Sportsnaut
The Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers met in Week 1, an excellent regular-season opener for the NFC West that everyone hoped would be the start of a great year of football. Fast forward to Week 18, two of the NFC’s best teams finally got their rematch with the conference’s No. 1 seed and a division crown at stake.
Let’s dive into the winners and losers from Saturday night’s Seahawks vs 49ers game.
Seattle’s rushing attack has come to life as of late, and Zach Charbonnet is a big part of that. Entering Week 18, he had been averaging 53.3 rushing yards per game with a 4.9 yards-per-carry average over his last eight contests in this committee backfield with Kenneth Walker III. In San Francisco on Saturday night, he provided a spark with a 27-yard burst to set up a scoring drive and later found the end zone himself. With the effectiveness of Seattle’s passing game dipping recently, the rushing attack is hitting its stride at the perfect time for a postseason run.
Sam Darnold cost Seattle seven points on Saturday night. On the first drive, Seattle had it 1st-and-Goal at the 1-yard line with a golden opportunity to punch it in for a score. They dialed up a passing play, but Darnold missed an open Zach Charbonnet in the flat and held onto the football far too long, resulting in an 11-yard sack. The drive ended in a turnover on downs. He was relatively fine otherwise, but that play really stood out in a low-scoring game and would have proven far more costly if not for Seattle’s defense.
Seattle took full advantage of what has been an awful 49ers run defense since Week 9. Charbonnet found the end zone, but it was Walker who led the team in rushing and finished second in receiving yards, using all kinds of elusive moves and hurdles to create extra yardage. Walker has now cleared 100 scrimmage yards in two of his last three games; with how important he will be to Seattle’s playoff run, he is set to enter free agency on a high note this spring.
The San Francisco 49ers defense will be its undoing in the playoffs. Just six days after allowing a 6.88 yards-per-play average to the Chicago Bears, Seattle was nearly as effective. Before running downhill to kill the clock late in the game, the Seahawks offense averaged 6 yards per play and finished with a 5.7 yards-per-play average on eight drives. With all due respect to how great San Francisco’s offense can be, tonight proved it won’t be enough when you face a great defense and don’t have one yourself.
This unit is why the Seattle Seahawks are a Super Bowl. San Francisco’s offense was coming off an eight-game stretch where it averaged 34.3 points...
