There are at least two certainties about the NFC Championship Game: It's going to get loud and a team from the NFC West is going clinch a spot in Super Bowl XLVIII. The San Francisco 49ers are heading back to Seattle to face the Seahawks and the loud crowd at CenturyLink Field.
NFC Championship Game
San Francisco 49ers vs. Seattle Seahawks
LOCATION: CenturyLink Field, Seattle
TIME: 6:30 p.m. ET
TV: FOX
The 49ers are the defending NFC champions but have struggled mightily in recent trips to Seattle. The Seahawks (13-3) have outscored the 49ers (12-4) 71-16 in the last two meetings between the rivals in Seattle. While the scene will be familiar to the Seahawks, the top seed in the NFC, it is the visitors who will be most familiar with the stage. The 49ers are making their third straight appearance in the NFC title game under head coach Jim Harbaugh.
"I think we're the two teams that everybody was looking at from the beginning," 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick said ahead of the game, via ESPN.com. "It's going to be a knockdown, drag-out game."
Although the Brady-Manning matchup in the AFC title game garnered much of the attention before the NFL's championship weekend, the NFC tilt features a special pairing, too. The 49ers' dynamic, dual-threat signal caller will face off against Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson in a matchup of two emerging NFL stars. The Seahawks' second-year quarterback is 16-1 at home in his career so far. Of course, the defenses on either sideline will do everything they can to keep both those offensive playmakers from being the heroes in this one.
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