Seahawks thump 49ers in playoff opener, advance to NFC championship game

SEATTLE — A second consecutive game against the 49ers repeated itself in result only.

Little else about how the Seahawks won this game — a stunningly easy 41-6 win over the 49ers in a divisional playoff game at Lumen Field — compared to their last meeting two weeks, a slog of a 13-3 win. That wasn’t decided until the final minutes and earned the Seahawks the right to play at home Saturday.

This one almost felt over 13 seconds in when Seahawks receiver Rashid Shaheed returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown.

It felt logically over when they led 24-6 at halftime.

And it was all but officially over when the Seahawks took a 34-6 lead at the end of the third quarter.

The final margin of a victory tied the Seahawks’ 43-8 win over Denver for the Seahawks’ only Super Bowl title in team history.

All three times the Seahawks have previously hosted the NFC Conference title game, they’ve advanced to the Super Bowl.

The Seahawks will get a chance to go 4 for 4 next Sunday against either the Chicago Bears or Los Angeles Rams at 3:30 p.m. at Lumen Field after leaving no doubt of their superiority over the 49ers, whom they have beaten in three of the last four games and held without a touchdown for eight straight quarters.

The day began with lots of pregame chatter of the 49ers not only wanting to avenge the loss in Santa Clara two weeks ago but what they felt was an overly raucous Seahawks celebration of their division title, specifically the smoking of cigars.

That was about all the fire the 49ers showed in this one as it was the Seahawks giving them all the smoke from the start of the game, forcing three turnovers, never letting the 49ers get past the Seattle 22, and again dominating the 49ers on the ground on both sides of the ball.

The 49ers won the coin toss and varied from their regular routine of taking the ball.

This time, they decided to kick off, possibly hoping to test just how healthy Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold was as quickly as possible.

Darnold suffered an injury to his oblique Thursday and in what almost felt like a subplot by game’s end, there was at least some doubt as the day began whether he would play.

Darnold wasn’t on the field for early warmups as he usually is, helping to fuel speculation. But he was labeled active 90 minutes before kickoff, then went through the regular warmup and from the moment the game began, looked like there’d never been a thing to worry about.

The 7-0 lead Darnold inherited the first time he took the field undoubtedly helped him feel a little better.

Shaheed used blocks from Brady Russell and Patrick O’Connell to find an immediate crease, stepped through a tackle attempt of San Francisco’s Darrell Luter Jr. and was gone.

It was his third return of a kickoff or punt for a touchdown in 10 games since he was acquired in a trade on Nov. 4. It was the third return of a kickoff in the postseason in Seahawks history and first since Percy Harvin against Denver in the Super Bowl in 2014.

The Seahawks got 10 more points in the first quarter on drives that began after they stopped the 49ers on a fourth down and forced a fumble.

Darnold showed quickly he was just fine, completing five of his first seven passes for 42 yards, including a 4-yard touchdown to Jaxon Smith-Njigba when he rolled to his left — the side of his injury — and rifled a pass that only Smith-Njigba could have caught that made it 17-0.

After the only time the 49ers showed some life on two drives that led to field goals — though each time the Seahawks came up with third-down stops to keep San Francisco from getting more — an 80-yard drive to end the half and make it 24-6 on the first of three Kenneth Walker III TD runs put it out of reach.

That brought on Lil Jon for a halftime concert that kicked off what was basically just a party in the stands during what the Seahawks’ first home playoff game in front of fans in nine years.

The Seahawks used two more fourth-down stops and another Ernest Jones-forced turnover — this time an interception — to add to the lead in the second half.

Walker turned the game into a rout when he scored on a 6-yard run to put the Seahawks ahead 41-6. That made Walker only the 18th running back in NFL history to rush for over 100 or more yards (he had 116 on 19 carries) and score three or more TDs in a playoff game, the first by a Seahawk.

After the Seahawks forced one more turnover, the Seahawks got Darnold out of the game and let Drew Lock finish up.

Darnold’s final line was a Spartan 12 of 17 for 124 yards, but that spoke to how easily the Seahawks dominated in every other phase that he didn’t have to do much.

Darnold completed five of his passes for 60 yards to Cooper Kupp, who had one of his best games as a Seahawk.

While the fourth quarter had the feel on the field of a preseason game, the few fans left basked in the glory of the Seahawks' first divisional game win since the 2014 season when the Legion of Boom was in full force.

The defense of this team labeled itself the Dark Side because it turns out the lights on the opposing offense.

Saturday, they also assured that the power will come on one more time at Lumen Field this season, 60 minutes for the Seahawks to get to their fourth Super Bowl in team history.