NFC West pulls off rare playoff feat with 49ers win over Eagles

It’s been a historical year for the NFC West and after an impressive regular season, the division is now making some serious noise in the playoffs. 

With the Rams and 49ers both winning on Wild Card Weekend, that means the NFC West will now be sending three teams to the divisional round this year. San Francisco and Los Angeles will be joined by the Seattle Seahawks, who earned a bye to the divisional round as the No. 1 overall seed in the NFC. 

This marks just the second time over the past 25 years, and fourth time ever, that one division has sent three teams to the divisional round. The last time it happened came back in 2022 when the NFC East sent the Giants, Cowboys and Eagles to the divisional. Before that, no team had sent three teams to the divisional round since 1997. 

Of the three previous divisions that have sent three teams to the divisional round, only one of them produced a Super Bowl champion. 

Let’s take a look: 

As you can see, every division that has put three teams in the divisional round has ended up sending a team to the Super Bowl, but the 1992 NFC East was the only one to produce a Super Bowl winner. It’s also worth noting that none of the three previous divisions even sent two teams to the conference title game, so if the NFC West can pull that off, the division will once again make history. 

The NFC West will definitely be sending at least one team to the NFC Championship game and that’s because the 49ers and Seahawks will be playing each other in the divisional round. It will mark the third meeting this year between the division rivals: The 49ers won 17-13 back in Week 1, but the Seahawks won the big one in Week 18, clinching the No. 1 overall seed with a 13-3 win over San Francisco. The Seahawks opened as a 6.5-point favorite over the sixth-seeded 49ers. 

As for the Rams, they’ll be traveling to Chicago to face the Bears with a trip to the NFC title game on the line. The fifth-seeded Rams were able to sneak out of the wild card round after beating the Panthers 34-31 thanks to a late touchdown pass from Matthew Stafford. The Rams have opened as a 4.5-point favorite, which is somewhat notable, because teams tend to struggle in that spot. This game will mark just the 11th time over the past 50 years that a road team has been favored by four points or more in a playoff game and the favored team has gone 0-10 against the spread and just 4-6 straight-up, according to Pro Football Reference. 

If the Rams win, we’ll be guaranteed an all NFC West conference title game. 

The NFC West has been making history all year. The Seahawks (14-3), Rams (12-5) and 49ers (12-5) all won at least 12 games, marking the first time in NFL history that a single division has produced three teams that won at least 12 games.