Seahawks Run Wild With an Eye on the Playoffs
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Before the season, the NFC West race was thought to be up in the air, with only San Francisco out of the running. But this was based on a misperception that last year’s 9-7 Seattle Seahawks were a team on the decline, not a great team simply suffering a hardluck season. This year, the hard luck is gone and so is any question about who will win this division.
SEATTLE SEAHAWKS (7 -2 )
The Seahawks’ win over St. Louis on Sunday capped a sweep of the season series with their greatest nemesis. Now Seattle can turn its eyes toward a larger prize. With a division title virtually assured, Seattle will compete with Carolina, Dallas, and the Giants for the best record in the conference and home field advantage throughout the playoffs.
Seattle’s offense is led by running back Shaun Alexander, an MVP candidate with 1,114 yards and 17 touchdowns in what is the most consistent year of his career. Matt Hasselbeck has led a strong passing game despite both starting receivers – Bobby Engram and Darrell Jackson – missing time with injuries.
Seattle is a prime example of how performance on third downs, which is so important to the success of an offense or defense, can swing wildly from season to season. Two years ago, Seattle had the best third-down offense in the NFL, according to Football Outsiders’ numbers. Last year, they plummeted to 27th, and the entire offense stalled. This year, they’re back up to second behind Jacksonville. Yet Seattle’s performance on first and second down has stayed consistently strong in all three years.
Seattle’s weakness is still its defense, but even that has improved this year, particularly against the run. Rookie Lofa Tatupu and free agent signing Jamie Sharper have been significant additions at linebacker. The secondary, however, is filled with veterans of questionable skill.
The Seahawks still have two games against San Francisco, and their hardest remaining opponents, the Giants and Colts, have to come to Seattle. How important is it that the Seahawks have the conference’s best record? Over the past three seasons, Seattle is 18-3 at home, but only 8-12 on the road.
ST. LOUIS RAMS (4-5)
While the Seahawks have turned things around after a mediocre 2004, the Rams have run in place. Once again, they are a poor team stumbling to a .500 record, thanks mostly to a soft schedule. Once again, they have a slightly above-average offense, balanced between the pass and the run, which looks better than it really is because their division is so defensively challenged. Once again, they are defensively challenged themselves.
The Rams won two straight games after controversial head coach Mike Martz had to step down for health reasons, and fans hope interim coach Joe Vitt will turn their team around. The Rams also have suffered from key injuries to quarterback Marc Bulger and starting wide receivers Torry Holt and Isaac Bruce, and there is hope that with these players back, the team will make a play for a wild-card spot.
Don’t count on it. St. Louis’s offense hasn’t really improved since Vitt took over from Martz, nor was the offense that much worse after Bulger was injured and backup Jamie Martin took over at quarterback. The Rams have had the most consistent offense in the league, no matter who is coaching or who is healthy. With Houston, Arizona, and San Francisco all still left on the schedule, the Rams may give brief glimpses of their one-time identity as the Greatest Show on Turf. But it will take unforeseen defensive improvement for them to even be the Greatest Wild Card on Turf.
ARIZONA CARDINALS (2-7 )
SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS (2-7)
At the bottom of the NFC West, the Cardinals and 49ers are providing a clinic on how to rebuild a bad team (San Francisco) and how not to rebuild a bad team (Arizona).
The 49ers entered the season knowing they would not contend. They took quarterback Alex Smith with the top overall draft pick and inserted him into the lineup early in the season. He was horrible, with five interceptions and five fumbles in just two starts before getting injured. Still, the 49ers recognized that Smith, rather than one of their subpar backups, is the future of the franchise and needed experience. They’ve realized the same thing about rookie running back Frank Gore, who has been more effective than starter Kevan Barlow and is getting more carries each week.
While the offensive skill players learn their craft, the defense learns to play a 3-4 scheme under new head coach Mike Nolan. Veteran Bryant Young has thrived at defensive end, and the 49ers have younger talents on defense as well: linebacker Julian Peterson and defensive end Marques Douglas, for example. Players will keep gaining experience, holes will be filled in the off-season, and the 49ers could surprise people in 2006.
The Cardinals, on the other hand, overestimated their talent this year. Instead of finding a young quarterback, they brought in past-his-prime veteran Kurt Warner. While the 49ers are getting more carries for their rookie Gore, the Cardinals benched their rookie, first-round pick J.J. Arrington, and are still giving nearly all their carries to lifetime second-stringer Marcel Shipp. The defense is staffed with veterans in their 30s.
Arizona’s front office needs to look at this team in the off-season and ask itself of every player: “Will this guy be on our team when we’re a Super Bowl contender?” If the answer is no, the player should be replaced with a younger alternative. This is the path the 49ers are taking, which is why they’ll climb back into the mix before their rivals in the desert.
Projected order of finish: Seattle 13-3 (division title), St. Louis 8-8, Arizona 4-12, San Francisco 3-13.
Mr. Schatz is the editor in chief of FootballOutsiders.com.