The Seahawks have punched their ticket to the Super Bowl, but will Mike Macdonald's team be the favorites?
The Seattle Seahawks are your NFC Champions after a stirring 31-27 win over the Los Angeles Rams at Lumen Field.
Sam Darnold (25-of-36 for 346 yards, 3 TDs) and Jaxon Smith-Njigba (10 rec, 153 yards, 1 TD) were the chief destroyers on offense.
Defensively, Mike Macdonald's team did just enough, with a huge fourth-down stop midway through the fourth quarter. A stand at the Seattle six-yard line saw the Rams go for it on fourth down but fail.
Darnold and the offense got the ball back with a little over four minutes left and drained the clock, not allowing Matthew Stafford and his vast array of weapons to see the field again.
Now, attention turns to the Super Bowl in Santa Clara in two weeks as Mike Vrabel, Drake Maye, and the New England Patriots await Darnold and Seattle.
And wouldn't you know it, DraftKings Sportsbook has already released the odds.
Will the Seahawks or Patriots be the favorites?
Both had superb regular seasons; the Seahawks blew away the San Francisco 49ers, while the Patriots have managed to win two games without playing that well to advance to the Super Bowl.
Each team has the right to be favored in this clash.
But at the time of writing, it is Darnold and Macdonald who can lay claim to it, with DraftKings listing the Seahawks as 4.5-point favorites.
Is that fair? In truth, odds mean nothing because had the roles been reversed, you could easily make the case for New England to be the favorites.
But it does show the faith that the many have in Darnold and the Seahawks.
I wonder what Seattle's odds would have been in the preseason to make the Super Bowl?
Now, the next two weeks will be the biggest in the careers of several players, and it is also vindication for Darnold, who had to hear about his shortcomings last year all offseason.
Well, now, he's led the Seahawks to what many would have thought would be an improbable Super Bowl appearance.
And he's done so playing perhaps the best game of his career, when the lights were at their brightest and in the biggest spot of his career.
Credit where it is due, and now his team is the Super Bowl favorite...for now.