When: 8:30 p.m. ET Thursday Where: Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, California TV: NBC

The San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks rekindle their rivalry on Thanksgiving with both teams 7-4 and two games behind the Arizona Cardinals in the NFC West. Is this a must-win situation more for one team than the other?

NFL Nation reporters Paul Gutierrez, who covers the Niners, and Terry Blount, who covers the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks, break down the matchup.

Paul Gutierrez: Terry, many teams have gone through Super Bowl hangovers, but with how young, healthy and hungry the Seahawks were coming into this season, they seemed to be the ones primed to break that spell. Why have there been so many fits and starts with this team this season?

Terry Blount: First, the loss of experienced depth from last season’s team really hurt the Seahawks when they suffered some injuries to key players earlier this season. Seattle lost 11 players off the 2013 squad that had a total of 58 years of experience. With injuries to tight end Zach Miller, center Max Unger, cornerback Byron Maxwell, middle linebacker Bobby Wagner and nickelback Jeremy Lane, they had to fill in with younger players who were learning on the run and taking their lumps at times. Most of those starters are back now and the Seahawks have won four of their past five. But the other factor has been the distractions caused by the Percy Harvin trade. It was a shocking decision that threw the team for a loop and brought about a slew of stories concerning problems in the locker room. Most of it was baloney. Now the players have taken an us-against-the-world attitude (including a team meeting last week), which may benefit them in the long run.

Paul, I would be remiss not to bring up the whole Michael Crabtree-Richard Sherman feud. Do you think the whole Sherman sideshow at the end of last season's NFC Championship Game, his national TV rant after the tip/interception that decided the outcome, still eats at Crabtree?

Gutierrez: Well, since Crabtree was not made available to the media this week, I can only surmise that, yes, it does bother him. How could it not? He is human, after all, and for someone as proud as Crabtree purports to be, being called “sorry” and “mediocre” by Sherman has to eat at him. Remember, this is a guy who, in the afterglow of his potentially season-saving 51-yard catch on fourth-and-10 at New Orleans three games ago spoke not of being a hero, but rather of becoming a third-down receiver, a fourth option. Yeah, there’s ego involved. What I’m curious to see, though, is with Anquan Boldin becoming Colin Kaepernick’s go-to receiver, will Sherman leave Crabtree to his own devices, real and imagined, and instead cover Boldin? Boldin has been the Niners’ Mr. Dependable and their MVP on offense. And something tells me Sherman would respect Boldin more than he does Crabtree.

Speaking of respect, or lack thereof, how tenuous is the relationship between Marshawn Lynch and the Seahawks' front office, and could it have a domino effect on the rest of the roster?

Blount: This sort of plays into what I was saying earlier about the team rallying around each other while everyone outside the organization speculates about internal issues, including Lynch’s future. Seahawks coach Pete Carroll is an easygoing guy with reporters, but he took a terse stand last week over all the Lynch talk, saying they have always wanted him back and that reporters would have known it had they asked him. Nevertheless, Lynch wasn’t happy about the whole holdout situation and not getting the big-money contractual change he wanted. Lynch is an unusual guy, to say the least, but his teammates fully support him and he’s playing as well as he ever has. The organization knows he gives everything he has when he’s on the field.

After falling to 4-4 with the loss to the Rams, the 49ers have won three in a row. All three were close games and San Francisco came from behind in the second half to win two of them. What’s been the biggest key to pulling out these close games?

Gutierrez: A stick-to-it-iveness that defies the odds. In New Orleans, it was the 51-yard catch by Crabtree on fourth down. At the Meadowlands, it was the defense’s ability to keep the Giants out of the end zone despite their having first-and-goal at the 4-yard line. And last weekend, it was Frank Gore being able to break a tackle in the backfield on fourth-and-1 to pick up the first down. As coach Jim Harbaugh put it, winning these games in such fashion enables the Niners to make deposits into the “toughness account,” from which they can later make withdrawals when needed. Harbaugh speak? Sure. But if you’re asking for something tangible, well it would be the play of the Niners’ defense, which has risen to the occasion despite having lost Patrick Willis for the season with a toe injury, having yet to gain the services of NaVorro Bowman and just regaining Aldon Smith's presence. The play of rookie Chris Borland at inside linebacker and veteran defensive lineman Justin Smith has enabled the defense to keep games close enough for an oft-sputtering offense to make just enough plays to win.

Russell Wilson is obviously a good running quarterback, as is Kaepernick. But while the Niners have put an emphasis on making Kaepernick more of a pocket passer and, thus, you don’t see him making planned runs as much, Wilson seems to be running with abandon. Is there much of a fear in Seattle that running Wilson so much risks injury, or would reining him in take his game away?

Blount: It’s all about taking what the defense gives them. Wilson never goes into a game planning to run 10 times, but if the defense keys on Lynch off the zone-read and Wilson sees wide-open spaces off the edge, he is off to the races. Sometimes it comes off a naked bootleg when he sees 20 yards of room in front of him. But you’re right, there is an inherent risk in this stuff. Wilson does a great job of sliding down before getting hit, but you have to wonder if the odds catch up to him at some point and an injury happens. Honestly, as poorly as the offensive line has played in pass blocking, Wilson is at a much bigger risk of getting injured on a sack in the pocket than he is running the ball.

You probably get a question like this one every week, but since Jim Harbaugh is the man Seahawks fans love to hate more than any other person in the NFL, is this season the last chance they get to boo him as coach of the 49ers?

Gutierrez: If the Niners flop and fail to get into the playoffs, then I’d say ... yes. With so much drama and innuendo floating between the front office and the coaching box, it’s hard to imagine Harbaugh being welcomed back to Santa Clara after failing in what everyone dripping in red and gold deemed a Super Bowl or bust season. His alma mater at Michigan seems a natural fit. But with as much a competitor as Harbaugh is, and knowing that his two biggest coaching competitors in the NFL -- brother John and the guy you cover up in Seattle in Carroll -- have won the past two Lombardi trophies, that has to eat at him, too. Perhaps enough to make him want to stay in the league. And if it’s not in Santa Clara, perhaps up the Bay in Oakland? It’s a fluid situation, Terry, one that no one, least of all Harbaugh himself, can predict with any certainty. Especially not with five games remaining in this season, including two with the Seahawks, and the Niners seemingly built for a playoff run.