The San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks’ rivalry has been one of football’s main courses for more than a decade.
So it’s fitting that the two bitter foes, separated by just one game atop the NFC West, will play in prime time on Thanksgiving.
Neither team has played on Turkey Day since their memorable 2014 matchup in the Bay Area.
The actual game, a 19-3 Seahawks win featuring five combined field goals, was a slog. But the contest is indelibly remembered for what happened afterward, when a fully uniformed Russell Wilson and Richard Sherman reveled in the win by chowing down on oversized turkey legs on the Levi’s Stadium turf.
The enduring image remains a symbol of the demise of the Jim Harbaugh-era 49ers and the impending dominance Seattle would hold over its Bay Area adversaries for years to come.
The rivalry may not have the same peak luster that it had back then, but there’s still plenty of animosity on both sides. Just ask George Kittle, who told reporters earlier this week that, “(Seahawks fans) absolutely hate us, and what a great fan base to absolutely hate us.”
A lot has changed in the near-decade between the two rivals’ Thanksgiving tilts. The cast of characters, except for Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, has nearly all turned over.
Harbaugh is at Michigan, in the middle of a legal fight over a potentially seismic cheating scandal. Wilson is in Denver, while his turkey teammate Sherman, the Niners’ No. 1 antagonist for years, is now, somehow, one of the team’s biggest allies.
And of course, Colin Kaepernick, who quarterbacked the Niners that year, hasn’t played since becoming a free agent in 2017 following his seasonlong protest of police brutality.
Ex // Top Stories
Wall Street may be regaining its appetite for new companies, which could be good news for local startups, investors and San Francisco
Rafael Mandelman, who introduced an ordinance requiring officials to put together a plan to address unsheltered homelessness, says development stalled
The governor and city attorney are not taking sides on key homelessness case at the Supreme Court
Perhaps the biggest change in the rivalry, though, is who has the upper hand.
The Seahawks’ 2014 Thanksgiving victory was the second of 10 straight wins over the 49ers, including the playoffs, between January 2014 and December 2018. Seattle then won five of the next seven.
It has been all 49ers since then, with the red and gold on the verge of its first four-game winning streak against Carroll’s Seahawks since the former USC head coach headed to the Pacific Northwest in 2010.
The 49ers are, and have been, in a tier above the Seahawks for several years running. San Francisco has the star-filled defense lined with heavy hitters, not Seattle. The 49ers have the undersized, unheralded quarterback leading an explosive offense in Brock Purdy, with Wilson riding in Broncos country.
The Niners are the rivalry’s big brother now, with their Space Needle-sized hump firmly in the rearview mirror. It’s not good enough to celebrate Seattle’s Super Bowl schadenfreude, as The Faithful did when the Seahawks blew it against the New England Patriots. The quest for a sixth Super Bowl win is all that matters.
Of course, the 49ers have a long way to go to reach that level of superiority over their northwest nemesesis. Even with San Francisco’s recent success, Seattle has the rivalry’s better record. The 49ers are 9-17 against the Seahawks since Harbaugh took the helm in 2011, and Kyle Shanahan’s teams are only 5-8.
But the 49ers undoubtedly are the better team heading into Thursday, owning the conference’s third-best record and an 89-43 aggregate scoring edge in their last three wins over the Seahawks, including a playoff victory in January.
A win Thursday would not only cushion the Niners’ NFC West lead, but would tip the rivalry’s scales in their favor as they try to undo years of Seahawks supremacy.
