Who do the Seahawks play next? The NFC championship will run through Seattle

After an AFC thriller started off Saturday's Divisional Round doubleheader, the Seattle Seahawks delivered a laugher in the nightcap, throttling a depleted San Francisco 49ers team to the tune of 41-6. From the moment Rasheed Shaheed took the opening kickoff back for a touchdown, the route was on: This elite Seattle defense never let Brock Purdy come up for air, while Sam Darnold fully exorcised his playoff demons from last season and Kenneth Walker paced an effective running game.

When the Seahawks are playing like this, they might be the single most complete team in the NFL. And now they're just one more win away from a trip to the Super Bowl for the first time in a decade.

Seahawks playoff schedule: Bears or Rams stand between Seattle and a Super Bowl appearance

We know that, as the NFC's No. 1 seed, Seattle's next game will be at home in front of the 12s. Their opponent will be the winner of the other NFC Divisional Round game this weekend between the No. 2 seed Chicago Bears and the No. 5 seed Los Angeles Rams.

Seahawks next game:

• NFC Championship Game: Sunday, Jan. 25 at 6:30 p.m. ET on FOX

The time and the place are locked in: Lumen Field, next Sunday, Jan. 25, at 6:30 p.m. ET. This will be the Seahawks' fifth conference championship game appearance in franchise history, and their first since that wild OT win over the Green Bay Packers in 2015.

Seattle's opponent in the NFC title game will be decided on Sunday night, as the Bears take on the Rams at Soldier Field.

Who should the Seahawks want to face: Chicago or Los Angeles?

Neither opponent represents a walk in the park for Seattle. The Bears are the conference's No. 2 seed, armed with one of the league's premier offensive coaches in Ben Johnson and a quarterback who can capture lightning in a bottle in Caleb Williams. The Rams, meanwhile, have a statistical case to being the best team in the league during the regular season (second in DVOA, behind only the Seahawks), with Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford helming a devastating offense. Either team is fully capable of winning on the road in January.

If Seattle had the chance to choose, though, it seems pretty obvious that they'd prefer Chicago. For starters, there's the familiarity factor: The Seahawks and Rams have already faced each other twice this season, and it's awfully hard to play a division rival for a third time. (Los Angeles won the first of those encounters, and the second required a miraculous comeback by Seattle.) And there's also a faint whiff of fool's gold with the Bears, whose win-loss record has outpaced their actual performance — it's hard to rely on improbable late-game comebacks on a weekly basis.

Chicago's ceiling is immense, but their down-to-down inconsistencies could be exploited by this league-best Seattle D.

Verdict: Seahawks want Bears

Full NFL playoff schedule

The NFL playoffs will conclude on Feb. 8 with Super Bowl XL. First, Super Bowl hopefuls need to make it through the remaining divisional games and then the two conference championship games on Jan. 25.