Can both teams lose? NFC title game is a painful rooting situation for 49ers fans
San Francisco 49ers fans have every right to be frustrated with the upcoming NFC Championship Game on Sunday.
It’s being played between two of their biggest rivals, the Los Angeles Rams and Seattle Seahawks, and the winner moves on to play in the Super Bowl — at Levi’s Stadium. Woof.
Not only were the 49ers hit with devastating injury after devastating injury in 2025, but they overachieved and came surprisingly close to their third trip to the Super Bowl under Kyle Shanahan since 2019. But the season ended with a blowout loss in Seattle last week, removing the dream scenario of the 49ers lifting the Lombardi Trophy on their home field.
So no one would blame you, members of The 49ers Faithful, for spending Sunday on your favorite Sierra ski slopes, getting quality time with in-laws, doing some early shopping for Valentine's Day or getting a head start on spring cleaning instead of watching two hated rivals square off.
Or maybe you’ll fire up YouTube to watch highlights of college receivers and pass rushers who might be available when San Francisco picks 27th in April’s NFL draft.
For the rest of you, there are plenty of reasons to tune into Rams-Seahawks, even if you wish, somehow, both teams could fail. The NFC title game airs 3:30 p.m. Pacific time on Fox.
An elite match up of coaches and teams
The NFC West was the best division in the NFL in 2025 and the only division to send three teams to the playoffs. The talented coaches are a big reason why.
Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald is making a case for being the best coach in the NFL. The Seahawks are an NFL-best 21-5 over their last 26 games while setting franchise records in 2025 with 14 regular season wins, 483 points scored and a plus-191 point differential.
Two years into his tenure, Macdonald’s team is arguably the most dominant team in Seattle history, which includes the infamous “Legion of Boom” squad that won the Super Bowl after the 2013 campaign. McDonald’s defenses have ranked in the top three in opponents’ scoring in three of the last four years, including when he was the defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens in 2022 and 2023.
On the other side is offensive guru Sean McVay, who coached the Rams to a Super Bowl in 2021 after acquiring quarterback Matt Stafford to help get over the hump. McVay, a Shanahan disciple, is considered one of the best Xs and Os minds in football, and one of the best motivators. The Rams offense ranks first in the NFL in yards and scoring.
The two teams’ combined DVOA — the advanced metric that evaluates team efficiency relative to the entire league — is the highest in postseason history.
So even if you hate both teams as a 49ers fan, it still promises to be one of the best matchups in a playoff game we’ll ever see.
How will the 49ers measure up in the future?
The 49ers have already discussed how badly they need to add team speed and play making to the offense this spring — particularly after the offense was limited to just 9 points against Seattle their games Week 18 and the divisional round, combined.
Defensively, there’s a clear need to improve the pass rush, which was a major issue when the Rams came to Levi’s Stadium Nov. 9 and Stafford passed for four touchdowns while getting sacked just once during the 42-26 blowout.
Put another way, San Francisco’s two biggest needs this offseason can be traced directly to how their games went against Seattle and L.A. What do they need to add so they can keep pace in a division so strong that their two best rivals both made it to the conference title game?
Getting play-making receivers to open up the passing game, and taking the onus off Christian McCaffrey, would better help the 49ers take on the Seahawks. And improving the pass rush, and getting Nick Bosa and Fred Warner back from their season-ending injuries, will be key in slowing down Stafford and the Rams.
Which fans would you rather not have around Super Bowl week?
The 49ers are 11-8 against McVay and the Rams since both began their jobs in 2017. And, anecdotally, there doesn’t appear to be the same level of hatred for L.A. fans as there are the “12s” of Seattle.
49ers fans have been known to take over SoFi Stadium in L.A. during road games without much resistance from the home crowd, with many season ticket holders presumably selling their seats to visiting fans. Meanwhile, Seahawks fans tend to hate 49ers fans and take pride in creating one of the most hostile home environments in the NFL, especially when the 49ers come to town.
After all, nowhere else in the NFL are 49ers players regularly stealing and ripping up signs made by the home crowd.
So which fan base would 49ers prefer not to have roaming around the Bay Area during Super Bowl week? An educated guess: the Seahawks’ and their neon green and blue garb would be far less welcome than Rams fans, who have generally been treated as afterthoughts by 49ers fans.
By that theory: The Faithful should be rooting for the Rams to win on Sunday for a more peaceful Super Bowl week with less neon green scattered around the Bay Area.
What about the AFC?
It’s a strange year on the other side of the bracket. For the first time since after the 2018 season, Patrick Mahomes won’t be in the AFC championship game, televised noon Sunday on CBS. Nor will Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson or Joe Burrow.
The earlier of Sunday’s two title games, after some squinting, will feature the Denver Broncos hosting the New England Patriots led by quarterbacks Jarrett Stidham and Drake Maye, respectively. It’s not quite what anyone expected last August.
Stidham, Denver’s backup, is playing because the Broncos lost starter Bo Nix with a fractured ankle late in their win over Allen and the Bills last week. Stidham hasn’t thrown a pass in a game since the season finale of 2018 when he started against the Raiders.
Fittingly, Stidham will be going against the team that drafted him. He was a fourth-round draft pick by the Patriots in 2019. He fell to the third string in 2021 behind current 49ers quarterback Mac Jones and one-time 49ers quarterback Brian Hoyer before being traded to the Raiders.
Maye has quickly become an MVP candidate in his second season while playing for Mike Vrabel, who has reinvigorated the Patriots organization after three straight seasons of missing the playoffs post-Tom Brady’s departure. So while it appears to be a non-traditional matchup lacking the typical star power of a Mahomes, Allen, Jackson or Burrow match up, Stidham against his former team and Maye trying to become New England’s next iconic quarterback serve as intriguing story lines.
All four teams remaining in the Super Bowl chase have won at least one — the Patriots six, the Broncos three, the Rams two and the Seahawks one — since the 49ers’ last Super Bowl victory in 1995.
