Summary
Live game recap of the 2026 NFC Championship Game — Seahawks 31, Rams 27. Sam Darnold’s career playoff performance (346 yards, 3 TDs, 0 turnovers) and Devon Witherspoon’s fourth-down stop in the end zone were the decisive plays. Seattle advances to Super Bowl LX vs. New England.
Key Points
- Darnold: 25/36, 346 yards, 3 TDs, 0 turnovers — answered every question about his big-game ability
- Jaxon Smith-Njigba: 10 catches, 153 yards, 1 TD — 2nd most receiving yards by a Seahawk in any playoff game
- Witherspoon’s end zone pass breakup on 4th-and-4 with 4:59 remaining preserved the lead — the game-deciding defensive play
- Costly: Riq Woolen’s taunting penalty extended a Rams 3rd-and-12 stop into a first down → Stafford hit Nacua for a TD; Seahawks lead shrank from 31-20 to 31-27
- Stafford: 374 yards, 3 TDs — Rams offense was legitimate, undone by Xavier Smith’s muffed punt (turned directly into a Seahawks TD)
- Cooper Kupp (ex-Rams) caught the first-down conversion that helped Seattle run clock in the final minutes
- Darnold became the first USC Trojan QB ever to start a Super Bowl (per CBS recap merged in)
- Super Bowl LX is a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX (Feb 2015, the Malcolm Butler interception game) — first time since 2005 that two franchises with prior Super Bowl history meet again in the championship game (per AP wire merged in)
Newsletter Angles
- Darnold’s redemption arc: cast aside by the Jets, ignored by the Vikings, won in the biggest game of his career. The organizational context thesis is validated.
- Witherspoon’s stop as the moment the scheme earned its Super Bowl — the defensive architecture built by Macdonald delivered when it mattered most
Entities Mentioned
- Sam Darnold — QB; career performance and zero-turnover game
- Jaxon Smith-Njigba — WR; 153 yards and a TD
- Seattle Seahawks — advancing to Super Bowl LX
- Mike Macdonald — HC; his defense delivered the final stop
Concepts Mentioned
- Defensive Scheme Architecture — Witherspoon stop as proof of concept
Notes
Definitive game recap. Two versions exist in raw — this Yahoo! Sports live-blog version and the CBS News recap. Both used; this one has more tactical detail.