Takeaways from Seattle Seahawks 41-6 rout of 49ers in NFC divisional round

SEATTLE - The Seattle Seahawks delivered an emphatic statement by easily dispatching a short-handed San Francisco 49ers in a 41-6 romp on Saturday night to reach their fourth NFC championship game in franchise history.

Despite being one of only eight teams remaining in the playoffs, the Seahawks made the 49ers look like a team that didn't belong on the same field. Seattle thoroughly dominated their NFC West rival in nearly every aspect of the game to move just one more victory away from a return trip to the Super Bowl.

"What an atmosphere. Holy smokes," head coach Mike Macdonald said. "The 12s, just our organization putting on a great setting. You do try to actually try to take some time and look around and just understand how incredibly blessed we are with the best fans in the world. It definitely made an impact to start the game. I just want to appreciate this. That was awesome, freakin' awesome."

The 49ers myriad injury issues caught up to them in brutal fashion on Saturday night. Not only were they missing stars like Fred Warner, Nick Bosa and George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey was briefly knocked out of the game due to a stinger, and Kittle's replacement – Jake Tonges – left the game with a foot injury and did not return.

It made for a mismatch of significant proportion that the Seahawks made sure to exploit, cruising to a 35-point victory that matches their Super Bowl XLVIII win over the Denver Broncos for the largest postseason margin of victory in franchise history.

Seattle dominated in all three phases of the game. Ken Walker III matched a franchise record with three rushing touchdowns and 116 yards on 19 carries, Rashid Shaheed returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown, and the defense combined for three forced turnovers and three turnovers on downs against a 49ers' offense that managed just nine points combined in their last two games against the Seahawks.

"All three phases of our team showed up, and that's just great to see, and just a overall great game by our guys. I'm just super proud of them," receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba said.

The down was so total and complete that starters began to take a seat early in the fourth quarter.

It's a performance that felt every bit as dominant as that Super Bowl win over the Broncos felt 12 years ago. And the Seahawks look like a team that is fully capable of matching that achievement.

Here are the takeaways from the victory over the 49ers:

This game might have been over after 13 seconds.

Rashid Shaheed's 95-yard kickoff return touchdown to open the game immediately felt like a seismic blow to the 49ers' chances of competing with the Seahawks.

Seattle's special teams unit under coordinator Jay Harbaugh has been among the league's best all season long, and they delivered immediately to give the Seahawks a 7-0 lead after just 13 seconds. 

"It was awesome," Smith-Njigba said. "You know, I've never started a game like that. So for him to do that, you know, I was in awe and super excited. And we talked about starting fast, and It don't get no faster than that."

Shaheed took advantage of key blocks from Brady Russell and Tyrice Knight, and broke a tackle from Chase Lucas to spring into the clear. Kicker Eddy Piñeiro attempted a soccer-style slide tackle on Shaheed that brought a flag for tripping as Shaheed raced free for a touchdown as Lumen Field erupted.

"It was a crazy experience," Shaheed said. "It built momentum for the rest of the game. Shoutout to Jay Harbaugh for putting all of us on the right page each and every week. Big shoutout to him."

The seven points alone would have been enough to beat the 49ers at the end of the day. Of course, it's probably not quite that simple. But by the end of the first quarter, the result was never close to being doubt again.

Shaheed's touchdown is the third postseason kickoff return for a touchdown in Seahawks' history and just the 28th in league history. Percy Harvin had an 86-yard touchdown in Seattle's 43-8 victory over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII, and Charlie Rogers had an 85-yard touchdown in a 20-17 loss to the Miami Dolphins in the 1999 playoffs. It's the first kickoff return touchdown in the playoffs since Dion Lewis had a 98-yard return for the New England Patriots against the Houston Texans in the 2016 playoffs.

Is it possible this defense has found ANOTHER gear?

The Seahawks' defense has stuffed 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan into a locker over the last two games.

Seattle held the 49ers to just nine points combined in the last two games, and was coming off a third standout effort against the Carolina Panthers in Week 17 as well.

Brock Purdy and the 49ers were expending immense effort just to move the football successfully. Purdy was frequently scrambling around to evade pressure and try to manufacture something positive. But even on the rare occasions he succeeded, the 49ers still couldn't deliver the points needed to keep up with Seattle.

If not for a 56-yard field goal from Piñeiro that just scraped over the crossbar, it would have been another three-point performance for the 49ers.

"Our preparation, our hard work, I mean we kind of expected this," linebacker Uchenna Nwosu said. "We know how hard we work. He work all week. We deserve this moment, man. Everybody capitalized. We had our mindset from the beginning that we own these guys. We don't like the Niners, so they deserved that ass whoopin.'"

With the way the unit has played since the second half of the win over the Los Angeles Rams in December, it's hard to envision any team capable of scoring against this group right now.

Ernest Jones IV stripped Jake Tonges for a fumble and intercepted Purdy, and DeMarcus Lawrence stripped Purdy on a sack as well for three total turnovers on the night. That was paired with three separate fourth down stops for turnovers on downs, including a 14-yard sack of Purdy by Leonard Williams on a 4th-and-2.

"That's the style we want to play, that complementary football," Jones said. "Getting turnovers on defense, that's something we strive to do, and the offense being able to capitalize and get touchdowns out of that. It builds our confidence. We just want to go get the ball more now and give them more opportunities to go get as many points as we can."

The 49ers didn't even reach the Seattle red zone one time in the game. Meanwhile, the Seahawks had six red zone possessions in the win.

The Rams are the only team in seven games to score more than 16 points against this defense, with five games of 10 points or less. That carried Seattle to finishing the season as the No. 1 scoring defense in the NFL. And they don't appear to be slowing down now.

"Player for player, we felt we had an advantage," safety Julian Love said. "We play hard collectively, we play for each other. We’ve got some dogs, we’ve got some killers out there. We felt confident just playing – rubber meets the road – and played hard."

Ken Walker III continues rushing attack resurgence.

The late-season surge from the ground game of the Seahawks has been a major development.

Ken Walker III rushed for 116 yards and three touchdowns on 19 carries in the win over the 49ers as Seattle put up 175 rushing yards overall. It's the fourth consecutive game with at least 160 rushing yards in a game.

"Tremendous," Macdonald said. "It's everybody. Our coaches deserve a ton of credit. K-9 (Walker) obviously had a great game. A lot of it is coming on wide zone, you know that's something that we've been having to work all year and that's where we hang our hat on, so it's great to see it come to life."

It's just the third time in franchise history that the Seahawks have rushed for 160 yards in four straight games, and the first time since finishing the 2018 regular season with five such games.

"I don’t think it’s anything spectacular that we're doing," right tackle Abe Lucas said. "It's just trusting the coaching and continuing to improve and get better. The idea that you have to make a gigantic leap from one week to the next is unrealistic, but credit to the guys that I play next to. Like I’ve said all season, it’s a slow process, and we just keep getting better at it."

Walker's three touchdown runs matched Shaun Alexander's three scores in a 2003 playoff game against the Green Bay Packers for the most in a playoff game in franchise history.

"It means a lot," Walker said. "We worked at it all season. I just got to give the credit to the O-line. They had the holes there, and all I had to do was hit it.

"You can see it when they’re breathing, they’re tired. They’re slow to get up. You can see it being demoralizing to them. We just gotta keep doing that."

Rashid Shaheed also broke free for a 30-yard gain on an endaround to compliment his kickoff return touchdown to lead-off the game, which helped fill the void from Zach Charbonnet being sidelined with a knee injury.

"When we have the dynamic backfield that we do, we've just got to give them a chance. You’ve got to move the line of scrimmage to give them a chance," guard Grey Zabel said. "When he’s running the ball like he (Kenneth Walker III) is, it’s pretty incredible. It’s super fun to block for a guy like that, we just love doing our job up front."

The improvement of the rushing attack has balanced out the offense and made the team far more dangerous in the playoffs.

Sam Darnold delivers gutsy effort for first playoff win.

Playing through an oblique injury suffered just two days ago in practice, Sam Darnold played a practically flawless game as he piloted the Seahawks to a win for the first playoff victory of his career.

Darnold completed 12-of-17 passes for 124 yards and a touchdown with no turnovers to put Seattle one win away from reaching the Super Bowl.

"Tremendous," Macdonald said. "Couple of plays early that I think to get in the swing of things. But I say 'manage' the game as a very high-powered compliment. Just throwing it on time, taking care of the ball, making the plays when we need to."

Darnold didn't take the field for early warm-ups, which at least raised eyebrows as to whether he was going to be able to play after all. However, Darnold changed his warm-up routine in an attempt to manage the oblique injury. He warmed up in the locker room in order to avoid having to warm-up twice and risk the injury tightening up again.

"I didn't want to waste any time getting warm on the field and coming in, having 40 minutes to get warm again and then go back out," Darnold said. "I just wanted to get warm once and then go back out there in the pads. So that was why I did it that way."

But once Darnold was out on the field, he had no intention of holding back.

"I was going to let it rip no matter what," Darnold said. "That was never a question in my mind. Because if I wasn't able to give it 100 percent then I think I would be doing this team a disservice. So I was going to let it rip, and if my body said, no, you're not going to do that, then I would have told my coaches and we would have gone from there."

Darnold seemed capable of making every movement and throw he needed in the game. His 4-yard touchdown throw to Smith-Njigba challenged every part of his ability, forcing him to roll to his left and rip a pass while rotating hard into his injured left side. 

"You know, it was definitely a concern," Smith-Njigba said of Darnold. "You see it all over the media and stuff. But once he gave me that thumbs up, you know, we knew that he was hurting, but he was going to get through it. He gave me the thumbs up. And, you know, I knew we were going to be ready to rock.

"He had everything he needed. He said the adrenaline was going to get him going. And, you know, I know that he's going to find a way, you know, no matter what. He's a warrior, and happy to have him on our team."

Darnold said it's an injury he's going to have to manage the rest of the playoffs, but that he felt fine throughout Saturday's victory.

"I felt good, and if I did get hurt, I feel like you all would have probably known about it," Darnold said. "So, no, I felt really good the entire game. And any hits I did take I didn't feel it on that side."

In addition to the touchdown to Smith-Njigba, Darnold made a few really big throws. A 21-yard strike to Cooper Kupp on 2nd-and-20 may have been his best of the night, and a third down conversion to Jake Bobo set up Walker's first touchdown of the night.

MORE SEAHAWKS NEWS FROM FOX 13 SEATTLE

Ken Walker III rushes for 3 TDs as Seattle Seahawks roll to NFC championship

How to watch Seattle Seahawks NFC championship game

49ers vs Seattle Seahawks scores, updates in NFL divisional playoffs

Seahawks vs 49ers: NFL Playoff Preview

Mike Macdonald shares optimism Sam Darnold will play for Seattle Seahawks

To get the best local news, weather and sports in Seattle for free, sign up for the daily FOX Seattle Newsletter.

Download the free FOX LOCAL app for mobile in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store for live Seattle news, top stories, weather updates and more local and national news.