This division should be dominated by the 49ers when you look at their roster compared to everyone else. Unfortunately, they had questions piling up all over during training camp and didn’t answer most of them until the first week of the season. The Rams have the best QB and the offense should be excellent but the defense is young and just lost Aaron Donald to retirement. The Cardinals have Kyler Murray and Marvin Harrison Jr. in an offensive that wasn’t bad last year without them. The Cards defense leaves a lot to be desired. The Seahawks are a team in transition but if the offensive line holds up, Geno Smith has the weapons to be good and Mike McDonald could turn this defense around quickly. This should be an interesting division race to watch all year.
San Francisco 49ers
I have to pick this team to win the division because this roster is loaded and Kyle Shanahan is one of the best coaches in the business. That doesn’t mean there aren’t serious questions that could derail this team. The offense is loaded with skill position players, or is it. RB Christian McCaffrey is the best RB in the league and it’s not close. He has a calf strain which doesn’t sound like a bad injury but McCaffrey has had soft tissue injuries in the past that lingered, this isn’t how you want to start the year. They have WRs Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, and first-round pick Ricky Pearsall. Well they just got Aiyuk signed to a new contract after a contentious contract negotiation where he missed most of camp. Oh, and Pearsall will miss at least the first month of the season after getting shot in the chest. Thankfully, he’s okay and expected to fully recover but that’s not a great way to start your rookie season. That leaves Samuel as the top guy and he’s getting older and isn’t as effective as he once was. They have TE George Kittle, he’s awesome. Kittle turns 31 in October, he had off season surgery that led to him losing a bunch of weight and he’s been trying to pack it back on before the season, that’s not ideal. QB Brock Purdy runs Shanahan’s offense very well but if he’s working with Deebo, Kittle, and Jauan Jennings as his best pass catchers it’s not going to look as pretty.
Shanahan’s offenses always have great offensive line play and can always run the ball. Well, LT Trent Williams, arguably the best offensive lineman in football, missed all of camp and just got the new contract he wanted. He’s 36 and the team certainly didn’t want to give him a long extension but again, he’s the best in football. The rest of the line is not great and without Williams, they may have been awful. The running game won’t be awesome without McCaffrey either, Elijah Mitchell hasn’t stayed healthy the last few years and I’m not sure Jordan Mason is really a guy.
The defense has one big question, is first-time defensive coordinator Nick Sorenson up to the task? After having Robert Saleh and DeMeco Ryans running the defense for his entire tenure, Shanahan had to fire Steve Wilkes after one year because the unit was not nearly good enough. He promoted Sorenson, who’s never been a coordinator, that’s a lot of pressure. He still has Nick Bosa at DE and they have to hope DT Javon Hargrave bounces back from a disappointing year. They changed out most of the rest of the DL rotation with DT Maliek Collins, DE Yetur Gross-Matos, DE Leonard Floyd and DT Jordan Elliot all new up front.
Fred Warner returns at MLB and he’s probably the best LB in football. He doesn’t have his running mate back yet as Dre Greenlaw is on the PUP list after getting hurt in the playoffs last season. That hurts, they don’t have a great replacement. CB Charvarius Ward is one of the best in football and I like CB Deommodore Lenoir but he’s more of a third CB. They drafted Renardo Green but I’m not sure that helps enough. Getting SS Talanoa Hufanga back will be huge after he got hurt last season. The secondary lacks difference makers after Ward and Hufanga.
Los Angeles Rams
I’m giving the Rams a bit of a bump here because Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford are better known quantities than the coach/QB combos in Seattle and Arizona. Stafford had a massive year last year even with Cooper Kupp banged up for a large part of the season. He turned then-rookie WR Puka Nacua into a star and then when Kupp came back they were both excellent. Stafford runs McVay’s offense beautifully. He even makes WRs like Demarcus Robinson and Tutu Atwell useful and he may have another good rookie in Jordon Whittington this season (another later round find).
Kyren Williams was fantastic last year even if Sean McVay has a tendency to run his RBs into the ground. This year they drafted Blake Corum and perhaps McVay will decide Williams doesn’t have to take 95% of the carries for the year. The offensive line got juiced a bit in the off season when the team signed LG Jonah Jackson from Detroit and moved Steve Avila to center. If Jackson is healthy and RG Kevin Dotson can play like he did last year, this team should run the ball quite well. LT Alaric Jackson is suspended for the first tow games of the year but he’s better than he gets credit for and RT Rob Havenstein does just fine.
This defense lost the best defensive player in football as Aaron Donald decided to retire. There is no way to replace him with one guy so they aren’t even going to try that. They drafted DT Braden Fiske and DE Jared Verse, both from Florida St. to add to DT Kobie Turner and OLB Byron Young, their two young front seven guys from last year’s draft. Turner was pretty good last year but he benefitted from all the attention Donald commanded. Now he and Fiske need to split the attention up front. Verse and Young can be the edge players who bring the pressure from the outside, something Young was mostly responsible for. Although Michael Hoecht held his own and he makes for a nice third pass rusher now.
Ernest Jones IV got himself traded to Tennessee and that leaves Christian Rozeboom and Omar Speights as the non-descript ILBs for this team. The secondary is where things get dicey. The CB spot was not good last year so they signed Tre’Davious White, after the Bills let him go because he’s been injured a lot lately. They signed Darius Williams who once left them for Jacksonville, he’s an upgrade over last years CBs but that’s a low bar. They signed SS Kamren Curl from Washington. Signing a Commanders defender to improve your defense seems like a bad idea but Curl is actually good. They also brought back John Johnson III at FS, he can’t be worse than they had last year. It’s duct tape, bubble gum, and hope holding this secondary together but they have done worse.
Seattle Seahawks
After the long Pete Carroll tenure they finally decided to move on. Mike Macdonald was arguably the hottest name on the assistant coaching market and Seattle remained patient and got their man. Macdonald needs to fix the defense, which is his specialty, he brought in former Washington Huskies OC Ryan Grubb to fix the offense. The offense has talent all around but the scheme was unimaginative and offensive line was in shambles last year. Geno Smith is fine at QB, no one is going to mistake him for Patrick Mahomes but he can run Grubb’s offense. He has three good WRs in DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba. They need Metcalf to play like an alpha, he has to be the top playmaker. Lockett is aging but his game has always been about beating the other guy with his know-how so he should age fairly well. JSN had some nagging injuries that bothered him at times last season but if he’s healthy, he’s really good out of the slot. They still have Noah Fant at TE, he’s not elite but he’s useful in the passing game.
The running game should be in the capable hands of Kenneth Walker III but perhaps Grubb will use Zach Charbonnet more than they did last season. Grubb had a big, physical RB at Washington last season, Dillon Johnson, and people forget that because the passing game was so potent. The real issue on offense is the offensive line. The interior was awful last year and the OTs were hurt. LT Charles Cross is very good when healthy, he wasn’t healthy last season. RT Abe Lucas missed a lot of the season and he’s still on the PUP list, that’s not ideal. They need these two to get healthy and stay that way. They signed C Connor Williams, who’s also a big injury risk because they were awful at center last year. Williams is good, but again, he has to be on the field. LG Laken Tomlinson is 32 and hasn’t been in his prime in several years but he’s still better than what they had. RG looks like Anthony Bradford but they should give rookie Christian Haynes a real shot at the job.
The defense starts up front with Jarran Reed, Jonathan Hankins, and Leonard Williams, three solid veterans. They are all on the wrong side of 30 but Macdonald will get the best out of them. Williams isn’t the guy he was at his peak but he can still bring it from time to time. The wild card is rookie Byron Murphy II. He is a game wrecking talent and Macdonald should unleash him and let him destroy teams. The pass rush is a work in progress. It seems they are using Dre’Mont Jones there, he has always been more of a lineman than a LB but we shall see. Uchenna Nwosu is returning from injury and probably their best chance at a true edge rusher. They also have Boye Mafe and rookie Derick Hall, we will see if Macdonald can turn those guys into difference makers.
They cleared out the LB group and signed Jerome Baker and Tyrel Dodson in free agency. They add some speed and youth after the team relied heavily on Bobby Wagner last year. The secondary is where Macdonald needs work his magic. Devon Witherspoon is a talent that they need to figure out how best to use him. Riq Woolen was really good as a rookie two years ago and then not good last year, fix him and you have a big, physical outside CB. At safety, they let Jamal Adams and Quandre Diggs go and they already had Julian Love to replace one spot. They signed Jaguars cast-off Rashawn Jenkins to be the SS, not sure that’s great. Baltimore had some great defensive back play under Macdonald, he needs to find that magic here.
Arizona Cardinals
The Cardinals are entering year two for Jonathan Gannon and year one went better than expected especially when you consider Kyler Murray was out for about half the year. OC Drew Petzing put together an offense that was way better than the talent he had to work with. Once Murray came back, he looked good running that offense too. They found a good young piece to their passing game with TE Trey McBride proving to be a real weapon. He didn’t have a lot of help so the Cardinals drafted the best WR prospect since Julio Jones, Marvin Harrison Jr. Harrison is going to be a monster and he’s ready to step in as WR1 on day one. He and McBride are top talents that should make Murray’s life a little easier. Michael Wilson had a decent rookie year and should be the second WR on this team while Greg Dortch is the slot guy. Wilson and Dortch aren’t game changers and there’s virtually no depth but you have to start somewhere.
The running game will be capably in the hands of James Connor who is solid and completely unspectacular. They did draft Trey Benson in round three and he has some juice, I like Benson. The offensive line shuffles a bit with Paris Johnson Jr. moving from RT to LT after DJ Humphries was cut and the team signed Jonah Williams from Cincinnati to be the RT. I’m not a Williams fan but he’s passable. The interior isn’t stellar but Hjalte Froholdt held his own at center so that’s helpful. The guards are not great and that could send Murray scrambling a bit, that’s not a bad thing, he’s good at it. As long as it doesn’t get him killed.
The defense is the reason I’m picking this team to finish last in the division. They don’t have much on this side of the ball. There are unproven rookies and second-year guys, veterans that nobody else really wants, and then Budda Baker. The line has DTs Bilal Nicols and Justin Jones along with converted LB Zaven Collins, rookie Darius Robinson, and maybe Dante Stills. That’s an uninspiring group to say the least. At LB it’s guys like Dennis Gardeck, Mack Wilson Sr., and Kyzir White. Not setting the world on fire with that group. The secondary has CBs Sean Murphy-Bunting, Garrett Williams, and rookie Max Melton. Yikes. Jalen Thompson is fine at SS but FS Budda Baker is a good player who gets overwhelmed because he’s trying to cover up for the lack of talent everywhere else. I just can’t put this team competing for the division or the playoffs with this defense.
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