SANTA CLARA — Zach Charbonnet scored on a 27-yard run in the first quarter and Seattle shut down the high-powered San Francisco offense in a 13-3 victory over the 49ers on Saturday night that secured the No. 1 seed for the Seahawks in the NFC playoffs.
Seattle (14-3) won its first division title since 2020 and is two home wins away from returning to Levi’s Stadium for the Super Bowl next month after besting San Francisco (12-5) in just the fourth season-ending game ever where the winner was guaranteed the No. 1 seed in the playoffs.
The loss sends the 49ers on the road for the wild-card round next weekend against an opponent that will be determined after Sunday’s games.
Coach Mike Macdonald’s defensive unit flummoxed a 49ers offense that had been the NFL’s most potent since Brock Purdy returned from an injury in Week 11.
The Seahawks didn’t allow a first down in the opening quarter, generated three sacks and made the biggest defensive play early in the fourth quarter when Drake Thomas got an interception at the Seattle three on a pass that went off the hands of Christian McCaffrey.
Sam Darnold did just enough for the Seahawks as he won a Week 18 showdown this season after falling flat a year ago for Minnesota against Detroit in a loss that cost the Vikings a chance at the No. 1 seed. Darnold went 20 of 26 for 198 yards and didn’t turn the ball over once as Seattle relied heavily on the running game.
Kenneth Walker III ran for 97 yards, Charbonnet had the long touchdown and the Seahawks finished with 180 yards on the ground, their second most in a game this season.
Purdy went 19 of 27 for 127 yards and the interception and McCaffrey was held to 23 yards in eight carries as the 49ers had their lowest-scoring game since losing 23-3 to Carolina in coach Kyle Shanahan’s debut in 2017.
The 173 yards gained by the 49ers were their fewest in any regular-season game under Shanahan.
The Seahawks controlled the first half, outgaining the 49ers by 127 yards and allowing only three first downs, but led only 10-3 at the break after two long drives ended with no punts.
Seattle got stopped on fourth and goal from the four on the on the opening drive but managed to force a three-and-out that set up a short field and Charbonnet’s touchdown run.
Jason Myers also missed a 47-yard field goal attempt. He went two of four on the night, missing from 26 yards late in the fourth quarter.
SEATTLE — In a matter of minutes, the home of the Seattle Seahawks went from a painfully quiet Lumen “Library” to a rollicking madhouse that sent seismologists scrambling for their ground-motion sensors.
Call it the Sheesh-Quake Game.
In a historic comeback, the Seahawks dug their way out of a 16-point, fourth-quarter ditch to beat the Rams in overtime, 38-37.
Oh, the visitors will agonize over some of the bizarre calls, some deserving of further explanation from the NFL. An ineligible-man-downfield call that wiped out a Rams touchdown when they were a yard away from the end zone? That had people scratching their heads. Then there was that do-or-die two-point conversion that seemingly fell incomplete… but later was reversed. More on that in a moment.
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Gary Klein breaks down what went wrong for the Rams in their 38-37 loss to the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field on Thursday night.
When the Rams wincingly rewind the video of the collapse, they’ll be peering through the cracks in their fingers.
You’ve heard of a no-look pass? This was a no-look finish.
As soothing wins go, this was a warm bubble bath for the Seahawks, who secured a playoff berth and assumed the driver’s seat in the race for the NFC’s No. 1 seed.
“You hear people late in the year have losses, and you hear people come up here and say, like, ‘Man, this is going to be a good thing for us,’” said Seahawks receiver Cooper Kupp, a onetime Rams hero. “It’s much better to be up here right now saying this is going to be a good thing for us.”
Kupp atoned for his first-half fumble with a successful two-point conversion in the fourth quarter — the first of three in a row for the Seahawks — and a 21-yard reception on the winning drive in overtime.
“If you find a way to get a win when you do turn the ball over three times, you do end up down 16 points, or whatever it was, in the fourth quarter, just finding ways to win games when the odds are against you and things aren’t going right — finding a way to fight back — it’s going to be a good thing for us,” Kupp said. “A good thing for us to draw on.”
The Rams are sifting through the debris of a different lesson. It was a reminder that this charmed season, with Matthew Stafford in line to win his first Most Valuable Player honor, can come crashing down at any moment. There’s no more smooth glide path to Santa Clara for the Super Bowl.
As good as it was for most of the game, picking off Sam Darnold twice and sacking him four times, the Rams defense failed to hold up when it counted most. Shades of the three-point loss at Carolina.
Darnold will have a story to tell. He exorcised a lot of demons. The Rams sacked him nine times in the playoffs last season when Darnold was playing for Minnesota, and intercepted six of his passes in two games this season.
“It’s not great when you have interceptions and turnovers, you want to limit that,” said Darnold, the former USC star. “But all you can do is fight back. For us, I was just going to continue to plug away.”
Darnold came through when it counted, completing five passes on the winning drive, then finding the obscure tight end Eric Saubert — his fourth option — wide open in the end zone on the triumphant conversion.
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold looks to pass against the Rams in the first half Thursday.
(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
The second of the three conversions was the game’s most controversial moment. The Seahawks needed it to forge a 30-30 tie with a little more than six minutes remaining in regulation.
Darnold fired a quick screen pass to his left, trying to get the ball to Zach Charbonnet. Rams defender Jared Verse jumped the route and knocked down the pass. Everyone thought the play was dead, including Charbonnet, who casually jogged across the goal line and picked up the ball as it lay in the end zone.
That proved critical because officials — after what seemed like an eternity — ruled that Darnold had thrown a backward pass and the ball was live when Charbonnet picked it up. Therefore, a fumble recovery and successful conversion, tying the game.
Asked later if it felt like a backward pass, Darnold had a half-smile and said, “Um, yeah. It felt like I threw it kind of right on the side. I’m glad Charbs picked it up, and that turned out to be a game-changing play.”
Was that designed to be a backward pass?
“It just happened to be backwards,” he said. “It wasn’t necessarily talked about. We were just trying to get it in down there on the goal line.”
The Seahawks were lined up to kick off when officials announced that, upon review, the previous play was successful. Suddenly, the most improbable of come-from-victories was within reach.
Earlier in the fourth quarter, when the home team was trailing, 30-14, the Amazon Prime crew had to do some vamping to keep viewers engaged. Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit told some Kurt Warner stories from the “Greatest Show on Turf” days. Hey, it had to be more interesting than this game.
Michaels delivered an obscure stat: When leading by 15 points or more in the fourth quarter, the Rams were 323-1.
Informed of that, Seahawks running back Cam Akers — once shown the door by the Rams — had a wry response.
“Now, they’ve lost two,” he said.
Celebration in one locker room. Silence in another.
