Should be a nice midseason bump, but honestly I'd rather have the offensive line back from injuries.

A wiser fellow than myself once said, "sometimes you hunt the Bears, and sometimes the Bears, well, they hunt you."

The Seahawks are past their "can't win on the road" image but they are still a different team at home than on the road. And you know what, so are the Saints. You think a dome team that struggles on the road is going to win in the CLink, where the Hawks haven't lost in 2 years, when it's 38 degrees and wet? Any given Monday, but that's not how I see it going...

Santa Clara has a Hell of a lot more on the line than Seattle, who have practically locked up 1st place in the NFC since they have tie-breakers over everyone. However I suspect Seattle would take great pleasure screwing them over in the wildcard race so I expect they won't let up as much as Vegas seems to.

Wow, lots of preemptive Seahawks hate from fans back East. Shouldn't you all be worrying about making the playoffs before you get scared about coming to Seattle?

Speaking of Cutler sucking (well his mom sucking anyway) these are pretty hilarious...

http://profootballmock.com/category/nfl-qbs-on-facebook/

They're in reverse order, so you might want to go back a bit to get the personalities of the different characters.

The Niners have already lost to all three of the remaining NFC teams this season. If they don't go out to Carolina, who has twice the defense of the injury depleted Packers, they'll just end up with another humiliating defeat in Seattle.

Oooh, a 2 point win at home, we're quaking with fear.

Well, there's a loss and there's a 29-3 shellacking, but your basic theory is sound.

I'll admit I'd rather have the Panthers win, because as sweet as crushing the Niners would be I'm a big believer in the theory that your team winning is a lot less enjoyable than your team losing is painful, and the 49ers probably have a better shot in Seattle. Of course if they got whupped again that would probably put the voodoo on CK so bad that he'll never be able to win in the Clink.

We're allowed to ignore the Saints because Seattle crushed them by 27 points like a month ago and New Orleans hasn't beaten a good team all season.

Sorry, that trolling was directed at The_Dude_Abides, not Saints fans.

BEN ROETHLISBERGER: BECAUSE THE SAINTS BEAT THE 49ERS

No way they get blown out again, but I do think the Seahawks will probably handle the Saints in Seattle. Even with this weeks win, NO just isn't the same team on the road.

Is it game time yet?...

Well, one would assume the Chargers or Broncos, since the rest of those teams are from the NFC (you know, that other conference where teams have defenses.)

Nice opening drive by the Refs there.

Stupid flag football bullshit...

The unnecessary roughness call on the tipped ball. The ball was still in the air and it was a perfectly clean hit.

I honestly can't imagine going to an away NFL game anywhere these days. Big crowds of drunk people are nasty everywhere. How many post game stabbings did we have this year?

Why is it so hard for you guys to understand that everyone outside of SF thinks Harbaugh and Kaepernick are colossal d-bags? I can certainly see why everybody outside SEA thinks Carroll and Sherman are a-holes.

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How many times does he need to get crushed before you admit Kaepernick can't win in the CLink? 3? 5? 10? That crowd doesn't get quiet just because the Seahawks fall behind.

The 49ers are a great team, but there's a reason they didn't win their division, the Seahawks are better. The "inconsistent" Seattle offense scored more points than San Francisco, the defense allowed far fewer points, their recent home loss was the first in two seasons and it's been even longer since they lost any game by more than a touchdown.

The whole "no visiting fans" thing is a joke. A: these mythical extra tickets were sold out in about 18 seconds, and B: exactly the same policy is in place for Denver. If anybody thinks both the teams independently came up with that instead of the control freaks running NFL corporate you've had more concussions than a retired NFL receiver.

Wow, that poster of the 'roid rage dude really epitomizes the kind of smash-mouth tough as nails football the Patriots are known for.

What's the O/U on the AFC game, like 90?...

Denver 41 - New England 34

Seattle 20 - San Francisco 16

'Hawks fan. Too busy getting ulcers to post.

I was just thinking that whatever happens in the rest of this game the NFC West is going to be obscene next year...

Walk like an Egyptian, fools.

Going for the post game quote from the guy notorious for talking smack right after he gets flagged for taunting. That's just smart broadcasting...

I admit it was a bit over the top, but way less offensive than a lot of the comments in this very thread.

"No class"? looks to me like he was teaching class...

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The fumble call was inexcusable, but they did get it back via instant karma so it really had no effect on the outcome.

As far as I can tell from http://static.nfl.com/static/content/public/image/rulebook/pdfs/15_Rule12_Player_Conduct.pdf roughing the kicker isn't actually defined how the Fox bozo claimed (he seems to get these wrong on a regular basis) not sure if I would have been mad about that one going the other way or not, on replay the contact was pretty incidental.

It was a great game. I still think Kaepernick is a tool, but damn is he an amazing athlete, he almost single handedly won that game in the first half. If he gets better with his passing game reads in the future he's going to have a lot more of these big games to compete in. I really hope the Bowman injury isn't as serious as it looked.

The stats nerds disagree: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamdef

I don't know, maybe that's how he would have called it based on the fact that "potential for injury" is to be considered.

Erin Andrews did fine. She should have expected some talk because that's EXACTLY why they sent her to Sherman, they knew he'd give them a good sound bite. Maybe her broadcast team assumed she'd know that or maybe they screwed up by not warning her, but I guarantee that's what the guys in the control room wanted.

And here we are two days later talking about a player most casual NFL viewers don't know from Adam, so he got what he wanted as well. That notoriety is money in the bank come contract time.

With a 3.9 GPA and a degree in communications. He knows exactly what he's doing. I guess maybe that's not well known outside of Seahawks country.

I have no doubt he's a smartass and a ruthless competitor, but I don't think he's an asshat.

http://extramustard.si.com/2014/01/20/richard-sherman-choke-sign-beats-ad/

He had great grades in HS as well and I've never heard a word but praise about any of his non-football actions. It's easy enough to read his backstory if you're interested. I understand if people believe that his football persona is what he's actually like, since that's all any of us fans are likely to ever see, I just don't think it's true.

EDIT: Good SI article if anyone cares. Quote that sums it up for me - "According to Donerson, eight players from Sherman's graduating class earned scholarships to Division I schools, several of whom had walked into the coach's office at one point or another to ask, 'How do I get into college? Because if I don't, Sherm is never going to let me hear the end of it.'"

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/news/20140120/richard-sherman-seattle-seahawks/index.html#all

EDIT: Removed direct response.

We strongly disagree about how controversial his comments were.

I'm fine with it staying a beatdown.

Let's see if Percy gets a chance to run back the 2nd half kickoff...

Man, the halftime show is lame even by the unbelievably low standards of the Super Bowl halftime show.

Guess so.

They should just broadcast the audio from the miked up players they use for the "sounds of the game" segment. That would be awesome, listen to the local radio home team guys if you need announcers.

Yeah, that Seattle game where he went 0 for 0 is especially impressive.

The Packers have a rushing game that Seattle needed to defend against, the Patriots don't. I don't think they'll shake up Brady, he's too experienced, but they'll certainly go after him more than Rodgers.

Yes, in hindsight they had no need to cheat in the Championship game, but they didn't know that at the time and they chose to cheat (and there's exactly 0% chance that 2PSI below the limit on 11/12 balls was anything other than deliberate cheating.)

They only beat the Ravens by 4 points, did they cheat in that game as well?

Apparently I know more about the NFL policies on game balls from having seen that 10 minute behind the scenes with the refs on game day video than Bill Belichick does after 20 years as an NFL coach. He threw Brady under the bus.

I haven't seen anyone else report that the balls were only one PSI under, and you think that's the sort of thing the NFL would want to correct ASAP, but even if that's true it would require something like an 80 degree temperature drop during the game. There's no chance this wasn't done deliberately by somebody in the Patriots organization (or an official at their request, which would be a WAY bigger scandal.)

Since they've already reanimated the corpses of Hans and Franz how is there not a new Deflategate "Pump you up" ad out already? Saving it for the Superbowl?

All the balls were supplied by the home team until about 10 years ago when they changed the rules to each team providing their own. The change was lobbied by two superstar QBs, Peyton Manning and (I'll give you one guess.)

Last years Broncos were better on paper than this years Patriots and the Seahawks turned them into a little puddle of goo after a very close NFCCG... scared?

"It didn't flip", Seriously? If I was a Green Bay fan I'd have a few choice words about these refs. Missing interference calls is one thing but the coin flip?...

Ouch. Looks like this is the game where that disastrous Unger/Graham trade comes home to roost.

I know what commentary team I'll be listening to.

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