The Seahawks Are Locked And Loaded For A Final Conflict With The 49ers

Remember in Terminator 2 when Arnold Schwarzenegger faces a brutal, shape-shifting antagonist who won’t die? He goes through hell to stave off the enemy and tells him *spoiler alert* “hasta la vista.” Stay with me, because this applies to the Seattle Seahawks hopefully sending their foes to Cancun.

Arnold’s T-800 Terminator character was involved in a high-speed chase early in the film, involving the new T-1000 Terminator trying to take down a young resistance leader (James Connor is just as square of a name as Mike Macdonald). The good guy didn’t quite get the job done in the initial clash.

Next, there was an encounter in a hospital where the govna’ got his licks in with a shotgun (unfortunately for the sake of this analogy, not the formation) but did put an end to his rival.

Finally, Terminator Arnold had to end it all by confronting the other killer cyborg in a high temperature, high stakes setting. Hot lava and molten liquid was a real concern back in the ‘90’s. So was Seahawks Twitter when Pete Carroll was let go of two years ago.

As much as the analogy has limitations, one thing is for sure. The Seattle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers have proven to be NFL terminator teams, and the Hawks must do everything they can to end the threat of the boys from the Bay who just won’t die.

The team in Santa Clara will have their blindside protector back, in Trent Williams. He might be top of the line when it comes to that position. The Seahawks will have their left tackle back as well.

Rookie sensation at left guard, Grey Zabel, had this to say about Charles Cross returning to the lineup next to him: “To get Charles back not only as a player, but as a leader, as a friend, as just a person is huge for us. I mean, kudos to Josh (Jones) for everything he did the past three games, stepping in there, playing unbelievable football at a super high level, not missing a beat. But, excited to get Charles back and let Uncle Josh heal up a little bit”. He later added that Cross, “helped him understand the game more … he’s a dear friend, I love him like a brother. He’s the man”.

Let’s not forget that Mike Macdonald called the play where Charles Cross made a block, then slipped off to help push Charbonnet over the goal line against Arizona in Week 4 one of his “favorite plays of the year.” The broadcast team in Week 18’s battle stated that the Seahawks entered the match having racked up the 3rd-highest total of rushing yardage outside of the offensive tackles. While Cross has been a big part of that, the Hawks added to that sum with their 180 total rushing yards in that game even without him.

Seattle’s two running backs are both top ten in rushing attempts per broken tackle. Zach Charbonnet (tied for the 7th most efficient with 11.3) and Kenneth Walker III (tied for the 9th most efficient with 11.8) can make men miss in space to break off chunk gains on the ground when provided a crease.

Charles Cross has the requisite talent to open up those kinds of lanes on the edges of the defense. He will be expected to, as a former 9th overall pick against an injury-depleted Niners squad. He has proven the faith that he can do those types of things, with a $104M contract extension in hand.

Think of him as a friendly terminator. One that can be a centerpiece of the outside zone run game.

Seattle’s vision for the offense has started to click to life in recent weeks. All of the interview requests for offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak show that other teams have noticed too.

Mike Macdonald said, “after, you know, the first San Francisco game (a Week 1 loss), they still had faith. They still had a great week against Pittsburgh and for that first quarter of the season, I still felt like we were learning to trust what we’ve created.” Many of the Seahawks on the 2025 roster have expressed that they feel that this is a special team this year. Seattle has seen special teams before, but we all know that some sequels can be great in their own rights.

Terminator 2 was a zeitgeist of a film masterpiece. We didn’t even discuss the interspersed contrast of blue and reds hues in the final scene, but we’ll leave that to Metacritic. The Seahawks will look to terminate the 49ers in a battle of contrasting but similar teams. If so, this could be just another setting and scene in the Seattle Seahawks’ campaign to write its own masterpiece of a storyline in the 2025 NFL playoffs.