Inside The Star
11 years and seven days ago, the Seattle Seahawks pulled off a miraculous comeback against the Aaron Rodgers-led Green Bay Packers to advance to the Super Bowl; it was their second conference championship in a row.
January 18, 2015: The Seahawks miraculously come back to beat the Packers in the NFC Championship. Seattle was down 19-7 with just over two minutes left in the game and won 28-22 in OT.
pic.twitter.com/FKyVTTCJoq— This Day In Sports Clips (@TDISportsClips) January 19, 2024
Of course, that appearance in the big game against Tom Brady, or perhaps more notably, Malcolm Butler, didn’t go as well as their matchup with the Denver Broncos a year prior.
Yes, that would be the final Super Bowl trip for Russell Wilson, Pete Carroll, and the “Legion of Boom,” but if you can think back to that overtime defeat of the Packers, it meant a ton for the organization and their standing around the league.
It solidified their status as the top dog in the conference, and in the two years that followed, only the future conference champs, the dominant Carolina Panthers and the high-scoring Atlanta Falcons, took them out of the postseason.
In short, a little over a decade ago, a home win over an NFC giant cemented the organization at the top of the conference; today, they have the same opportunity.
Here, I’ll give you the three ways in which the Seahawks will completely redefine their future with a win over the Los Angeles Rams.
In January 2024, at 36-years-old, Seattle made Mike Macdonald their head coach. He had been the defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens and the Michigan Wolverines, and league-wide, it was a respectable hire.
In year one, he gave the Seahawks their first double-digit win season since 2020 and took one of the league’s bottom-three defenses in 2023 to a nearly top-ten unit in 2024.
Obviously, this season has elevated his status even more, as he’s led the organization to its first-ever 14-win regular season, the one seed in the NFC, and a dominant postseason debut against a division rival.
Macdonald has solidified himself as one of the best young coaches in the league, but a win today takes the “young” part out of that equation.
This Boston native and Georgia alum will become one of the top head coaches in the NFL if his team can make the Super Bowl in his second season of work.
Today marks a mountain-sized opportunity for Mike Macdonald.
Similar to his head coach, it is hard to overstate just how much this game means to Seattle’s quarterback and former top-three pick, Sam Darnold.
The 28-year-old has been through more than you can probably even remember in his nine-year NFL career. Three really rough years as a New York Jet, two in Carolina, a year as a backup...
