macdonald’s vaunted defense allowed the Rams 479 yards and 27 points.

Darnold rescued it. He won the game.

“He really saved us,” Williams said. Darnold sent Seattle to Super Bowl 60.

“Yeah, those are great plays. All-time great plays,” Macdonald said, “standing in there and trusting the timing of the play and letting it rip.

“So it was pretty awesome.”

Darnold’s were indeed all-time great plays Sunday night.

Consider the quarterback performances in Seattle’s four previous conference title games:

Jan. 8, 1984: Dave Krieg starts. And flops: 3 for 9 passing, three interceptions, three sacks. That leads Seattle into a 20-0 deficit in the second quarter at the Los Angeles Raiders. Jim Zorn, Seattle’s quarterback since the franchise’s first game as an expansion team in 1976, replaces Krieg. Zorn throws for the Seahawks’ only touchdowns, but way too late. The Raiders rolls to a 30-14 win.

Jan. 22, 2006: Matt Hasselbeck for the top-seeded Seahawks in their first home conference title game: 20 for 28 passing, 219 yards, touchdown throws to Darrell Jackson and Jerramy Stevens — and no turnovers. Seattle takes a 17-0 lead early and reaches its first Super Bowl with a 34-14 win over Carolina.

Jan. 19, 2014: In his second NFL season, third-round draft pick Russell Wilson completes 16 of 25 passes for 215 yards, a touchdown throw to Lakewood’s Jermaine Kearse for the go-ahead score early in the fourth quarter, and no interceptions. Seattle returns to the Super Bowl on Richard Sherman’s tipped pass at the end of a 23-17 victory over San Francisco.

Jan. 18, 2015: Wilson throws four interceptions and the Packers sack him five times. But he responds with a wild rally from 16-0 down deep into the fourth quarter to force overtime. Wilson’s rainbow throw against an all-out blitz to Kearse into the end zone in overtime sends the Seahawks over Green Bay 28-22, and to a second consecutive Super Bowl.

Devon Witherspoon, still best

Defensive tackle Leonard Williams is a Pro Bowl pick again, a second-time All-Pro. Pro Bowl end DeMarcus Lawrence was dominant over the final weeks of the regular season. Those two were large reasons Seattle allowed the fewest points in the league this season and won the NFC West for the first time since 2020.

Yet Witherspoon remains their best, and brashest, player on defense.

When he allowed two catches in the first half Sunday night against the Rams, then missed two tackles, it was startling. The three-time Pro Bowl cornerback who plays inside and outside, versus slot and wide receivers, usually doesn’t surrender that many plays in month.

But with the season and Super Bowl on the line, Witherspoon won the NFC.

With 5 minutes left and Seattle holding on to its 31-27 lead, Witherspoon face to face, chest to chest running with L.A.’s Konata Mumpfield into the end zone when Matthew Stafford threw to him on third and 4. Mumpfield couldn’t have caught the ball if Stafford had handed it to him. Incomplete.

On fourth down, Stafford wanted to throw outside left to his running back in the flat near the goal line. But two Seahawks were covering Kyren Williams — accidentally, in a coverage bust, Rams coach Sean McVay said after the game. Stafford looked away from Williams. He threw late instead to Terrance Ferguson running from the right to left across the back line of the end zone.

Witherpsoon ran the route for the tight end. He guessed Ferguson would run that way, because earlier in the game in the red zone the tight end had run a deep route outside against Witherspoon. Witherspoon was in better position than Ferguson to catch Stafford’s pass that went off both players in the end zone for the decisive turnover on downs.

Darnold and the offense ran off all but 25 seconds of the remaining time, and the Seahawks are back in the Super Bowl for the first time in 11 years. “The plays by ‘Spoon’ in the red zone were just some of the best plays in our team history, probably, including in the circumstances,” Macdonald said. “Awesome.

“The last play, the play shouldn’t be lasting that long. And talk about relentlessness, I’m thinking if I’m in this type of coverage I don’t have to cover for X amount of time and it extends. There is no blink. He’s just competing. He did that the whole game. “That’s who he is.”

3. Cooper Kupp’s still got it

The 32-year-old wide receiver and Super Bowl MVP with the 2021 Rams admitted last week this season hasn’t gone as he wanted, personally. The NFL offensive player of the year with 145 catches and 16 touchdowns four seasons ago had just 47 receptions and two scores in his first Seahawks regular season.

Yet Sunday night, after talking on the field at length with Stafford and Rams top receiver Puka Nacua before the game, Kupp reminded all what he still is for Seattle.

He said he was “about third or fourth” among the receiving options on Darnold’s touchdown pass to him late in the third quarter. Kupp curled inside behind Smith-Njigba’s crossing route on third and 3. After his catch at the 6, Kupp leaned into his run to the goal line. He bulled through two converging Rams trying to tackle him to score his first touchdown for Seattle in a Lumen Field home game. It gave the Seahawks a 31-20 lead. Those proved to be the decisive points.

“I had no idea it was coming,” Kupp said. “But, yeah, all worked out.”

Then on third and 7 from the Seattle 28 with 3:20 left and the Rams with two timeouts down 31-27, Kupp clinched the win. He took Darnold’s pass short of the line to gain, twisted through a tackler and stuck the ball out at the line to gain for the crucial first down. L.A. had to use its remaining timeouts on defense, and the Seahawks kept the ball until just 25 seconds remained for the win.

If Kupp doesn’t fight for the first down there, the Rams’ rolling offense gets the ball back likely near midfield with 3 minutes and two time outs left.

And L.A. likely would be in the Super Bowl instead of Seattle.

“Just for him to just be able to step up on a day-to-day basis for us, not only in games but in practice, in the facility, he’s a true leader for us,” Darnold said.

Cooper Kupp scores a touchdown against his old squad!
pic.twitter.com/7EoLYg66Xe

— JM Football (@JomboyMediaFB) January 26, 2026

4. Nick Emmanwori. Again.

The Seahawks would have been chasing that game from the first half on if not for Nick Emmanwori.

The do-it-all rookie did it all against L.A. Again.

“Broken record,” Macdonald said. With Seattle trailing 13-10 in the second quarter, Emmanwori made a seven-point play. Playing again as a linebacker not his listed safety, again, he broke up consecutive passes.

The first was with a perfectly timed arm in front of Nacua (nine catches, 165 yards) as Stafford’s pass outside right was arriving.

The second one, on the next snap, denied Rams running back Ronnie Rivers a catch near the line to gain. Emmanwori single-armedly forced L.A. to punt with just under a minute left in the half.

“If we don’t have those pass break-ups,” Macdonald said, “I think there is a different outcome to the game."

5. Glad Rams aren’t in the Super Bowl with them

In the regular season Macdonald’s defense was first in points allowed (only 17.2 per game). Seattle was third against the run (91.9 yards per game) and top 10 in everything else. The Seahawks were 10th against the pass (193.3 yards per game), eighth in sacks (47) and eighth in total defense (351.4 yards).

Then they allowed only six points and 129 yards passing in the divisional round against the 49ers, winning 13-3.

But in three games this season against the Rams, Seattle allowed 28 points per game, 119 yards on the ground on average, 319 yards passing by Stafford with just one sack in 113 drop backs — and 436.3 yards allowed per L.A. game.

L.A. and Tampa Bay — in early October, when the defense was missing Witherspoon and three other injured starters on defense — were the only teams this season to score more than 24 points on the Seahawks. That’s why Seattle had the best points differential in the league, the best in team history at +191 in the regular season.

Darn good thing for the Seahawks’ hopes for second Lombardi Trophy in franchise history that the Rams with offensive wizard McVay aren’t advancing with Seattle to the Super Bowl.

“They’re great team, and he’s as good as it gets, him and his staff game planning-wise,” Macdonald said. “They’ve got great players.

“You just tip your hat to them. I know you’re not supposed to as a division rival, but we respect those guys. They’re a great offense and they’re great coaches. Heck of a matchup.

"It’s probably going to be like this for a long time.”