Seahawks will play Packers, Saints or 49ers

SEATTLE — The Seattle Seahawks assured that the road to the Super Bowl goes through Seattle in the NFC. They’ll have to wait another week, however, to know who’s coming down that road.

As the NFC’s No. 1 seed, Seattle will host its next game on Saturday Jan. 11, against one of three teams, the Green Bay Packers, the San Francisco 49ers or the New Orleans Saints.

Here’s how those three scenarios could play out:

If Philadelphia, the No. 3 seed, loses at home to New Orleans Saturday, then the sixth-seeded Saints would come to Seattle, as the Seahawks get to host the lowest possible seed. That would be a rematch of the Dec. 2 Monday night showdown the Seahawks won 34-7.

But if the Eagles do win at home, then the Seahawks would get the winner of San Francisco at Green Bay. The Seahawks have split two games with San Francisco this season, winning 29-3 at home, but losing the more recent meeting 19-17 at Candlestick Park. A Green Bay at Seattle game would obviously bring up plenty of memories of last year’s controversial Seahawks win over the Packers.

While the Seahawks will get to watch next week’s game at home and relax, they won’t be worrying too much about who ends up coming to Seattle.

“I’m not going to get too caught up in what’s going on,” said safety Earl Thomas. “I’ll stay in my zone, stay in my little bubble and keep going.”

Opponents set

With the regular season over, we now know who the Seahawks will face next season, though the schedule won’t be released until spring. Two opponents each year are determined by facing the common finisher in another division, which is why the schedule wasn’t set until now.

In addition to their usual slate of NFC West games, the Seahawks will play the AFC West and NFC East teams, plus division champs from the NFC North and South. Seattle will host Dallas, the New York Giants, Green Bay, Denver, Oakland, and play road games at Carolina, Philadelphia, Washington, Kansas City and San Diego.