Seahawks complete road sweep of division rivals for just the second time in franchise history

As ugly as it may have been, the Seattle Seahawks won their fourth straight road game of the season, defeating the San Francisco 49ers 24-13 on a bad weather day in Santa Clara, California. Considering how other results went, a win is a win and Seattle couldn’t afford to slip up and further damage their playoff hopes.

While the Seahawks are an unsightly 3-4 outside of the NFC West, they are 4-0 against their division rivals, most crucially that 16-10 nailbiter over the Los Angeles Rams. Add in the 22-16 win against the Arizona Cardinals, and the Seahawks have gone 3-0 on the road against their divisional opponents for the first time under Pete Carroll. The only other time the Seahawks managed this was in the 2005 season, when Seattle stunned the St. Louis Rams 37-31 at the Edward Jones Dome, bested a terrible Arizona Cardinals side 33-19 at Sun Devil Stadium, then hung on for a 27-25 win over the Ken Dorsey-led San Francisco 49ers.

Since going 0-3 on the road vs. the NFC West in Russell Wilson’s rookie season, Seattle has lost just once at the 49ers and zero times at the Cardinals. Only the Rams have given Seattle repeated fits, and the wins in 2013 and 2017 both were the product of goal-line stands by the Seahawks in the dying seconds.

On the topic of road success, the Seahawks’ best single-season away record is 6-2 back in the oh-so-special 2013 campaign. Seattle’s remaining regular season road trips are at the Jacksonville Jaguars and the fading Dallas Cowboys, who will have Ezekiel Elliott back from suspension, but may very well be out of the playoff chase by then. It may be the strength of Seattle’s play on the road, not their uncharacteristically shaky performances at CenturyLink Field, that propels the Seahawks to another postseason berth.