by Ross Jacobs
The best two teams in football met for the right to go win a Superbowl against the Patriots, and the Seahawks emerged victorious, although the game easily could have gone either way. In the end the backbreaker for the Rams was their awful special teams unit and the punt returner, WR Xavier Smith, dropping a punt which was recovered by the Seahawks and led to an easy TD a few plays later.
Even after that play swung the game in favor of Seattle, the Rams still had a couple of shots to win it late, driving down to the red zone with a few minutes left. Colby Parkinson dropped a pass that hit him in the hands or else he would have walked in for the go-ahead score, and on 4th down the Seahawks had a blown coverage, two defenders both accidentally dropping into coverage on Kyren Williams, that happened to perfectly defend where Stafford wanted to throw it.
Imagine losing because a blown defensive call actually helped the defense.
I do think the Rams were the slightly better team here outside of the special team’s mistakes, but that’s part of the game and they did nothing to help it by hiring Bubba Ventrone from the Browns, one of the only teams with worse special teams than the Rams this year.
I wrote about it elsewhere, but I think the Rams are about to go all-in on acquiring stars to load this team up for Superbowl runs the next two years. They built a good foundation with the 2023-2025 draft classes, and now they have an extra first this year they can package up and trade off for established players. They don’t need more rookies, particularly from a weak overall class. They need veterans that can help them win now while Matt Stafford is still playing elite ball.
I expect some big name free agent signings from them along with a big trade for an established defender similar to the move they made for Jalen Ramsey years ago.
And of course the Seahawks move on to the Superbowl where they should blow the doors off the Patriots, but of course nothing is guaranteed, especially this year. I don’t think Drake Maye is ready for this defense.
Player Notes…
-- How much does it help an offense to have one receiver you can go to every time you need him, a guy that is basically un-coverable?
Both Puka Nacua and Jaxon Smith-Njigba are just unstoppable, always open even though the defense knows it’s coming. Neither one of them are freakish athletes and aren’t 6’5” Calvin Johnson types, but they just win with impeccable routes, timing, and quickness.
Building a modern offense with a rotation of solid receivers is great and all, and it works to a point, but having just that one guy like this makes everything else better and gives the offense a chance in every situation.
-- To all the people that keep saying the Rams need to draft Stafford’s replacement every single year…are you watching him play? Forget his age and trying to project that he’s going to fall off a cliff. He will only be 38 next year. Aaron Rodgers was 42 this year and still playing good ball, Drew Brees was solid at 41, and Tom Brady played until 45. Stafford could easily have 3-4-5 more years in him, and he was very arguably the best QB in the league this year.
Sean McVay was asked after the game if Stafford would be back next year and he replied, “What the hell kind of question is that?”
-- Blake Corum is still playing just 35-40% of the snaps behind Kyren Williams, but it’s inarguable at this point that he’s not the better, more explosive player. Now he’s not going to just send Kyren to the bench, but the days of Kyren as a top point scorer are over so long as Corum is healthy, and if Kyren ever went down Corum will seize that job and not give it back.
-- Between Zach Charbonnet tearing his ACL and how Kenneth Walker has played as the full lead back in his absence, it’s going to be hard for the Seahawks not to give Walker an extension this offseason, a drastic change from how things looked just a few weeks ago. He’s really playing good football and is running more decisively than ever.
RC NOTE: FF planning was turned on its ear a little at RB when Charbonnet tore his ACL. Had he been clean through the playoffs, he would likely have been the lead in an RB duo in 2026...with Walker off to free agency -- that was almost an assured thing.
Now...who knows?
It’s assumed Walker will be re-signed because of the good game here...which was really a good opening drive and then ‘normal RB play’...but what if Seattle wins the Super Bowl, low scoring, and Walker bottled up and the Seahawks led by defense? Would GM John Schneider have the long leash to not waste money in free agency with a late-hot RB because Charbs is down? There’s a million free agent RBs, there’s plenty of guys in the draft, Charbonnet will return in 2026 at some point. It’s not like the future depends on Walker...the current didn’t really depend on him.
