The playoff scenarios for the Seattle Seahawks are now pretty clear-cut heading into the final week of the regular season.

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If the Seahawks (13-3) beat the San Francisco 49ers (12-4) in Saturday’s night’s de facto NFC West title game, Seattle will claim the NFC’s No. 1 seed and the conference’s lone first-round bye.

And if the Seahawks lose, they are now guaranteed to be the No. 5 seed. That became official with the Los Angeles Rams’ 27-24 upset loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Monday night, which ensured that Seattle will finish with a better record than the Rams (11-5).

NFL playoff picture

Had the Rams beaten Atlanta, the Seahawks could have still dropped to the No. 6 seed with both a loss to the 49ers and a Rams win over the Arizona Cardinals in their regular-season finale.

And why does that matter? Well, this year, there’s a big difference in the NFC between being the No. 5 seed and the No. 6 seed.

The No. 5 seed will face the No. 4 seed in the wild card round of the playoffs, which means a favorable matchup against the NFC South champion – either the Carolina Panthers (8-8) or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-9). Meanwhile, the No. 6 seed will travel to face the No. 3 seed, which will be either the Chicago Bears (11-5) or the Philadelphia Eagles (11-5).

Of course, the Seahawks hope to render all of this a moot point by beating the 49ers and capturing the No. 1 seed for the fourth time in franchise history. All three of the Seahawks’ Super Bowl appearances came as a No. 1 seed.

In fact, since the NFL adopted its current divisional format in 2002, 24 of the 46 No. 1 seeds have reached the Super Bowl. During that same span, just four wild card teams have reached the Super Bowl – the 2005 Steelers, the 2007 Giants, the 2010 Packers and the 2020 Buccaneers.

But if the Seahawks lose to the 49ers and end up as a wild card, at least now they have the consolation of a more favorable wild card round matchup.

The Seahawks face the 49ers at 5 p.m Saturday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. Radio coverage on Seattle Sports will begin at 2 p.m. with the pregame show.

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