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Seattle Seahawks

Rubber match between Seahawks, 49ers for trip to Super Bowl seems fated

Seahawks' Doug Baldwin didn’t waste time expressing his team’s reaction to 49ers’ win. (Associated Press)
Bob Condotta Seattle Times

SEATTLE – Just minutes after San Francisco’s playoff win at Carolina on Sunday, Seahawks receiver Doug Baldwin tweeted simply: “Wouldn’t want it any other way…”

Indeed, who can argue about the sizzle of a Seattle-San Francisco matchup for a berth in the Super Bowl, a showdown that has seemed destined since last season ended?

The 49ers and Seahawks were the preseason NFC favorites of almost every preview magazine and Vegas sports book, and finished the year as the two most dominant teams in the conference in terms of point differential (the Seahawks at plus-186 and the 49ers at plus-134).

And now, after having already established a rivalry that some are calling the most heated in the NFL, the Seahawks and 49ers will hold the most important meeting in their history Sunday at CenturyLink Field.

The winner will move on to play either Denver or New England in Super Bowl XLVIII, Feb. 2 in New Jersey.

San Francisco advanced to the NFC championship game with a 23-10 win at Carolina on Sunday, a day after the Seahawks beat the New Orleans Saints 23-15.

“I think we are the two teams that everybody was kind of looking at from the beginning,” 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick told reporters after Sunday’s game. “It’s going to be a knock-down, drag-out game.”

Kaepernick also vowed that what happened when the teams last met in Seattle – a 29-3 Seahawks victory on Sept. 15 – wouldn’t matter this time.

“We are a different team than the first time we played them up there,” he said in a TV interview immediately after the game.

“We have a lot of key playmakers back and we are ready to go.”

Among those returned players is receiver Michael Crabtree, who missed the first 11 games of the season with an Achilles injury, but has returned to health and has 11 catches in the 49ers’ two playoff wins.

Still, one of the themes of a week that will likely be as hyped and anticipated as any in Seattle sports history is whether the 49ers can handle the CenturyLink Field atmosphere.

Seattle beat the 49ers 42-13 on Dec. 23, 2012, making a combined 71-16 beat-down of San Francisco in the last two matchups at CenturyLink Field.

But the 49ers have won eight in a row,including a 19-17 win over Seattle in San Francisco on Dec. 8. Five of those wins have come on the road – at Washington, Tampa Bay and Arizona in the regular season and Green Bay and Carolina in the playoffs.

The 49ers may also point to the role that turnovers played in their September loss in Seattle – San Francisco had five while forcing just one, with Kaepernick throwing three interceptions.

Kaepernick, though, seemed in no mood Sunday to dissect the earlier Seattle games, saying “that’s in the past. This is a different situation. We have to go up there and win.”

While the 49ers are playing in their third straight NFC title game, the Seahawks will be playing just their third conference title game since joining the NFL in 1976.

It will be only the second home conference title game, the other a 34-14 win over Carolina following the 2005 season.

The Vegas oddmakers, though, are anticipating a much closer game this time, installing Seattle as a 3-point favorite. That essentially equates the teams as equals since teams receive about a three-point edge for homefield advantage.