The Seattle Seahawks face off against the top-seeded Atlanta Falcons in an NFC Semi-Final showdown Sunday, Jan. 13 at 1 p.m. EST on FOX.
Seattle sports fans haven't had much to get excited about the last few years, but as the Seattle Times notes, this season's Seahawks team has breathed new life into the franchise and given the city a team worth rallying behind.
"The Seahawks have made the country take notice. It isn't just winning eight of nine games entering Sunday's NFC playoff game in Atlanta. It's the way they've won. It's the Hail Mary pass from Russell Wilson to Golden Tate that beat Green Bay. It's the fourth-quarter smackdown they gave Tom Brady in the win over New England. It's the fourth-quarter comeback and overtime win in Chicago, and the avalanche of points that followed in victories over Arizona, Buffalo and San Francisco," wrote Steve Kelley for the Times.
That intangible "anything can happen at any time" quality is what elevates the great teams above the merely competent, and eviscerates the meaning of rankings in the playoffs. Recent history also sucks the wind out of the power of rankings in the playoffs. Being No. 1 doesn't carry the same kind of clout it once did. While No. 1 teams were 17-0 from 1990-2006, the No. 1 seed has lost in four of the last five seasons, and that includes the Falcons punishing 48-21 loss to the Packers in 2010.
The Seahawks seem to agree with that logic coming into Sunday's game.
"Despite the fact that we have a 'nobody' team," Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman said, ESPN reported, "a team not full of first-rounders and things like that, we [do] have a lot of guys that play at a high level."
If the Falcons want to play like the best team in the NFC, its defense needs to step up more than it has all season to shutdown Seattle's star rookie quarterback Russell Wilson, roughshod halfback Marshawn Lynch and the team's deep stable of receivers. If the Falcons defense can step up against the pass, this could be one of the most competitive games of the weekend, but keep in mind, that's a big if; Atlanta's defense is notoriously weak against pass coverage, and struggles to put adequate pressure on QBs.
Atlanta has the 23rd ranked passing defense in the NFL, on average giving up 242.4 passing yards per game, and is ranked 28th in the NFL in QB sacks, recording just 29 on the season.
If Wilson can establish his passing game, it may be hard for Atlanta to dominate without its QB Matt Ryan piling on points, and tightly controlling the clock on offense. And the odds aren't stacked in Ryan's favor. Seattle's defense has been positively electrifying lately, completely shutting down the Washington Redskins last week and its golden boy QB Robert Griffin III. Washington had 129 yards of offense in the first quarter and just 74 for the rest of the game.
"Seventy yards in 3½ quarters is ridiculously good defense," coach Pete Carroll said after the win, which snapped Washington's seven-game winning streak.
Seattle enters Sunday's game hot off a six-game winning streak. Will the right Falcons team show up to make this a fight to the last seconds? Or will Seattle step up to prove itself once again as the NFC team to be reckoned with?
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