NFL Notebook: NFC West Preview
Our preseason tour of the NFL divisions comes to an end with the NFC West. The San Francisco 49ers are looking to at last take that final step under Kyle Shanahan. The Los Angeles Rams are looking to return to the playoffs. The Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals are looking for hope. Here’s a snapshot look at all four:
San Francisco
Letting a Super Bowl that they should have won slip through their fingers is what will either haunt or motivate the 49ers from now until February. They certainly have the skill position pieces to make it happen. From Christian McCaffrey to Brandon Aiyuk to George Kittle to Deebo Samuel, there are plenty of weapons. Brock Purdy gets the ball down the field as well as any quarterback in the game. While his mistakes are still too high, he’s also young enough for there to be reasonable hope that issue can take care of itself. There are potential problems with the offensive line though, a huge component of San Francisco’s success under Kyle Shanahan. Trent Williams is a holdout, and a vulnerable interior is dependent on rookie guard Dominick Puni to make an immediate impact.
Defensively, the 49ers have some weak points, but they’re well-coached and have star talent in Nick Bosa at defensive end, Fred Warner at linebacker and Charvarius Ward and Isaac Yiadom at the corners. Some of those vulnerabilities will probably act up during the regular season, like the three-game skid they went on during the middle of last year. But if the stars are healthy, the defense should be good enough in the biggest games.
Los Angeles Rams
The Rams won ten games last year and made the playoffs in spite of a defense that ranked just 19th in the league. Somehow, that mediocre performance got coordinator Raheem Morris the head coaching job in Atlanta. Maybe that will work out for the Rams because there’s some pieces to work with. Kobie Turner and Bobby Brown are good in the trenches. Ernest Jones is steady at inside linebacker, and Darious Williams is a solid corner. The newcomers will decide if the Rams can leap into the league’s upper half defensively—Braden Fiske up front, Jared Verse at outside linebacker and Chris Shula, heir to one of America’s famous football families, as the new coordinator.
How much gas does 35-year-old Matthew Stafford still have left in the tank? The veteran quarterback saw his completion percentage slip into the low 60s last year, an alarm bell spot in today’s game. The aging of Cooper Kupp undoubtedly plays a role in that, and Stafford’s options are basically limited to Puka Nacua. What L.A. does have is a good running game. Kyren Willliams averaged five a pop last year and Rob Havenstein is still one of the game’s better tackles.
Seattle Seahawks
New head coach Mike Macdonald inherits a roster that has gone soft in the trenches. Other than center Connor Williams, the offensive line is porous. The defense has holes up and down the lineup. There’s a nice building block with inside linebacker Tyrel Dodson, one of the game’s best. But Dodson is a lonely warrior in a venue that the Legion of Boom dominated just a decade ago.
That’s why it’s hard to have much hope for Seattle. At 33-years-old, Geno Smith has become a respectable game manager, which is more than might have been expected a few years ago. But being a game manager presumes there is something to manage. Smith should be running for his life, and running back Kenneth Walker will have a hard time finding holes.
Arizona Cardinals
If hope is hard to come by in the Pacific Northwest, it’s even harder to find in the desert. The offensive line is awful. So is the defensive line and the secondary. Kyler Murray might wish he had stayed on injured reserve. The fact James Connor had a 1,000-yard rushing season and still got five yards per carry speaks volumes to his status as an underappreciated back toiling in obscurity. Kudos also go to Mack Wilson, a good linebacker amidst the wreckage.
Arizona drafted a genuine star in wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. Given that train wreck that this roster is, it’s hard to think he’ll put up much in the way of numbers. But if the rebuilding project succeeds, Harrison can be a worthy heir to Larry Fitzgerald’s receiving legacy in Phoenix.
Preliminary Conclusions
My feelings on Arizona and Seattle are pretty clear. The division boils down to two questions—are the 49ers hungry or heartbroken? Normally, I would be sure of the former. But last year’s Super Bowl was only the latest in what’s been a run of hard postseason losses over a five-year stretch. That’s hard to keep coming back from. The issue though, invites the second question, which is whether the Rams are good enough to exploit any San Francsico slippage. That’s going to come down to the defensive newcomers mentioned.
That’s a wrap on our NFL preseason notebooks. I’m not exactly sure what the next step will be here on the blog. We’ll definitely do something in October for the baseball playoffs, but I’m still sorting out how to handle notebook coverage during football season.
In the meantime, though, we have a Substack The Notebook Newsletter, which is free. There are plans for a lively September in that space. We’ll have a final NFL preview that will encompass everything chronicled here and showcase a little more creativity than the more clinical reports the notebooks are meant to be. We’ll also have some MVP talk in baseball. So, sign up here. Between the blog and the Substack, you can join us on the ride through football and the baseball postseason.