The Seattle Seahawks and New Orleans Saints will come face to face again on Saturday, but this time it is winner takes all as the loser of today's game will end their season today, where as the winner will progress to the NFC Championship Game.
The Saints will be looking to avoid the embarrassment they suffered last time they faced off against the Seahawks when they were demolished 7-34. The Seahawks also must avoid coming into this clash overconfident – as they won so easily the first time.
That first game between the teams took place just five weeks ago, but a lot has changed, and postseason football can be a very different type of game than regular season match ups. If things get tight in today's game then the pressure will be ramped up on both quarterbacks. If either make a few mistakes early on they could easily fall apart a bit, such is the do-or-die nature of postseason football.
Make no mistake about it, this game could be very different to the game just over a month ago, and expect the Saints to put on a much stronger showing than last time.
Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll has said ahead of the game, "The first thing I addressed with the team when we came back together was, 'What happened in the past doesn't tell the story of what's going to happen in the future,' so you have to have the discipline to do that."
Fans will pack out CenturyLink Field again today though, and it will be loud and intimidating. The Saints must start well to try and silence the crowd. The Seahawks are a team, where if they get in front and get the crowd behind them, became near invincible. The Saints must not get off to such a bad start as they did last time, and if they can keep things tight running up to half time then this could go either way.
The Seahawks will play the Saints from 4.35 p.m. EST and can be watched online through the Fox TV network, or online by clicking here.
Something that won't change: CenturyLink Field will be loud. Seahawks fans — nicknamed the 12th Man — set a Guinness Book World Record for crowd noise earlier this season, lost the title to Kansas City around midseason, and reclaimed it during with the victory over the Saints.
In a playoff stunner three years ago, the Seahawks beat the defending Super Bowl-champion Saints in a first-round game in Seattle, and the home crowd cheered so loudly on a Marshawn Lynch touchdown run that it caused a small earthquake.
Getting defensive
The NFC playoffs are a mini-tournament of the league's best defenses. The best scoring defenses in the league for points allowed this season were, in order, Seattle's, Carolina's, San Francisco's and New Orleans'. So the No. 1 Seahawks play host to the No. 4 Saints, and the No. 2 Panthers play host to the No. 3 49ers.
Mixing it up
The Saints needed to do something to shake up their routine for road games, seeing as they came into the playoffs having gone 1-5 away from the Superdome since Oct. 13. So last week, they got new sweatsuits and changed flavors of Gatorade. They went on to win a wild-card game at Philadelphia, and a superstition was born.
This week, the Saints organization painted a Seahawks logo on the practice field, in hopes of ramping up the focus of their players and reminding them they have to execute in hostile territory.
Thinking back to the abysmal showing in Seattle during the regular season, Saints quarterback Drew Brees said this week: "Man, that was not us... We've got to give a lot of credit to them because they forced us to be that way. But then again, there are a lot of things we can correct and get better at, and I feel like we have."
