Rams vs. Seahawks

St. Louis beats Seattle if ... the Rams can get their passing game rolling and avoid turning the ball over. When St. Louis has gotten into trouble this year, it's usually been because of turnovers. I think they're minus-24 in that department. I'm guessing that turnovers will be the biggest factor in the outcome of this game.

When the Rams don't turn the ball over, they're tough to stop. They can still be scary with all those weapons. With that turnover ratio, and to still be in the playoffs, that shows their big-play capability. They take a lot of chances, and those chances go the other way a lot of times, but they've also made enough things happen to get them to this point. And that's kind of amazing in and of itself.

We played these two teams in back-to-back weeks and we won both of them. Against the Rams, turnovers were the story. They had three interceptions and lost a fumble, and we took advantage and won (37-17). But when they can hold onto the ball, they can score as quickly as anyone. They're just dangerous that way.

The tough part for St. Louis may be having to beat a division rival a third time in the same season. When I was in Pittsburgh on Bill Cowher's staff, we went through that with Cleveland in 2001. We had to beat them a third time in the playoffs, and that can be difficult. But when you line up at 1 o'clock on game day, nothing that happened in the past really matters. At least I don't think so. You see it happen both ways. Teams get beat twice during the season and then go into the playoffs and turn around and beat that same team. The past really doesn't determine what's going to happen.

Seattle beats St. Louis if ... the Seahawks come out and relax and play their game. I think you'll see that Seattle could play a lot looser in the playoffs than they did for most of the season. They might feel as if they've got nothing to lose now, and have had more pressure on them all year than most teams because of their Super Bowl expectations. In some ways, this game shouldn't feel any different to them than most of the past six weeks or so, when they fighting for a playoff berth every week. Their season has been on the line for a long time now.

I'd be surprised if this isn't a fairly high scoring game. Maybe a last-team-that-has-the-ball-wins type of game. Because both teams are led by the offenses, and can score plenty when they get things going. If I had to say one area where Seattle can attack the Rams, it's in the secondary. I would expect Matt Hasselbeck to go at the Rams' corners and take his shots down the field. St. Louis can be vulnerable there.

Again, turnovers are going to be huge. We had some takeaways against the Seahawks, too. We hit a gadget on them that they weren't prepared for. We hit some big plays on them and they didn't respond. With Seattle's offense, if it's not in rhythm early, it usually doesn't get into one. That's very key for them. If Hasselbeck starts well, they can roll up some yards and points on you. But if they struggle early, some times they struggle the whole game.

Against us, they went away from Shaun Alexander pretty early because they were in catch-up mode. We felt like if we could shut down their run game early and get a lead, we could really limit his role. Some runners get stronger as the game goes on, but that really hasn't been his M.O. He's a great runner, but he's not always the guy who wears a defense down.