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(Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
The Seattle Seahawks‘ thorn in their run to Super Bowl LX was the Los Angeles Rams. It was the Rams who were the only team in Seattle’s last nine games in both the regular season and playoffs to score over 20 points.
While the Rams offense scored 38 points in the final regular-season meeting and 27 in the NFC title game, it was the Los Angeles defense that couldn’t stop Sam Darnold and Co.
It’s been a couple of months since the Rams fell to the Seahawks in the NFC title game in January. Nonetheless, that defeat still stings for them as edge rusher Jared Verse made his feelings clear on how that loss is still on his mind.
“[The NFC title game loss to] Seattle bothered me just because I can say I don’t like them and all that stuff,” Verse said on the April 10 edition of “The Jim Rome Show.” “They’re not my favorite team in the world, period. It bothered me a little bit. I think if it would have been the Eagles or Seattle, either one, it would have bothered me a lot.”
Loss to Seattle Is Fueling Rams’ Jared Verse
Moreover, Verse explained that he sat on that loss to let it soak in, as he doesn’t want to go through that experience again, especially not against the Seahawks.
“I sat on it for a little bit,“ Verse noted. “You don’t want to sit in it for too long because I’m not about to give myself pity or self-wallow and everything like that. But it bothered you a little bit when you look back on it. Like the Seahawks, it was a great team, but you think about, especially a game that close, that comes down to a matter of inches, a play or two, a play here, a play there.
“If I get this sack, or if I get to the quarterback a little bit faster, or, you know, our DBs cover a little bit longer, a linebacker does this a little bit better, or DTs do this a little bit better, offense does this better. You can blame a lot of things, but you just think about what can I do better.
“So I sat in it for a couple of weeks, and I let it fuel me, and now I’m just on the aspect of I don’t want it to happen again. But not wanting it to happen is not enough. What am I going to do to make sure it doesn’t?”
Seahawks’ Defense Was on Another Level
The Seahawks defense knew when to get stops against a Rams team that was a thorn in their side last season. One of the QBs that faced the Seahawks during this run was Philip Rivers, who came out of retirement to be the Indianapolis Colts‘ signal-caller during their injury situation.
Indianapolis fell 18-16 to Seattle on Dec. 14, 2025, and Rivers appeared on Seattle Sports to recount what it was like to face the Seahawks’ defense as the group was preparing to take off on a championship run.
“I’ve got to make sure I know where [Nick Emmanwori] is all the time,” Rivers said on April 1. “Then here’s [Devon] Witherspoon, that obviously is a heck of a blitzer as well and a great DB. And then there’s the defensive front, and how do we want to handle Leonard Williams? And what about [DeMarcus] Lawrence and Uchenna [Nwosu] and these guys rushing on the outside?”
Eduardo Razo Eduardo Razo is a sports writer for Heavy.com, covering the NFL, MLB, and college football. He has previously covered the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB for NBC Sports Washington and NBC Sports Bay Area & California, and has freelanced for PSG Talk, covering Paris Saint-Germain. He also worked as an editor at Athlon Sports, focusing on MLB and the NFL. More about Eduardo Razo
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