By one measure, Seahawks-Rams is historically great playoff matchup

By one of football’s most popular advanced metrics, Sunday’s NFC Championship between the Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams is a historically great playoff matchup.

That’s according to FTN Fantasy’s Aaron Schatz, who created a formula called DVOA, which measures a team’s overall efficiency by comparing success on every single play to a league average based on situation and opponent.

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The Seahawks finished the regular season with an NFL-best 41.3% DVOA rating, while the Rams finished No. 2 at 39.9%, per FTN Fantasy. That means the Seahawks are considered by DVOA to be 41.3% better than the average 2025 NFL team, while the Rams are considered to be 39.9% better.

And as Schatz posted Monday on social media, that makes this the first-ever playoff matchup since at least 1978 to feature two teams with regular-season DVOAs upward of 35%.

It’s also one of just seven playoff matchups over that span between two teams that finished with regular-season DVOAs of at least 30%. One of the others? The 2013 Super Bowl between the Seahawks (35.8%) and Denver Broncos (33.5%).

The Seahawks and Rams were DVOA outliers this season, as no other team finished with a DVOA above 21.5%.

The Seahawks finished No. 10 in offensive DVOA, No. 1 in defensive DVOA and No. 2 in special teams DVOA. The Rams finished No. 1 in offensive DVOA, No. 4 in defensive DVOA and No. 26 in special teams DVOA.

On the scoreboard, the Seahawks and Rams split their regular-season meetings. The Rams intercepted Sam Darnold four times on their way to a 21-19 win in Week 11 at So-Fi Stadium. The Seahawks then returned the favor in Week 16, staging a stunning 16-point fourth-quarter comeback en route to a 38-37 overtime win in Seattle.

Sunday’s NFC Championship will kick off at 3:30 p.m. at Lumen Field.

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