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The regular season is in the books, and now it’s playoff time! Before turning our attention to the postseason, it’s time to take a last look at a Week 18 slate that had a couple of consequential results mixed in with a lot of slop.
On Saturday, the Panthers and Buccaneers played football (more on that in a minute) before the Seahawks secured the top seed in the NFC with a win over the 49ers. After a sleepy Sunday slate that featured a lot of backup quarterbacks and sloppy football, the Ravens and the Steelers capped off the regular season with an epic that sent Pittsburgh to the playoffs.
We get into all of that on this week’s winners and losers.
The Seahawks and 49ers played one of the most high-stakes games of the week on Saturday night, with the NFC West title and the No. 1 seed in the conference on the line. San Francisco came into the game as one of the hottest offenses in the league after hanging more than 40 points against both the Colts and Bears in its previous two games.
On Saturday night in front of their home crowd, the 49ers had no solutions for the Seahawks defense. San Francisco mustered just three points and nine first downs in a 13-3 loss in Week 18 as the Seahawks had the answers for everything Kyle Shanahan and company tried to do.
San Francisco went three-and-out on its first two drives and struggled to run the ball all night. It’s only real drive, late in the second half, was finished by a Drake Thomas interception inside the 10-yard line.
Brock Purdy has been one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the NFL this season when he has been healthy, but he had one of the worst nights of his career in this game. Purdy finished with a -0.51 EPA per dropback, the fourth-worst mark in the NFL in a week where a ton of backups played, and was sacked a season-high three times.
The Seahawks were physical up front, got after the passer, tackled in open space very well and didn’t allow the 49ers to do much after the catch. Heading into the playoffs, this Seattle defense may be the best unit in the league heading into the postseason.
The NFC South has been a truly disastrous division all season, one that is barely worthy of having any representative in the playoffs. Still, coming into Week 18, a game between the Panthers and the Buccaneers on Saturday looked like it would decide the champion and the No. 4 seed in the NFC playoffs.
However, the Atlanta Falcons threw a major wrinkle into things with a Week 17 upset of the Los Angeles Rams. That allowed the Falcons to potentially get into a tie for the division lead with a win over the Saints in Week 18.
The...
