Sam Darnold threw three touchdown passes, and the Seattle Seahawks outlasted the Los Angeles Rams 31-27 in a thrilling NFC Championship Game on Sunday to advance to the Super Bowl for the first time since the 2014 season. They will face the New England Patriots on Feb. 8 in a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX.
Darnold, who will play in his first Super Bowl, finished the game 25-of-36 passing for 346 yards, those three touchdowns and no turnovers, after throwing only two touchdowns and six interceptions in the first two meetings of the season with the Rams, a loss in Los Angeles and a win in Seattle.
Matthew Stafford was just as effective, completing 22 of 35 passes for 374 yards and three touchdowns, but his fourth-down pass from the Seattle 6-yard line with less than five minutes to play fell incomplete, and the Rams never threatened to score again.
With the win, the Seahawks improved to 4-0 in home NFC Championship Games. They are 1-2 in their previous trips to the Super Bowl, losing their first meeting with the Patriots 28-24 on Malcolm Butler’s interception at the goal line, a year after beating the Denver Broncos 43-8 for their only Lombardi Trophy.
Seattle jumped out to an early 7-0 lead after Darnold found Rashid Shaheed for a 51-yard pass down the right sideline on the team’s opening possession. Four plays later, running back Kenneth Walker III found the end zone on a 2-yard rush.
The Rams didn’t score their first touchdown until the 1:55 mark of the second quarter, as Stafford led a 12-play, 87-yard drive capped by a 9-yard pass to Kyren Williams to give Los Angeles a 13-10 lead. But after three-and-outs from both teams late in the half, Seattle responded with a six-play, 74-yard drive in just 34 seconds that Darnold capped with a 14-yard touchdown pass to Jaxon Smith-Njigba as the Seahawks regained the lead, 17-13, at halftime.
Smith-Njigba finished with a game-high 10 receptions for 153 yards and that touchdown.
On a play that swung the game early in the second half, Rams returner Xavier Smith muffed a punt deep in his own territory. It was recovered by Seattle at Los Angeles’ 17-yard line. On the ensuing play, wide receiver Jake Bobo scored his first touchdown of the season on a 17-yard toss by Darnold, giving the Seahawks a 24-13 advantage.
From there, things got wacky as the teams traded blows in the third quarter.
Stafford quickly led the Rams downfield on the next drive. He hit tight end Colby Parkinson for a 40-yard strike to put the Rams in Seahawks territory. Two plays later, he found Davante Adams for 29 yards and then finished the drive with a 2-yard toss to Adams on the left side of the end zone as Los Angeles cut into Seattle’s lead.
Then it was the Seahawks’ turn. Darnold drove his team downfield in nine plays and capped the drive with a 13-yard touchdown pass to Cooper Kupp, who scored against his former team in a pivotal moment. The Seahawks went up 31-20, again taking a two-score lead.
On the next drive, after it appeared Seattle’s defense got off the field following an incomplete pass by Stafford on third-and-12, Seahawks cornerback Riq Woolen was flagged for a taunting penalty, gifting the Rams a first down. On the next play, Stafford targeted his best receiver, Puka Nacua, who was being defended by Woolen. Nacua caught the pass along the left sideline and scored a 34-yard touchdown as Los Angeles closed the deficit to 31-27.
But the Seahawks’ defense held late, including a goal-line stand with less than five minutes remaining following a 14-play drive by the Rams that ate up 7:24 of game time. The Seahawks then marched downfield on the following drive to salt the game away, leaving the Rams with just 25 seconds with no timeouts.
Darnold delivers when it matters most
So much for Darnold not delivering in a big moment. In the most important game of his life, he went toe-to-toe with the MVP favorite. Seattle signed Darnold in the offseason, believing that overreacting to his final two games with the Minnesota Vikings in 2024 was silly.
The Seahawks saw firsthand that Darnold was a gamer when he came to Seattle last season and beat them with a game-winning touchdown late in the year. They bet on getting that version of Darnold in 2025, not the guy with multiple meltdowns at the end of the season.
The gamble paid off, and Seattle is now returning to the Super Bowl for the first time since the 2014 season. It clinched this appearance by leaning on its maligned quarterback. — Michael-Shawn Dugar, Seahawks reporter
Rams’ season ends with a big ‘what if?’
This season was never Super Bowl-or-bust for the Rams, but they absolutely believed that ceiling was within their reach. Now, they’re going to be watching from home.
They got the season of a lifetime out of Stafford, at age 37, after he missed most of training camp with a degenerative back issue. They got a league-high 14 touchdown catches from Adams after making the emotional decision to move off Kupp. They got a 1,700-yard season from Nacua, a 12-sack breakout from Byron Young and the one-year veteran-minimum deal that dreams are made of in Nate Landman.
But two flaws were always there for the Rams, and they bit them at the worst time. One was in special teams, where they’ve made changes to the kicker, long snapper and coordinator. And in the middle of this game, the return man. But that change came a snap too late, as Smith’s botched punt return created the quick score out of halftime that the Seahawks needed to keep the explosive Rams offense at bay.
The other cutting flaw was at outside cornerback. The Rams believed in the upside of Emmanuel Forbes Jr. and Cobie Durant and had reason to. But they could have made one of their aggressive upgrades of past seasons over Darious Williams, whom they made a healthy scratch several times. He gave up a 51-yard deep shot to Shaheed to start the game, and Durant committed a holding penalty on Seattle’s final drive that ended up delivering the dagger.
This was still a great season, as the Rams reached the league’s final four with an MVP-caliber season from Stafford and the No. 1 scoring offense. The short-term future could be bright with two first-round picks and lots of cap space this spring. But to get this season out of Stafford at this stage of his career and not support him enough to finish the job in Seattle twice is a big “what if?” — Nate Atkins, Rams reporter
The coach and GM who made Seahawks NFC champs
This is Mike Macdonald’s vision come to life. In Year 2 running the show, he has done exactly what he was hired to do: beat Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay and get the Seahawks back to the Super Bowl. Macdonald did it by building the No. 1 defense and hiring a new offensive coordinator, Klint Kubiak, to give his team the offensive identity required to win these sorts of games.
Earlier this week, John Schneider was named Executive of the Year by the Pro Football Writers of America. He won that award largely because of all the offseason moves he made, most notably acquiring Darnold, Kupp and DeMarcus Lawrence.
His best move? Hiring Macdonald. — Dugar
Stafford vs. Darnold was the QB clash we needed
In a battle that was as even and back-and-forth as it was between these two teams all season, it only made sense that it would come down to the quarterbacks in the end.
Both were absolutely terrific. Stafford sliced up a Seahawks defense that wanted to hold off on blitzes and live in man coverage, and he took shot after shot downfield, something almost nobody pulls off on Macdonald’s defense. He ripped explosive throws to Nacua, Adams and Parkinson while facing a two-score deficit in the second half, and his touch and placement downfield put any concerns to bed about that index finger he sprained in the wild-card win over the Carolina Panthers.
Darnold, meanwhile, answered the questions many had about him in this particular matchup and on a stage this bright. He rode a gorgeous opening game plan from Kubiak to get comfortable on rollout passes and screens, and then he started to air it out to get Smith-Njigba going for another heroic day. The balance of running and rollouts helped neutralize the Rams’ pass rush that has feasted so much on him in the past year-plus, and he was calm when he did get pressured, scrambling out of the pocket to throw the ball away.
But in the end, a Parkinson drop on a terrific Stafford throw that should have been a touchdown ended up being the final critical missed opportunity, in addition to the routes that didn’t develop in the goal-to-go situation. And Darnold hit clutch throws to Kupp and Smith-Njigba to run out the clock.
Expect these two teams to continue to engage in these kinds of high-wire battles for as long as Stafford continues to play. — Atkins
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