One of the differences between Seattle and Carolina is the strength of schedule. Out of the 32 teams in the league, Carolina had the 6th easiest schedule compared to Seattle’s 4th hardest schedule.

Regardless of strength of schedule, you still have to go out and win. Carolina did leading to the No. 1 seed and after Carolina’s bye week made a come from behind win in the fourth quarter to beat Seattle at home…

Carolina played teams that had a collective 113- 143 record, Seattle 133-123 record.

Last week the pretenders like Houston having the 3rd easiest strength of schedule and Redskins 12th easiest schedule might have had home field advantage because of ease of schedule but it didn’t translate into the win column against teams that played harder schedules while ending up with worse W-L records.

If both teams live up to potential of how the teams are playing as of late, this should be a great game with an edge going to on the road Seattle’s defense giving up the least amount of points against Carolina scoring the most points. Seattle has been taking the run game away and Newton is going to have to prove that he is the league’s MVP to win this game. Newton came back from a poor showing of the first 3 quarters and caught fire in the fourth quarter to beat Seattle earlier in the year. A game plan they shouldn’t rely on this time around, if they plan on being successful.

Seattle is the reigning Conference Champions of the past two years and will continue to be conference champions until a team stands up and beats Seattle in their domain--- the play offs.