The 41-6 final score will tell you it was already over when Rashid Shaheed returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown.
That gave the Seahawks a 7-0 lead just 13 seconds into their divisional playoff game against the San Francisco 49ers on Saturday night at Lumen Field.
Logic would tell you it was over by halftime, when the Seahawks used an 80-yard drive to take a 24-6 lead into the break against what appeared a dispirited 49ers team that had surprised most by overcoming a rash of injuries just to get this far.
Seahawks receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba felt it was over when he snared a 4-yard dart of a pass from quarterback Sam Darnold for a touchdown in the back of the end zone with 1:50 left in the first quarter that put the Seahawks ahead 17-0.
Darnold’s status had been the subject of much heated speculation Thursday and Friday after injuring his left oblique in practice.
That continued when he wasn’t on the field as he usually is for warmups with the other quarterbacks two hours before kickoff.
Darnold threw instead in the locker room, convincing himself and the team he was just fine and then he went through the regular team warmups as scheduled.
Still, if anyone might have had any doubts about his health, it was erased when on a first-and-goal play and Seattle already ahead 10-0, he faked a handoff to Kenneth Walker III, rolled to his left --- to the side of the injury to his oblique --- and found Smith-Njigba breaking behind cornerback Darrell Luter Jr. and safety Marques Sigle.
Smith-Njigba said he knew he was open, but didn’t know if it was a throw Darnold would try to make in that circumstance.
“I’m running as fast as I can but I’m like, ‘Dude, I don’t know if he’s going to throw this or not,' Smith-Njigba said. “And then he just throws a dime to me and there’s not a better throw he could have made and I just had to execute and do my part. And I knew we were going to be rolling from there.’’
Indeed, the Seahawks' 41-6 margin of victory tied the 43-8 Super Bowl win over Denver in 2014 as the biggest postseason win in team history.
That stat foreshadows some history the Seahawks now have a chance to repeat.
All three times the Seahawks have previously hosted the NFC title game at home they’ve also advanced to the Super Bowl.
The Seahawks will get a chance to go 4 for 4 next Sunday against either the Chicago Bears or Los Angeles Rams at 3:30 p.m. at Lumen Field.
“It's big for us too," Darnold said. “Especially to play here in an NFC Championship at Lumen (Field) with the 12s behind us. It doesn't get any better than that."
It’s almost hard to imagine Lumen could be at more of a fevered pitch than it was when Shaheed used blocks from the likes of Brady Russell and Patrick O’Connell and broke a tackle and a trip attempt by 49ers kicker Eddy Pineiro and was gone.
The return came after the 49ers won the toss and elected to defer and kick off instead of taking the ball, as is their usual custom. Maybe they wanted to immediately put Darnold to the test.
Instead, they let Darnold take the field for the first time with a 7-0 lead.
“That was electric," linebacker Ernest Jones IV said. “To be off for two weeks, start the game off like that in front of 70,000 people, that's a great way to start. It gave us a boost, but it also just confirmed what we knew — let's go ahead and play our game, and this will happen often.”
It was Shaheed’s third return of a kickoff or punt for a touchdown in 10 games since he was acquired in a trade on Nov. 4 and the third return of a kickoff in the postseason in Seahawks history and first since Percy Harvin against Denver in the Super Bowl in 2014.
The Seahawks got 10 more points in the first quarter on drives that began after they stopped the 49ers on a fourth down and a forced fumble, the latter resulting in the Darnold-to-JSN TD that proved definitively he was just fine.
While some players said they didn’t know for sure Darnold was playing until he walked onto the field, Smith-Njigba said he never doubted.
“I didn’t," he said. “Being able to talk to him and stuff like that, I knew that it was tough on him but he gave like that ‘we’re going to go,’ so we were going."
Darnold indicated he expected to play all along and said “I felt great."
Aside from speculation about Darnold, the day began with lots of pregame chatter of the 49ers not only wanting to avenge the loss in Santa Clara two weeks ago but also what they seemed to feel was an overly raucous Seahawks celebration of their division title, specifically the smoking of cigars.
That was about all the fire the 49ers showed in this one as it was the Seahawks giving them all the smoke from the start of the game, forcing three turnovers, never letting the 49ers get past the Seattle 22, and again dominating the 49ers on the ground on both sides of the ball.
Smith-Njigba said there wasn’t a whole lot of talk coming from the 49ers as the lead continued to build.
“With us getting off to a fast start it was real quiet from then on," he said. “And you know you could tell without their guys they are not like that."
After the only time the 49ers showed some life on two drives that led to field goals — though each time with the Seahawks coming up with third-down stops to keep San Francisco from getting more — an 80-yard drive to end the half and make it 24-6 on the first of three Walker TD runs put it essentially out of reach.
That brought on Lil Jon for a halftime concert that kicked off what was basically just a party in the stands of Lumen Field during what was Seattle’s first home playoff game in front of fans in nine years.
The Seahawks forced two more fourth-down stops and got two more turnovers in the second half to turn it into a rout.
While the fourth quarter had the feel on the field of a preseason game, few fans left, basking in the glory of Seattle’s first divisional playoff game win since the 2014 season when the Legion of Boom was in full force.
“It was a heck of a win, man,’’ Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said. “It's funny, in the locker room, we're really excited, we're very proud of the effort. And the guys understand that there's still a mission at hand. We got another week coming up here that we need to take care of business every day, and that's the focus.
The defense of this team has over the last few weeks labeled itself the Dark Side because it turns out the lights on the opposing offense.
Saturday, they also assured that the power will come on one more time at Lumen Field this season, 60 minutes for the Seahawks to get to their fourth Super Bowl in team history.
“One game at a time, man,’’ defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence said. “We know who we are, we know what we have in our locker room. Take it one play, one game at a time.”
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