Brock: Why Rams still pose a big threat to surging Seahawks

The Seattle Seahawks are riding an eight-game win streak heading into Sunday’s NFC Championship against the Los Angeles Rams, including a thoroughly dominant 41-6 shellacking of the San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round last weekend.

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The Rams, meanwhile, have looked a bit shaky down the stretch. They lost to the 8-9 Atlanta Falcons in Week 17, needed a last-minute touchdown drive to rally past the 8-9 Carolina Panthers in the wild-card round, and needed overtime to get past the Chicago Bears in the divisional round.

With the Seahawks seemingly firing on all cylinders and the Rams on a bit of a downward trend, FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt told Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Wednesday that he thinks the Seahawks are clearly the best team remaining.

“I don’t remember a year that I felt like a single team was this much better than the other three in a long time,” Klatt said.

However, former NFL quarterback Brock Huard pushed back on that a bit.

From Huard’s view, the Seahawks may be a slight favorite, but the Rams still present a massive challenge, even with some sputtering play of late.

After all, the Rams beat the Seahawks 21-19 in Week 11 to hand them their only loss of the past three months. And the Rams nearly beat Seattle again in Week 16, building a 30-14 lead before the Seahawks staged a stunning fourth-quarter comeback for a dramatic 38-37 overtime win.

In that latter game, Rams quarterback and MVP favorite Matthew Stafford shredded Seattle’s top-ranked scoring defense for 457 passing yards. The Seahawks gave up an astounding 581 total yards that night, the most they have ever allowed in franchise history.

And while Seattle has arguably the NFL’s top defensive play-caller in head coach Mike Macdonald, the Rams have perhaps the league’s brightest offensive mind in head coach Sean McVay.

“Matthew Stafford is the MVP and Sean McVay is the equivalent of Macdonald on the other side,” Huard said. “That (Rams defensive) front has caused some issues. Their O-line is the only group that has blocked Seattle in a capable way. So this is the one team, the one matchup (that could cause problems for Seattle).

“If they both play their games, I think Seattle is better, more well-rounded, more rested, all of it. But I watched Stafford throw for (457) yards just (last month against Seattle). … He looked like a video game. So my eyes are trying to unsee that, because they had their way with the Seahawks, really in a way that nobody else has this season.”

Listen to the full Brock and Salk conversation with FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt at this link, in the video at the top of this post or in the audio player above. Tune into Brock and Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

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