A month ago, the Rams looked like a near-complete team. Special teams aside, they had answers everywhere. Coaching. Quarterback. Playmakers. A defense that could steal a game if necessary. They’re still a formidable opponent, but cracks have started to emerge.
The Rams barely survived their divisional round game against the Chicago Bears, and Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford spent the aftermath conducting a public inquest into their own performance. McVay admitted he had been guilty of “bad coaching” against the Bears. Stafford acknowledged he needs to play better. Neither was wrong. And yet, in the game’s final moments, Stafford still delivered the throws that mattered, and the Rams escaped thanks to their defense creating adecisive turnover.
McVay, belatedly, rediscovered the rushing game against the Bears. He ran the ball 19 times in the fourth quarter and overtime after barely doing so for three quarters. It was less an adjustment than a confession: McVay had been too pass-centric. His gameplan was wrong. And that has been the Rams’ greatest strength on offense this season: they can switch up their strategy during a game. But their two playoff games have shown fractures within the offense.
Stafford is not playing well. Against Chicago, he looked rattled and confused as the Bears sent every manner of blitz his way. He made late – and poor – decisions, offering the ball up for grabs or refusing to let it go. On Sunday, he had 11 off-target throws, according to ESPN, his most ever in a playoff game. More than that, he looked uncomfortable in the pocket against a blah Bears pass-rush, moving into pressure and struggling when pushed off his spot. It’s true that McVay didn’t give him enough answers, but Stafford is a limited player at this stage of his career when players are not open by design and he’s forced to create on the fly.
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Stafford is taking significantly more sacks in the postseason than he did in the regular season. His offensive line has allowed four times as many free runners on the quarterback as it did before the playoffs. To win it all, the Rams will have to get past relentless pass rushes.
First up is the sternest test. It’s Seattle, on the road. The Seahawks are a tough matchup for anyone. They are particularly tough for the Rams. For as flexible as McVay and Stafford can be on offense, the Seahawks can match them. It will fall on the offensive line, McVay’s play calling, and the team’s protection plan to keep Stafford clean. No team creates as much confusion or crafts as many free runners as the Seahawks. They force the offensive line to communicate and roll out pressure from every conceivable angle.
The Rams can limit some of the blows to Stafford with their run game. They led the league in rush success rate this season and were the only team to crack 50%. In both playoff games, it’s the run they’ve turned to when things have been tight. If the Rams’ offensive line can keep Stafford clean and push the Seahawks’ defensive front off the ball, then the game will be in the hands of a great quarterback and his two star receivers.
Seattle Seahawks: Defense
After hammering the San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round, the Seahawks are firm favorites to win the Super Bowl. There are no holes with this team. Sam Darnold, playing through an injured oblique, barely had to do anything against San Francisco. From the opening kickoff, the Seahawks controlled the game and led by three scores at half-time.
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It’s small margins that often matter in the playoffs, and all those things tilt in Seattle’s direction. They’re running the ball better than at any point this season – and have the No 1 special teams unit in the playoff field.
Still, this is a team who flow through their defense. The unit finished the regular season first in EPA/play, and was again dominant against the Niners last week. Everywhere you look, there are game-wreckers: DeMarcus Lawrence, Byron Murphy II, Leonard Williams, Devon Witherspoon and Nick Emmanwori. But it’s the non-household names such as Ty Okada, Uchenna Nwosu, Josh Jobe and Julian Love who push this group from being great to one of the best in the past 26 years. They are violent. They rush the passer. They shut down opposing run games. In coverage, they are tricky to decipher and play with all-out effort.
Darnold in the second half of the season may not be at the same level as Stafford or Drake Maye, but his defense is the great equaliser.
Denver Broncos: Pass rush
Bo Nix’s injury is cruel. He put together the best performance of his young career to beat the Buffalo Bills in the divisional round. Now, he’s done for the season with a broken ankle.
Enter Jarrett Stidham, who hasn’t thrown a meaningful pass in two years and has never played in the postseason. At center, Denver could be down to a third-stringer, depending on the health of Alex Forsyth. None of this is ideal, particularly for an offense that lives on its pass protection.
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If the Broncos are to survive and advance, their pass rush must step up. It ran a little cold against the Bills, but it has been the team’s superpower all season.
The Broncos led the league in pressures and sacks in the regular season. Vance Joseph, the team’s defensive coordinator, has become more selective about when he blitzes, but the group almost always gets home when he adds extra spice. When sending five or more pass-rushers this season, the Broncos have a 50% pressure rate. Creating havoc in the backfield and forcing turnovers is the Broncos’ best path forward. They cannot expectStidham to go on a Nick Foles-type run. (He did look good in preseason, Broncos fans!) Edge rusher Nik Bonitto is liable to swing a game on any given snap. He isn’t the most efficient pass rusher, but he is the most explosive remaining in the playoff field. Without timely blitzes and constant pressure from Bonitto, Zach Allen, Malcolm Roach and Jonathan Cooper, the Broncos have no shot.
Denver’s defense has been strong all season. It will need to be special on Sunday and, possibly, beyond. Without Nix, the margin is too thin.
Drake Maye has plenty of thinking to do before Sunday’s game. Photograph: Steven Senne/AP
New England Patriots: The good version of Drake Maye
The Patriots were not dazzling against Houston. They were, however, effective at the right times. Now they are one win away from the Super Bowl. Again.
New England’s defense deserves credit. Sure, CJ Stroud threw up on himself last week. But it was the same with the Los Angeles Chargers’ Justin Herbert, whom the Patriots faced the week before. In both games, the Patriots’ defensive line wrecked shop, with the secondary helping out by masking coverage. The offense did enough against the Chargers and Texans. That has been New England’s formula this season. You can point out the favorable path, the injuries to opponents and the fortunate breaks. None of that is wrong. This is not a juggernaut. Then again, neither was the team that shocked the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI to kick off the Brady-Belichick run.
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The Patriots’ defense is good, but it is vulnerable. Against the Chargers, the defense conceded a 38% (!) wide-open target rate to receivers, the highest in a playoff game in six seasons. Herbert simply made poor reads and struggled to maintain his composure as his offensive line melted down. Stroud pieced together one of the worst single postseason performances in history, lobbing the ball up to the Pats defense even when he had receivers open. There will be opportunities for Sean Payton and Stidham down the field. And if New England make it to the Super Bowl, the Rams or Seahawks will be a different magnitude of challenge.
Which means the decisive plays will be in the hands of their own quarterback. Maye could wind up being the league’s MVP. He has been spectacular all season, and he can create plays out of nothing or rip a defense apart by sticking to the scheme. But he has not been as solid in the playoffs as he was during the regular season. Yes, he’s played two outstanding defenses, but it’s also not getting any easier from here on in.
Maye has been at fault for too many negative plays. He has a 50% pressure-to-sack rate in the playoffs and has doubled his turnover-worthy play rate, per PFF. Sure, his offensive line has been beaten up, but he’s also held on to the ball too long. For Maye, that’s usually fine. He can offset those negatives with spectacular throws for chunk yardage. In both playoff games, he has made timely big-time throws – often for scores – to help mitigate the down-to-down struggles.
Taking sacks is one thing. Turning it over is something else. In the playoffs, Maye has contracted a vicious case of fumble-itis, coughing up the ball six times in two games. If it’s going to be in his hands to decide a tight contest, he cannot put the ball in harm’s way. If he can be the quarterback he was in the regular season, the Patriots have a good shot at their first championship of the post-Belichick/Brady era.
SEATTLE — From my first visit as an adult, I was absolutely smitten with this city with snow-capped mountains and glistening bodies of water visible on all sides.
The decision to move here when my wife was accepted to Seattle University was probably one of the easiest and most fortuitous choices I’ve ever made. I loved the city’s topography, how people went outside no matter the weather and even the weather itself. I would often feel as if I was living someplace I would have chosen to vacation.
But it was soccer that made me feel like part of the city myself, like I had found my new home. I’ve often talked about how watching the Sounders win their first U.S. Open Cup at the George & Dragon was my first real introduction to the team. A few months later, I started working at Sounder at Heart. That summer, I experienced my first World Cup in Seattle. We showed up to a bar at 6 AM to get a spot for the USA-England match, and barely even got in. Bars all over town were packed, even when the USA wasn’t playing.
It was then that I started imagining what it would be like for the World Cup to actually come here.
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Although the United States’ 4–1 loss to Belgium on Monday wasn’t exactly the way I wanted it to end, I can safely say the Seattle World Cup experience exceeded even my lofty dreams.
Picking one highlight from the six games is almost impossible as every game surprised me in different ways. In the immediate buildup to this tournament, the shine had seemingly started to wear off. Actually getting the World Cup was feeling like a pyrrhic victory, one of those “careful what you wish for” achievements. All anyone could talk about was ticket prices and corruption. Empty seats and unsold hotel rooms felt inevitable. I believed the mood and narratives would change once the soccer actually started being played, but my expectations had been massively re-set.
Once the games began, I immediately realized just how powerful the World Cup can be, especially in a setting like this. The crowd for Egypt-Belgium – Seattle’s first-ever World Cup match – was a near sellout, and it was then that I appreciated the power of the diaspora. I saw Egypt fans with tears in their eyes as they saw their compatriots gathered by the Great Wheel. Their march to the match was pure joy, filled with chants, giant flags and pharoah costumes. The match, itself, was a bit underwhelming – a 1–1 tie – but everyone seemed so happy. That set a standard that was probably exceeded in each game.
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The Bosnia & Herzegovina fan march was genuinely awe-inspiring, as it seemed to go on forever. I swear there were 40,000 people wearing BiH’s blue, yellow and white and they were all singing ‘Ljiljani’ once it was over. The atmosphere for Iran-Egypt was absolutely electric, and I honestly felt like the stadium might explode when Iran scored what seemed to be a late game-winner only for VAR to overturn it.
My favorite memories from this tournament, though, will likely be tied to the way Seattle really came alive for the two USA matches. To see an American downtown flooded with soccer fans is not something I ever thought I’d see, and for it to happen twice in my hometown only made it more special.
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For the Australia match, I came into downtown from my home in Wallingford on a rental bike, traveling along the newly refurbished waterfront before 8 AM. There were already massive crowds gathered.
For this match, I chose to arrive on the Link Light Rail. It was the first time I used it to get to one of the World Cup games, but I wanted to experience what it was like to emerge from Pioneer Square station with hundreds of thousands of others.
Three hours before kickoff, Occidental Square was already packed as thousands of people watched the final moments of Spain-Portugal on the Brick Park big screen. Virtually every bar was already at capacity, with lines snaking out the doors. Inside the stadium, the north pavilion was already teaming with activity and lines to get into the various pro shops snaking through the concourse.
A short while later, I caught up to the USA march to the match. Led by horse-riding Civil War re-enactors, the march took 20 minutes to pass through the intersection of 1st and Main. As it passed, sections of fans broke out into impromptu “U-S-A” chants, sang other American Outlaw standards, played instruments and held a wide variety of signs. My favorite was probably Captain America punching out a Smurf (which were created in Belgium). There were others with Clint Dempsey, Grant Wahl, Weston McKennie and John Denver. They wore eagle costumes, dressed as Founding Fathers, and flag-inspired soccer shirts … so many stripes. I swear I didn’t see a single frown.
Joe Towner / PNWMF
Given the size of the crowd inside, I have to assume that the vast majority of those in the march weren’t planning to attend the game in person. They just wanted to be part of this intoxicating energy, equal parts hope, anticipation and FOMO. City officials said 25,000 fans participated in the march, 10,000 more than took part in the one before USA-Australia. Some estimates have suggested there were as many people downtown as there were for the Seahawks’ Super Bowl prade that pushed into seven digits. Hard as that is to believe – that a soccer match could attract a crowd like that – my eyes told me it was at least possible.
The Overlook Walk’s Salish Steps were packed, just as they were many other times during these magical few weeks. Otherwise vacant storefronts were suddenly impromptu soccer bars. The Historic Triangle Pub was revived, featuring a massive screen and overflowing beer garden just around the corner from the stadium. In the Chinatown/International District — which is one of the downtown neighborhoods that hasn’t benefited as much from the World Cup crowds — hundreds crowded into Hing Hay Park to watch the game. The demand for viewing spots was seemingly insatiable.
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The good vibes flowed seamlessly into the stadium. The buzz was overwhelmingly positive, talk of a serious run was on lips all over the park. “Why not US?” wasn’t just an empty platitude spoken by Argentinian head coach Mauricio Pochettino, it was a mantra that turned otherwise uninterested Americans into believers.
Photos by Max Aquino / Sounder at Heart
Seattle, long overlooked on U.S. Soccer’s list of preferred sites, has been dubbed “The Cathedral of Cascadia” by none other than the USMNT’s Twitter account and fans did everything possible to live up to that lofty praise. I’m not one to get emotional about the National Anthem, but when 67,000 people are collectively singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” it’s hard not to get lost in the moment. Somehow, I didn’t even notice the four fighter jets that buzzed the stadium to punctuate the song. At Minute 1, fans broke out the classic “Boom-Boom-Clap”-style “U-S-A.” You’d have thought the USMNT players would have been ready to run through walls.
Instead, they were utterly incapable of channeling that into their play against Belgium. After four matches in which they played with energy and spirit, they came out utterly flat against their most talented opponents to date. At no point did they have control of the match. They were down 1–0 before the match was even 10 minutes old, and were a bit lucky not to be down 3–0 by that time.
The one moment the USMNT had a chance – following Malik Tillman’s wonderful free kick that brought the match level – was almost immediately spoiled when they allowed Belgium to re-take the lead immediately off the ensuing kickoff.
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Still, there was hope coming out of halftime. It didn’t take long for that to be spoiled, either. In the 57th minute, goalkeeper Matt Freese came way out of his box and badly misplayed a seemingly innocuous ball over the top, allowing Hans Vanaken to loft an uncontested shot from 35 yards into a virtually undefended net.
There were more “U-S-A” chants and Eddie Vedder even tried to inspire the Yanks by chugging a beer while on the jumbotron during a hydration break.
If there was a shred of belief left in the building, it was slowly and achingly asphyxiated until Romelu Lukaku struck the final blow with a powerful strike off another sloppy turnover in stoppage time. Fittingly, he and the Belgium bench celebrated with a mocking “Trump dance,” acknowledging the role the president insisted on playing after potentially getting FIFA to declare Folarin Balogun eligible for the match despite getting a red card against Bosnia & Herzegovina.
The mood in the streets after was obviously a far cry from how the day started. Players spoke about letting themselves and the fans down. There’s an undeniable sense that an opportunity has been missed, that a confluence of events quite like this may never arrive again. That may be true for the USMNT and the greater American soccer scene.
But I’m not sure it’s true for Seattle. Our status as “Best Soccer City in America” is not new, even if it’s not a moniker we’ve tried to trademark. We reguarly brought 30,000 to Lumen Field when most of the MLS was lucky to draw half of that. Although the buzz around the Sounders has diminished a bit over the years, the World Cup crowds were actually smaller than the club’s most popular games.
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Updated Seattle/PNW attendance records show World Cup matches occupying slots 6-10 (66,925 for each of final 5). Sounders own top 5. Among those bumped out of top 10: Sounders-Barcelona, DC United-Real Madrid, Man United-Celtic.
— Frank MacDonald (@frankmsounders.bsky.social) July 7, 2026 at 1:12 PM
It’s not that our city has discovered a love for soccer, but maybe this was the catalyst for its reawakening. Sounders leadership has a chance to embrace this moment and make sure it has legs long after the FIFA circus leaves town.
Our local leaders have a similar responsibility. We’ve always known that Seattle is a world-class city and now the world does, too. Our public transit is very good by American standards, but it can be world-class if we will it into existence. We showed how much energy can be harnessed when public space is given back to the people, and not handed to cars. Local businesses showed what they can do when unnecessary and burdensome paperwork doesn’t get in their way.
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The World Cup was an event that I think exceeded all expectations, but the aftermath can be even better.
Thanks to Susan for the photo. She called to tell us about a dog stuck on the rocks off Beach Drive near Harbor West (the condos on pilings), and a crowd gathering to figure out how to rescue it from the rising tide. We were away from the desk at the time but after returning a little while later, we heard the situation mentioned on police radio, with word the dog had been rescued, so we didn’t head that way. Then late tonight Susan sent photos, explaining that the dog apparently is known to swim to those rocks and back, but for some reason got stuck this time, “until a paddle boarder and kayaker paddled out to it to coax it off the rocks and back to the shore.”
