A day after his team's Week 11 loss to the Rams, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald had a simple message for what his team had to do next.

"It's a tough one, but all these losses, you can't let them beat you twice," Macdonald said. "You've got to go back. You've got to take it on the chin. You've got you got to move forward. You've got to learn from it."

It's safe to say the Seahawks took their coach's messaging to heart, because ever since that 21-19 loss in Los Angeles, which featured four turnovers by Seattle's offense, the Seahawks have won eight consecutive games, including a Week 16 win over the Rams, to earn the NFC's top seed and the right to host Round 3 between these two teams in the NFC championship game.

No team wants to lose games, but how a team handles those losses can shape what comes next, and for the Seahawks, the feeling coming out of that Week 11 loss wasn't one of dread, but rather the belief that, if they clean some things up, they can and should beat everyone they face.

"It's funny, if you took a straw poll from the guys around the team, I think that game was a game where it really came into focus about what type of team we could be," Macdonald said earlier this week. "We have a special group that was resilient as heck and had each other's backs and were going to stick up for each other and fight like heck for 60 minutes and really becoming the team we wanted to be. We started to have some real evidence of it, even though it wasn't really the outcome we wanted. So kind of glad that it happened. It stunk in the moment, but given where we are at now, that was an important part of our season that I felt like something maybe we had to go through to get to the point we are now."

While the loss did indeed, as Macdonald put it, stink for the Seahawks, they also recognized that they held the Rams offense and quarterback Matthew Stafford to one of their worst games of the season. They also saw from quarterback Sam Darnold and the offense an impressive level of resilience to get back in the game after four interceptions allowed the Rams to take a big lead. And even with those four turnovers and one of the best punts you'll ever see, which caused the Seahawks to start a potential game-winning drive at their own 1-yard line, the Seahawks still had a 61-yard field goal attempt to win it.

"I felt the same way," linebacker Ernest Jones IV said. "We just kind of let that game get aways from us. We didn't execute on our end, and coming out of that game, we were like, 'Man, we are a good team. If we keep our standard the standard, we've got a chance to hang with all the top teams.' The biggest thing that week was just rebounding knowing we're a good team, and knowing potentially we'd see them again in the playoffs, and here we are."

Added safety Julian Love, who missed that game due to a hamstring injury, "Before that game, the standards of the defense were already high, and as the game was going on, I think they got some stuff rolling early. It was definitely tense towards our part of the field. We were playing well, in hindsight. If you take a step back, you realize we were playing well. But it didn't feel like that in the moment. So guys bowed up and kept battling. After the game you realized what the numbers showed. I think it was defining just to be like, 'All right, if we execute this and this and this—that game, obviously, we lost the turnover battle, but came down to a kick at the end—so if we're efficient, if we can take care of the ball, if we can get the ball, then that will be the shape we're in.' I think that's the biggest key to that one."

If the way the Seahawks played in that game, minus the costly turnovers, helped them see how good they can be, then what transpired after, specifically when Jones addressed the media, was the embodiment of one of the team's defining traits that has gotten them this far. For all the talent the Seahawks have, and for the great coaching and scheme in all three phases, the secret sauce, to borrow a phase from Macdonald, has been the closeness of this team and the way players rally around each other.

That was never more evident than after that Week 11 loss when Jones, who made a point after Darnold's last two interceptions to go to his quarterback on the field and show in support, took it to another level with his postgame comments.

"Man, Sam's been balling," Jones said in his postgame comments. "If we want to try to define Sam by this game—man, Sam's had us in every (expletive) game. So for him to sit there and say, 'Oh, that's my fault,' no it's not. There were plays that defensively we could have made, there were opportunities where we could have got better stops. It's football, man. He's our quarterback, we've got his back, and if you've got anything to say, quite frankly, (expletive) you."

Jones was speaking from his heart and supporting a quarterback who, despite that rough outing, is one of the biggest reasons for Seattle's success this season, but he also understood the power of that act as he did it.

"It was what I felt, but honestly as I'm going into the (press conference), I'm like, 'I'm going to step in front of this train,'" Jones said this week when asked about those comments. "I just knew how this game could impact Sam, and how we needed Sam to be the team we want to be, so the biggest thing for me was to just be there for my brother.

"I think that was a turning point. Each thing that's happened this year, we've just been growing . No matter how we're winning these games, we're growing and learning from each of those wins. I think it catapulted something for sure, but we're at the point of the year now where we can't lose, so we've got to go get it."

That decision to "step in front of this train" became something of a galvanizing moment for the Seahawks moving forward, and only strengthened the bonds that already made the Seahawks such a close team.

"Absolutely it was galvanizing," outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu said. "We know we shouldn't have lost that game, even with the turnovers we had, we were still a field goal away from winning that game, we were still in every game this year that we lost, so we knew that was an outlier for a game for Sam. And with the defense we have, we know we can rally around that. When EJ got up there and defended Sam, he spoke for the whole team about how we all feel about him. To see that from our leaders, to have each other's back, it just brings the team together more and allows us to do what we've been doing."

Said guard Grey Zabel, "(Jones) said it, but everybody on the entire team was thinking it. Sam has put us in a lot of games and kept us in a lot of games and won us a lot of games, so it's just one of those deals, he had an off day, and we've got to be there to pick him up. I know for sure the offensive line could have been better, I could have played better, we could have run the ball more to not put Sam in the predicament we put him in."

The Seahawks lost in Week 11 because they made too many mistakes against a really good opponent, but coming out of that game, they also found the belief, resolve and togetherness to win every game since that November afternoon, leaving them one win away from a trip to the Super Bowl.

"We just felt like, when we play our best, nobody can beat us," cornerback Devon Witherspoon said. "And we see what happens when we don't play up to our standard. We let teams hang on and they're able to win those games. It's like, we just got to go out there, be us and do what we do all the time, take one snap, one play at a time and then build on it from there. And ever since then, I think we've been doing that. We've been controlling the game."