After three weeks, the NFC West is a complete unknown at this point — and the NFL is better for it. Comparatively speaking across the NFL landscape, there’s no more intriguing division.
Let’s break it down a bit. The Seattle Seahawks are leading the division with a perfect 3-0 record. From there, the remaining three teams — San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles, Rams, and Arizona Cardinals — are all 1-2. Those records might indicate each of the squads being relative non-factors in the NFC playoff race. With that said, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Let’s start with Seattle In Mike Macdonald’s inaugural year, the Seahawks have limited opponents to a combined 43 points through the first three games. Geno Smith continues to play at a high level, and the skill players around him have done a good job. Even with Kenneth Walker sidelined, former UCLA star Zach Charbonnet has stepped up and played quite well. With the schedule getting considerably harder in the upcoming weeks, we’ll see if Seattle can maintain its solid start.
The Rams have been decimated by injury. Among them, Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua will be sidelined for the foreseeable future. Even then, LA showed some real grit by beating rival San Francisco this past weekend in thrilling come-from-behind fashion. We saw the blueprint for what could make this team successful until it gets healthy. Matt Stafford is still a top-10 QB in this league. One can make a real argument that Kyren Williams is a top-10 RB. And of course, Sean McVay is arguably the best head coach in football. He’ll figure out a way to win (evidenced by Sunday afternoon) even with roster issues.
Arizona has played some good football despite dropping two of its first three. As we predicted before the season began, this is a frisky team and one that you don’t want to play depending on the situation. Kyler Murray is doing Kyler Murray things, running around and making plays of the improvisational variety. He’s already formed a strong connection to this year’s No. 4 Overall pick Marvin Harrison Jr. The Cardinals lost by six on the road to a tough Buffalo squad in the opener. Coming home, they destroyed the Rams by a score of 41-10. This past weekend, Detroit narrowly defeated them by a score of 20-13. Essentially, the Cardinals lost to two of the best teams in the league by one-score margins and soundly beat a division foe. Don’t sleep on Arizona…they might end up being way better than anyone thinks.
Then, there’s the 49ers. This team is dealing with a plethora of injuries — not to mention somewhat shoddy play from the interior of its offensive line. Not having Christian McCaffrey or Deebo Samuel healthy is not ideal. They gifted the game away to the Rams on the road and also lost a winnable game in Minneapolis to the Vikings. While ‘the sky is falling’ narrative may be placed on this team, this is still a loaded roster. They lost two road games (to good teams) by a combined nine points. As this team gets healthy, it should be fine moving forward.
With us less than a month into the season, there’s still plenty to play for. It wouldn’t be overly shocking to see two or even three teams from this division make the playoffs. Save for possibly Arizona, the division winner could also literally be anyone.
