A look at Seahawks’ potential divisional round opponents

Jan 8, 2026, 8:14 AM | Updated: 11:10 am

Seattle Sports

After winning the NFC West and capturing the NFC’s No. 1 seed, the Seattle Seahawks have a first-round bye this weekend as they wait to find out which team they’ll host in the NFC divisional round on Jan. 18 or 19.

An area of dramatic improvement for Seattle Seahawks’ offense

As the NFC’s top seed, the Seahawks’ divisional round opponent will be the lowest remaining seed to advance through this weekend’s wild-card round.

That rules out both the No. 2 seed Chicago Bears and the No. 3 seed Philadelphia Eagles, which means Seattle will face either the No. 4 seed Carolina Panthers, the No. 5 seed Los Angeles Rams, the No. 6 seed San Francisco 49ers or the No. 7 seed Green Bay Packers.

Here’s a look at each of those four potential division round foes.

No. 4 seed Carolina Panthers (8-9)

The Seahawks face the Panthers if: the Panthers beat the Rams, the Eagles beat the 49ers and the Bears beat the Packers.

Carolina, which emerged from a three-way tiebreaker to win the woeful NFC South, would clearly be the most favorable matchup for the Seahawks.

The Panthers are just the fifth team in NFL history to reach the playoffs with a losing record. Their minus-69 point differential is the fourth-worst of any playoff team in league history. They finished 27th in scoring offense and 15th in scoring defense. And the Seahawks completely smothered them in Charlotte two weeks ago, holding them to just 139 total yards in a 27-10 win.

However, Carolina is also by far the most unlikely divisional round opponent for Seattle. The Panthers did upset the Rams 31-28 in Week 13, but it’s difficult to imagine that happening again in the playoffs. Plus, in addition to Carolina pulling a major upset of the Rams, the Seahawks would also need the Bears and Eagles to win their wild-card matchups to send the Panthers to Seattle.

As enticing as it’d be to face an 8-9 team in the divisional round, the chances of that happening are slim.

No. 5 seed Los Angeles Rams (12-5)

The Seahawks face the Rams if: the Rams beat the Panthers, the Eagles beat the 49ers and the Bears beat the Packers.

This would undoubtedly be the most difficult matchup for Seattle.

Many view the Seahawks and Rams as the two best teams in the NFL. And the advanced metrics certainly back that up, as they both finished among the top 10 teams in DVOA history dating back to 1978, according to FTN Fantasy.

The Rams won these teams’ first matchup in Week 11, intercepting Sam Darnold four times in a 21-19 win at SoFi Stadium. The Seahawks then returned the favor in improbable fashion in Week 16, rallying from a 16-point fourth-quarter deficit for a stunning 38-37 overtime victory at Lumen Field.

This would be another heavyweight showdown between Mike Macdonald’s top-ranked scoring defense and Sean McVay’s top-ranked scoring offense. The Seahawks held the Rams to just 249 total yards in Week 11, but then surrendered a franchise-record 581 total yards in the Week 16 rematch as MVP candidate Matthew Stafford and star wideout Puka Nacua had a field day in Seattle.

The other major storyline would be the matchup between Darnold and the Rams’ defense, which picked off Seattle’s QB six times in the teams’ two regular-season meetings.

In many ways, it feels like the Seahawks and Rams are on a collision course for a playoff rubber match. It might just be a question of whether it occurs in the divisional round or the NFC championship game.

No. 6 seed San Francisco 49ers (12-5)

The Seahawks face the 49ers if: the 49ers beat the Eagles and the Bears beat the Packers.

After the 49ers rallied for a 17-13 win over Seattle in Week 1, the Seahawks returned the favor with a suffocating 13-3 win over San Francisco in last Saturday night’s Week 18 showdown for the NFC West title and the No. 1 seed.

The 49ers entered the regular-season finale having won six straight since quarterback Brock Purdy returned from a toe injury in mid-November – a stretch that included an offensive tear of 42.3 points per game in Weeks 15-17. But the 49ers’ red-hot offense was no match for Seattle’s dominant defense, which held San Francisco to just 173 total yards in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score would suggest. It was the 49ers’ lowest point total since 2017 and their lowest yardage total in a regular-season game since 2016.

The 49ers have miraculously withstood another barrage of injuries this season, but they now face a tall task in having to travel cross-country to face the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles and their fifth-ranked scoring defense. And if the 49ers do get past Philadelphia and end up facing Seattle again in the playoffs, it might be one of the more favorable potential matchups for the Seahawks, given what they just did to the Niners last weekend.

No. 7 seed Green Bay Packers (9-7-1)

The Seahawks face the Packers if: the Packers beat the Bears.

Green Bay is the Seahawks’ most likely divisional round opponent. Many still consider the Packers a favorite to beat the Bears, and if that happens, they’ll be headed to Seattle.

The Packers entered the season on a short list of Super Bowl favorites after their blockbuster trade for superstar edge rusher Micah Parsons. But it’s been a much bumpier ride than anticipated, even before Parsons suffered a season-ending torn ACL in mid-December.

However, even with the Packers limping into the playoffs on a four-game losing streak (or a three-game skid, if you discard a Week 18 finale in which they rested their starters), this feels like a classic case of a team being much more dangerous than its record would suggest.

Four of the Packers’ losses came by either 3 points or in overtime, so they’re just a few plays away from potentially winning 11 or 12 games. They rank No. 5 in ESPN’s Football Power Index, an advanced metric that’s designed to measure team strength and project future performance. And after missing the final two-plus games with a concussion, starting quarterback Jordan Love is set to return. Love was quietly one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks this season, finishing third in ESPN’s QBR metric.

While the Rams are clearly the toughest potential divisional round foe for Seattle, the Packers would probably rank ahead of the 49ers as the second-toughest.