For a few years the NFC West was the Seahawks‘ to lose, and they ambled into the post-season on the back of 6 easy games a season. Things have changed a bit since then, with the 49ers and the Cardinals both making progress (you could say more about last year’s Cardinals but I suspect it was a one-off) and the ‘Hawks having an awful year last year.


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The Arizona Cardinals were truly the Cinderalla of last season, and to put it bluntly, those stories don’t repeat. I don’t see them making 9-7 again, and I think they’ll fall behind Seattle in division and probably miss the playoffs. I hope this isn’t the case, but I just think too many things went right last year (or wrong for divisional competition) for them to win out and coast into the playoffs again.

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The St. Louis Rams had a terrible year last year, plunging to 2-14. The only reason, I’m sure, they didn’t join the Lions was the coach-change mid-season that immediately gave them two victories agains the NFC East. (at Washington, ggrrr… and against the Cowboys). They should be better all around this year, though they’ve turned over a fair few important players. Defensively this year, with Spagnuolo as the head coach, you would expect more. But more than 2-14 isn’t really saying much… I still don’t see them making a serious dent in this division, other than perhaps a spoiler or two here and there.

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The Seattle Seahawks came off a good run of divisional titles and basically fell apart. But there were a lot of reasons for that, and they weren’t blown away that much by the opposition. This year, they’re settled (in terms of coaches) and improved (in terms of players). Everyone’s looking for the ‘turnaround team’ and I think it could well be the Seahawks this year. And unlike 4 of the 5 previous seasons, I think they’ll have earned their place in the post-season.

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The San Fancisco 49ers had a good second half of the season and will be looking to carry that onwards to upwards. However, they’re currently not commited to a quarterback and will have Alex Smith, Shaun Hill, Damon Huard and Nate Davis competing to be the starter. Smith has restructured his contract and taken a cut to stay in San Francisco and I’d like to see him make it, but Hill was steady last year and Huard will surely fall into the number three spot.
They’re a difficult team to predict, and I could see them pipping the Cardinals to runner-up, but I don’t see this division sending two teams into the post-season.

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