The Seattle Seahawks forced the Los Angeles Rams to confront a bigger reality in 2025. Two regular-season clashes and an NFC Championship showdown later, Seattle walked away with a 2–1 edge in the season series, including the one that mattered most in January.
That final meeting at Lumen Field painted a vivid picture of where the two sides currently stand on paper. It was the hinge point of the Rams’ season, and maybe their ceiling. Because for all the firepower Los Angeles rolled out, the Seahawks proved they were the standard the Rams still haven’t cleared.
Seattle Seahawks Set the Benchmark, Los Angeles Rams Still Haven’t Cleared
Let’s roll it back… The first meeting in Week 11 tilted toward Los Angeles, a 21–19 win built on defensive moments. Sam Darnold was picked off four times, and the Rams rode that turnover margin behind contributions from Kyren Williams and Davante Adams.
But the rematch flipped everything. In Week 16, Seattle pulled off a 38–37 overtime win that instantly entered the chaos hall of fame. Down 16 in the fourth quarter, the Seahawks clawed back, capped by the controversial “Zachwards Pass” sequence that tied the game on a two-point conversion.
Then came the decider: the NFC Championship Game. The Rams got production, Matthew Stafford threw for 374 yards and three touchdowns, but couldn’t finish.
A late fourth-down breakup by Devon Witherspoon sealed a 31–27 Seahawks win and sent Seattle to Super Bowl LX.
That’s the thread running through all three games. Execution. Or lack of it. In a one-on-one interview session with the ‘Ratings’, Byron Young gets real on the LA Rams situation.
“We have to finish,” Young said when breaking down the gap. “That’s a complete team. That’s a team where you can’t give them a chance… You can’t make mistakes like that, the small mistakes we made, because that’s how you lose.
“Beating a team like that is eliminating the mistakes and capitalizing off their mistakes… they score, they’re going to make big plays, because that is a good team.”
The problem for Los Angeles is that the margin for error isn’t getting any wider. The Rams head into 2026 staring at a challenging slate. They’ll run through the NFC East and AFC West, while still seeing Seattle and the San Francisco 49ers twice. It’s a grind. And it’s familiar; the Rams faced a similar strength curve in 2025.
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They have the metrics backing them. PFSN’s NFL Offense Impact metrics rank their offense as the No. 1 overall for last season. PFSN’s DEFi ranks the Rams’ defense as No. 5.
The difference now is expectation. This isn’t a team building toward contention. This is a roster expected to break through. The core is intact, the veterans are in place, and the infrastructure under Sean McVay isn’t in question.
