The Seattle Seahawks leaned on one of their best strengths to stifle the Los Angeles Rams, and it will play a key factor in the Super Bowl against the Patriots.
The Seattle Seahawks edged out the Los Angeles Rams in a thriller to win the NFC championship game and advance to Super Bowl LX against the New England Patriots on Feb. 8. While Sam Darnold and Jaxon Smith-Njigba shone on offense, it was the fourth-down stop late in the fourth quarter in the red zone by Seattle that kept the Rams from making a comeback. Their defense stifled Los Angeles on third down, holding them to just one conversion on eight attempts. Now, they’ll look to do the same to a Patriots squad coming off a 10-7 grind-out affair in which weather played a factor more than any strong play on either side.
It’ll be a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX in 2015 where New England got the best of the Seahawks in a game defined by Malcom Butler’s game-sealing interception on the 1-yard line with 20 seconds left. Defenses come up in big moments in the big game, and those could easily define the victor of the Super Bowl at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. For Seattle, that’s a ferocious front seven with sticky coverage to match.
Here is the full story from Seahawks Roundtable writer Nathan Karseno on what to expect from both defenses as they look to headline the Super Bowl victory.
It’ll be an intriguing game featuring two quarterbacks making their first Super Bowl appearances in New England’s Drake Maye and Seattle’s Sam Darnold, and both teams will accordingly lean on a rushing attack. However, Darnold certainly is coming off the stronger outing, and his defense was a lot more tested by significant passing prowess versus the slop fest of the AFC Championship.