Doug Baldwin: Seahawks focused on task at hand – San Francisco 49ers

The Seattle Seahawks are trying to bridle their excitement to focus on the day-to-day as they prepare for the NFC Championship game, but come Sunday they’re going to let it all loose says wide receiver Doug Baldwin.

“Definitely we’ll be jumping out of our skin just because it will be the task at hand that we need to take care of,” Baldwin tells KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson.

The players are trying to take each task as it comes in their preparation for this Sunday’s game, says Baldwin. And while a possible appearance at the Super Bowl is just weeks away, he says they’re all doing their best not to get ahead of themselves.

“Being 60 minutes away from the Super Bowl, that can be taken out of context and be thought that we’re going to go to the Super Bowl, and that the next game is kind of given to us,” says Baldwin. “It’s not.”

Baldwin notes the team still has a pretty significant obstacle that stands between them and that other big game.

“We’ve got to focus on the task at hand which is the San Francisco 49ers,” says Baldwin, “Once we handle that, then we can start worrying about the Super Bowl.”

The 49ers certainly aren’t a team to be overlooked. Baldwin says both the Seahawks and 49ers are very good teams.

“It’s two good teams, two very talented teams, that have been playing excellent football for awhile now.”

Though you might expect Baldwin, who formerly played at Stanford for 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh, might be right at the center of the tense rivalry between Seattle and San Francisco, Baldwin says the sense of friction is pretty much created by the media. The way he looks at it, they’re both skilled teams challenging each other, and he can admit he has a lot of respect for the 49ers.

“It’s a mutual respect,” says Baldwin. “That’s the only way we look at it. No negativity toward those guys because we respect what they do.”

While they’re both good teams, with actually pretty similar manners of play – Baldwin says really, it’s just a task of trying to stop them from doing the same things the Seahawks are trying to do.

Baldwin adds there’s nothing like Seattle fans.

“Our fans are obviously the loudest in the world. It’s just unbelievable for us to experience that [noise] and at such an intense level,” says Baldwin. “It’s very special to us at CenturyLink.”

It was at the last home game against the 49ers that the Seahawks first broke the world record for crowd noise. Perhaps the 12th Man will be called upon to be the difference between these two similarly stellar teams on Sunday.