Despite a 19-17 win over Seattle at home in Week 14 and an eight-game winning streak, the 49ers find themselves as underdogs this weekend in the NFC Championship.
It’s for good reason though. A in an interview this week: You have to jump out on the Seahawks early.
Again, this is a fairly obvious statement for any game or team, but I’d argue vehemently that this is an even stronger case when it comes to playing Seattle.
Giving the Seahawks a significant lead allows them, Seattle, to do exactly what they want to do. It plays into their strengths. Opposing quarterbacks, instead of having the luxury of a balanced offense, now will be forced to throw the ball towards a top-notch secondary – a secondary that’s better than any other in the league. In other words, good luck if you fall behind early.
Beating Seattle’s defense isn’t necessarily just about running on them, but having the opportunity to run on them late in the game. Those are two very different things.
Stopping Marshawn
On the other side, San Francisco’s going to need to stop Marshawn Lynch if they want to lift the Lombardi this year. To show why that’s the case, we can take a look at numberFire’s strongest predictors for the upcoming NFC Championship, specifically games in which the 49ers won.
If you’re unfamiliar with our strongest predictors, they’re games from the past that match up similarly to what we’re about to see. In other words, the teams involved in those games were a lot like the teams in the future game, hence the term “strongest predictors†– they can help predict what will happen.
In the top five games where the team most like the 49ers won, the opposition’s lead running back did the following:
| Lead Running Back Carries | Lead Running Back Yards | Yards/Carry | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Game 1 | 21 | 62 | 2.95 |
| Game 2 | 20 | 55 | 2.75 |
| Game 3 | 25 | 55 | 2.20 |
| Game 4 | 13 | 36 | 2.77 |
| Game 5 | 21 | 66 | 3.14 |
Quite simply, in the games that favor the 49ers most when predicting the outcome of this weekend’s game, the hypothetical 49ers almost always held the opposing team’s top running back to less than three yards per carry. Pretty impressive when you consider the opposition in these games are most like the Seahawks, a team that ranked 11th in Adjusted Rushing Net Expected Points this season.
The 49ers need to stop Marshawn Lynch this weekend. And by stop I don’t mean contain – I mean stop him, even if Seattle feeds him.
Russell Wilson’s Drop
If the 49ers are able to stop Marshawn, the game will fall in the hands of Russell Wilson.
Over the last month or so, I’ve gotten some hate over my article on why I didn’t view
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