495: Epic NFC Championship Battle - Seahawks vs Rams Recap

Sea Hawkers Podcast: for Seattle Seahawks fans

Brandan Schulze

Sports, Football

4.7 • 568 Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2026

⏱️ 127 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Seattle Seahawks are heading to the Super Bowl after a 31-27 victory over the Los Angeles Rams at Lumen Field. Sam Darnold came up big when it mattered most, connecting with Jaxon Smith-Njigba for touchdown before halftime after taking a crushing hit. Kenneth Walker III punched in the opening score, and the offense executed a masterful five-minute drive that helped close out the game. The defense came up big on a critical fourth-and-four stop, with Julian Love and DeMarcus Lawrence dropping into coverage to stuff the Rams attempt—a play Sean McVay dismissed as "luck" in his post-game comments.

Riq Woolen's costly taunting penalty on third down helped give the Rams an opening, leading to an immediate Puka Nacua touchdown. Cooper Kupp proved instrumental in the Seahawks' success, making key third-down conversions against his former team after the Rams organization reportedly urged other teams to lowball him in free agency (which we later cover in the Do Better segment).

In the second half of the show, we look ahead to Super Bowl matchup against the New England Patriots. The Seahawks face a Drake Maye-led offense that excels under pressure but lacks some of the firepower of previous opponents. The franchise has a chance to exorcise demons from Super Bowl XLIX and claim the Lombardi Trophy on the 49ers' home turf in Santa Clara, completing one of the most unexpected and satisfying seasons in recent memory.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Seahawkers podcast, episode 495.
0:11.4	I'm Brandon Schultz of the military Seahawkers, and I am joined by my good buddy, Adam Emmert,
0:18.0	as our Seattle Seahawks are going to the Super Bowl.
0:22.4	Going to the Super Bowl, man.
0:24.8	In a season that for me personally coming into this felt extremely unlikely,
0:30.8	did not think that this was really legitimately on the board in any way.
0:36.2	Like the idea of maybe moving the ball forward, being better than 10 wins,
0:40.4	having a playoff win, maybe two, and then being competitive,
0:44.4	and then coming back next year and then really hitting it.
0:47.1	Like, that's kind of where I was at.
0:50.1	Dead wrong.
0:51.3	And these guys have gotten after it from the word jump and everything has hit.
0:56.7	And we saw that on full display in this NFC championship game in Lumen as they had earned
1:02.7	themselves the number one seat on top of all of it going into this game.
1:06.4	Pretty cool stuff.
1:07.8	It's funny, though, looking back, I mean, there were signs that it was possible because
1:14.6	even going into the season, doing our look at the division rivals and, you know, they're,
1:21.6	San Fran had their own issues, LA had their issues.
1:25.6	And I don't even think we expected either of those teams to be as good as they were this year.
1:31.8	And then looking around at how the rest of the NFC performed, some of those teams dropped off that maybe you expected to do well.
1:40.6	Okay.
1:41.2	Were you pulling my chain then when you thought that we could go ahead and
	...

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