3 Seahawks most to blame for Wild Card playoff loss to 49ers

Seahawks most to blame for Wild Card loss to 49ers: Clint Hurtt

Woolen and others on the defensive end could have played better, but their play-caller, Clint Hurtt, didn’t scheme in ways that set them up for success.

In Week 15, the Niners took the Seahawks for 189 rushing yards, the fourth-most they had given up all year. They looked ill-prepared to take that on this time, giving up 181 in this game.

It’s understandably hard to stop Christian McCaffrey, but the pass-rushing was poor, too. Hurtt needs some more tools there, but there was an unbelievable amount of pressure put on the Seahawks’ secondary. Hurtt’s job is to relieve that pressure with what he’s got and he just couldn’t do that.

Your main job with an inexperienced QB is to make sure he can’t utilize his weapons. The two biggest priorities worth shutting down, McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel, had themselves a field day:

https://twitter.com/PFF/status/1614421843095736324

Giving up 41 points in a playoff game is simply unacceptable. Lumping this game in with all regular season games, it was the third-most points the Seahawks allowed, and the highest-scoring game for the Niners all season. San Francisco scored almost double what it did in Week 15 against the Seahawks.

Things, somehow, got worse with this matchup with weeks to prepare. That’s simply not the expectation for a playoff defense, regardless of what the personnel looks like.