NFC West: Halfway home in football’s worst division

Here’s something I wrote before the season that looks stupid now.

As anyone who participated in a fantasy draft recently will tell you, there is a shocking dearth of quality NFL quarterbacks nowadays. The NFC West is attempting to buck that trend by fielding competent signal callers division-wide.

Marc Bulger, Matt Leinart, and Alex Smith (the latter two I wildly overrated in my Know Your Enemy’s) gave way to Gus Frerotte, Trent Dilfer, Kurt Warner, and Tim Rattay.

In other news, Shaun Alexander is so fucking terrible I don’t know what to do. (Of course I hyped him too.)

The only thing keeping the Seahawks in first place is the ridiculously poor performance of the other teams. The Cardinals have lost 3 in a row. The Nines have lost 6 in a row. The Rams have yet to win. The brutal standings then with first four games record in paranthesis:

Hawks 4-4 (3-1)
Buzzsaw 3-5 (2-2)
Nines 2-6 (2-2)
Lambs Smell 0-8 (0-4)

A team by team look at how we got here, what needs to improve, and what the next four games on the schedule hold. First up are your rapidly aging reigning division champions, the Seattle Seahawks.

Seattle: The Seahawks started off the season looking to rebound from last year’s injury plagued, ultimately disappointing 9-7 season. They looked to have things going in the right direction getting out of the gate 3-1 despite the poor running of Shaun Alexander. Seattle opened up their second four by going to Pittsburgh and laying a big fat egg losing 21-0. Fine. You had to expect that loss. Still at 3-2 they had a nice two game stretch at home to fatten up to 5-2, or so one would have thought. Then they were just beat by a previously winless Saints team. Those same Saints are now 4-4, but it is the responsibility of “good” teams to step on the throats of struggling teams. Especially at home. Then Seattle enjoyed a closer than the final score indicated 33-6 win over the Lambs, and celebrated with a week off.

During which they should have signed Grady Jackson.

We’re all familiar with last week’s wasted opportunity in Cleveland. Ugh. New slogan for Mike Holmgren: “Fourth and One Please Don’t Run.” I know we ought to be able to get one yard on the ground, but Palestinians and Jews ought to stop killing one another. We can’t and they won’t. C’est la vie. Thinking about it that Cleveland game reminded me of the Sprinkler Dance game in Baltimore from 2003 where Seattle was throwing all over the field and built up a huge lead, only to have Anthony Wright and Marcus Robinson light up our secondary to come all the way back on us. We wasted awesome td celebrations in that loss, much like Nate Burleson’s delightful LeBron talcum powder mimicking went to waste last Sunday.

The similarities between these two games don’t end there. Both are examples of teams that just weren’t/aren’t quite good enough.

After that unfunny and unfocused rambling about a really frustrating team, I now offer my fixup ideas for the Seahawks.

Bench Shaun Alexander until he has two working hands. It’s amazing that they let him play and then attempt to throw him the ball out of the backfield. Put 37 on the shelf please until he’s healthy, unless this is all part of some devious scheme to turn the city against him so that they can cut him in the offseason without upsetting the fanbase and save money against the salary cap. The sad reality is, that scenario would not upset me. I’m so bandwagon.

Play the shit out of Seneca Wallace. Right now we do nothing well on offense. We have a competent passing game and that’s it. Get Wallace on the field for 10-15 snaps a game and throw in some whoopdy do horse plop. I’m talking about a few snaps under center too. I’m not insinuating that Matt Hasselbeck is anyone’s Mike Tomczak, I just think we need a new angle.

And if you read into those last two paragraphs you might have discerned that I don’t believe we can be fixed at this juncture, and therefore am grasping at straws. This is depressing.

Next four: SF, CHI, @ St. Louis, @ Philly

The Seahawks can no longer assume road victories, even against terrible teams. I honestly am predicting W, L, W, L for these next four. I hope to be surprised by a little better. I won’t be overly surprised by worse.

(Side note: Erin Andrews is on tv right now looking gorgeous as usual. I feel refreshed.)

(Look! We do the same things with the same Powerbooks!)

Arizona: Arizona beat what appears to be a decent Pittsburgh team, but honestly all you have to do to beat Pittsburgh is get ahead because Big Ben ain’t bringing them back. Then Matt Leinart got hurt or something? Then Kurt Warner got hurt? I honestly wasn’t paying well enough attention but I swear that Tim Rattay has taken a few snaps for them recently. 3-2 out of the gate they have now stumbled to 3-5. They were beat at home by Vinny Testaverde. Steven A. Smith would respond to that news by incredulously yelling Vinny’s name in a protracted manner. I couldn’t argue with him for that.

I honestly can’t fix these Cardinals because I don’t know what’s wrong with them. I’ve been watching too many Titans and Bills games to be bothered with our crappy division.

Next four: Det, @ Cin, SF, Cle

This is a hay making schedule stretch for Arizona. Every one of these games is winnable for them. Let’s have them lose the road game and manage to lose one of the other three to split things up. But man oh man is that an easy stretch. They could overtake the Hawks. But they are still Arizona…

San Francisco: Remember when they were a sexy sleeper and then Rocky Bernard was dropped out of a plane onto the shoulder of Alex Smith? Good times. Play of the year for the Hawks so far. Losers of six in a row, the Nines in any other division would be tanking games in the interest of securing the future services of Jake Long. In the NFC West, there’s still a playoff position at stake! At 2-6 they are only two games out of first with a game vs. the first place team this week. Expect espn to stress that angle relentlessly as they try to recruit viewers for this stinker.

I would also like to note that San Francisco allowed the ghost of Warrick Dunn to run for 100 yards against them last week.

Next four: @ Sea, STL, @ AZ, @ Car

If you’re Mike Nolan your pitch has to be “We had some injuries and lost some tough games, but over the next three weeks we have an excellent chance to get right back in this thing by getting wins over the other terrible, listless teams in our division. To aid in this pursuit I have made a sartorial upgrade. Behold:”

They’ll beat St. Louis and lose the other three games.

St. Louis: How we got here? Lord only knows. All I know is that watching a little of their game last weekend I saw two of their fans wearing bags on their heads. One said Lambs and the next one said Smell. “Lambs Smell” is an appropriate substitute for “Rams Suck” heretofore. Also right now Brian Leonard and Steven Jackson have the same number of carries for the same number of yards. But one’s way better than the other right?

Next four: @ NO, @ SF, Sea, ATL

The Rams will either beat Seattle or Atlanta at home and end the worst team ever talk. Maybe.