Seattle and San Francisco both have rugged defenses. They're kind of replaced Pittsburgh-Baltimore has the premier Alley Fight Rivalry in the league right now. So points should be precious on Sunday.
The over-under for this game is 39.5 points, and that might be a little high. Both teams are better on defense than offense, and they know each other.
Seattle's has gone five straight games without scoring more than 2 TDs.
In three of the four meetings between these teams the past two years, they've scored under 37 points.
In 2012, San Francisco won 13-6 in a Thursday-night game, then Seattle won the rematch 42-13 late in the year.
Early this year, it was a low-scoring defensive game until the Seahawks broke it open late, winning 29-3. Then San Francisco got a field goal late to win 19-17 at Candlestick.
Neither team is giving the ball away, and these are both very rugged defenses.
In the last 10 years, there have been eight playoff games between teams with top-5 defenses. In all but two of those games, there were under 40 points scored.
| Playoff matchups of top-5 defenses | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Panthers 29, Bears 21 | |
| 2008 | Eagles 23, Giants 11 | |
| 2008 | Steelers 23, Ravens 14 | |
| 2009 | Jets 24, Bengals 14 | |
| 2010 | Steelers 24, Jets 19 | |
| 2011 | Ravens 20, Texans 13 | |
| 2013 | Seahawks 23, Saints 15 | |
| 2013 | 49ers 23, Panthers 10 | |
--Ian Allan