The
NFC Champions came out of this division a year ago, and they are among the
favorites in the league yet again. But beneath them, the Seahawks lurk after a
surprising playoff appearance, with two other teams that are fascinating
for the sheer range of possibilities that could unfold.
Los Angeles Rams
The Upside
The
Rams fell flat in the Super Bowl a year ago, and they enter this season hoping
to get payback. They are set up to do just that. They return most of the key players from last year’s roster, with the same solid offensive line, deep
receiving corps, and playmaking defense. And of course, Sean McVay, who has
earned his reputation as the premier offensive mind in the NFL.
Normally
in this section I have to make the case for how a team will improve on last
season, but for the defending NFC champions merely staying put will be good
enough. Still, they did their best to improve over the offseason, adding
veterans Eric Weddle and Clay Matthews to shore up their defense. They’re
deeper at running back now with rookie Darrell Henderson, and their offense
will get another boost with the health of Cooper Kupp in the slot.
The Downside
When
a team enters the season with a mantra of Super Bowl or bust, it doesn’t take
much to knock them off course. And there are more than a few places where I
worry about the Rams. The most glaring is at running back, where the long term
health of Todd Gurley has been the biggest question hanging over their
offseason. Gurley’s role in this offense is just about irreplaceable, with what
he does both as a featured runner and in the passing game. If the Rams rushing
attack suddenly disappears, this will lead to a chain reaction which will
hinder their passing game and their defense.
I
fear what will happen if a bigger burden is placed on Jared Goff. He has
improved over the past two years, but he is still far below the other top
quarterbacks in the NFC. He excels in an offense built around play action and
clever routes, and as we saw in the Super Bowl he can wilt when not given
perfect situations. If he doesn’t have a running game to rely on—or if age
finally catches up to their offensive line—this offense could fall far short of
what it’s been over the past two years. In a soft division, I still think they
are the favorite, but their goal isn’t to win the NFC
West.
Player to Watch – Austin Blythe, G
McVay
and Goff get most of the credit for the turnaround by the Rams, and with good
reason. But most people who follow the league also understand just how
important the line has been to Los Angeles’s offensive dominance over the past
two seasons. The addition of Andrew Whitworth was crucial to the development of Goff,
who like many young quarterbacks falls to pieces when not in a clean pocket.
Things
are going to be a bit trickier this year. The Rams lost two starters off their
line this offseason, center John Sullivan and left guard Rodger Saffold. The
only returning member of their interior line is Blythe, a young player who was
up and down last year in his first season as a starter. At times he had the
look of an emerging star, and at others he was the glaring weak point of this
unit. With less experienced talent around him, he’s going to need to be a lot more the
former than the latter this year, otherwise Goff could find himself with a lot
less time and space to run McVay’s system.
Seattle Seahawks
The Upside
Seattle
went through a bit of a transitional year last season, and they still made it
to the postseason. They rebuilt their offensive line, and they changed their
offensive philosophy to favor a run-first approach. They dealt with playing for
the first time in years without elite talent in their secondary, and they made
the most out of the younger pieces they have in place on that side of the ball.
There were plenty of shaky moments, but Russell Wilson is good enough to carry
this team to the postseason once again.
Any
farther than that is unlikely, but this could be a good intermediate year as
they figure out what they are before trying to make a deeper run in 2020. They
have some experimenting to do both at wide receiver and at defensive line, to
replace key figures that left during the offseason. There will be some times
they struggle as they sort through their issues, but with Wilson on one side of
the ball and Bobby Wagner on the other, they have a pair of veteran stars who
can drag them to a few surprise victories and give them a chance to sneak into
the playoffs once again.
The Downside
The
more I look at this roster, the more impressed I am that they managed to make
the playoffs a year ago. Besides their two stars (and KJ Wright) there is
nothing left from the elite teams of the past, and things got only worse this
past year. No one was surprised when Earl Thomas left, but losing Doug Baldwin
to retirement and Frank Clark to a trade has to hurt in the immediate future.
And
on the offensive side, I’m not sure they can survive another season like they
did last year. Their entire offensive philosophy is built around running the
football at times when it makes no sense to run, then hoping
Wilson can bail them out with a couple deep shots down the field late in the
game. Brian Schottenheimer has been historically bad with every team he has
held an offensive coordinator job for, and I don’t expect him to suddenly turn
things around this year. As good as Wilson and Wagner are, a team built on
heroics is a team not far from collapse, and if they aren’t scraping for a Wild
Card spot at the end of the year I could see Seattle plummeting all the way to
another hard reset in 2020.
Player to Watch – Poona Ford, DT
Seattle’s
quest to find the heart of their defense moving forward starts at the front.
After trading away Clark, they used their first round pick on LJ Collier, but
he’s a developmental prospect who likely won’t be a major contributor right
away. They had hoped they would get more production from Jarran Reed after a
breakout 2018 in which he put up 10.5 sacks from the defensive tackle position.
But this seemed overly optimistic for a player who showed no indication of pass
rushing skill before last year (3 sacks in his first two seasons combined), and
it became an even bigger issue when it was announced that he would be suspended for
the first six games.
The
heart of their defensive front will likely be the unheralded Ford, who in a
single year has gone from an undrafted free agent to a fan favorite. He’s
undersized, and he isn’t super versatile, but he seems to have found his way
into the perfect situation in Seattle. He’ll be asked mostly to shoot off the
ball and try to make plays in the backfield as part of Seattle’s aggressive
defense, trusting Wagner and Wright to cover any holes he might leave behind
him. He didn’t have much in the way of production as a rookie, but he has the
potential to explode this year, giving the Seahawks a good young piece to build
around up front.
Arizona Cardinals
The Upside
The
Cardinals are a fascinating team, because I still have no idea what to expect
from Kliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray. I could see it going any one of three ways.
The first way is that it’s a total disappointment. Kingsbury waters down his
system against tougher competition, Murray doesn’t excel against athletes who
can keep up with him, and the entire team falls flat. The second is that they
go for broke and it still doesn’t pan out. This team was the worst in the
league for a reason a season ago, and their roster didn’t suddenly get loaded
with fresh talent from top to bottom.
I
think this second one is the most likely outcome. But there’s a third
possibility, one that’s a long shot but is real enough to make this team worth
paying attention to. There is the chance that this all goes right, that
defenses in the NFL aren’t prepared for Kingsbury’s aerial assault, that Murray
is a dynamic, game changing athlete. The Cardinals loaded up with talent at
wide receiver, they still have enough good players on defense to pull something
together, and they could make a shocking run towards a .500 record, or if
things break right maybe even a Wild Card spot.
The Downside
But
again, this roster just doesn’t have that much talent. Their offensive line was
a catastrophe a year ago, and they didn’t do much of anything to make it
better. They haven’t found anyone on defense yet to make up for the loss a
couple years ago of Calais Campbell, and they spent most of the offseason
working on their offense. Even if their strategy this offseason turns out to be
brilliant, they’re still likely a couple years away from being ready to
compete.
But
that’s okay. Because there are no expectations for this year, and I don’t think
things will be enough of a disaster to rule out all hope for the future. This
team should simply be fun this year, rolling out five wide receivers, letting
Murray run around like crazy, and seeing if they can steal a couple of
shootouts. Worry about winning games later. For now, just put on a good show.
Player to Watch – Budda Baker, S
The
diminutive Baker has had a couple of years to adjust to the NFL, and now it’s
time for the Cardinals to let him loose. He’s played a mostly cautious safety
role over the first two seasons, bouncing around in the slot and in the box,
but he has the talent to do so much more. In college he was a game wrecking
nightmare that always appeared where offenses least expected him—a Troy
Polamalu, Harrison Smith, Derwin James type player. And now it’s time for the
Cardinals to give him that same chance in the NFL.
Arizona
does have a couple of traditional safeties they could roll out there. DJ
Swearinger is good when he’s not running out of position trying to decapitate a
wide receiver, and Deionte Thompson is a low ceiling/high floor rookie from
Alabama. Together they can hold things down in the back end while Baker is
freed in more of a hybrid slot/cornerback/linebacker role. There will be bumps
along the road, but that’s kind of just what the Cardinals are right now. And
if it pans out, they have the potential to unlock their next game changing
defensive star.
San Francisco 49ers
The Upside
Everything
is riding on Jimmy Garoppolo. That was true last year, and when he struggled
out of the gate then went down with an injury, their season was more or less
shot. It’s even truer this year, as their rebuild has continued and the
pressure has risen to actually show some forward progress. They need Garoppolo
to be good. They probably need Garoppolo to be great, if they’re going to have
any hope of making the playoffs.
The
rest of their roster feels, justifiably, half-built. There are some fantastic
young pieces on both sides of the ball. DeForest Buckner is a star at defensive
tackle, and Mike McGlinchey is coming off of a strong rookie year. George
Kittle just put together one of the best statistical seasons in NFL history by
a tight end, and he has a chance this year to vault himself into the
conversation among the league’s premier stars. It all comes down to Garoppolo
though, the biggest questionmark in the entire league. If he lives up to what
they think he can be, this team can push for the playoffs still only halfway
through their bottom-up rebuild.
The Downside
When
the 49ers gave six year contracts to GM John Lynch and head coach Kyle
Shanahan, it seemed they were committing themselves to a long, gradual rebuild.
But as always happens, two years into this rebuild the pressure from the fans
and media has started to mount. Already I’ve heard speculation that Shanahan
and potentially Lynch as well could be out the door if they struggle again this
year, which doesn’t surprise me given the toxic ownership situation in San
Francisco.
It’s
too bad, because there is something here, but this team is still far too young
and far too incomplete to really compete in this league. And I have never been
remotely sold on Garoppolo as a starter. He didn’t impress me in New England,
he was merely okay during his first season in San Francisco, and he was
straight up bad last year before going down. The sample size is still small
enough that I’m not willing to write him off, but I’m not sold on him as a
player who can elevate the talent around him, and if that isn’t the case there
is really no hope for the 49ers to be more than a couple wins better than they
were a year ago.
Player to Watch – Kyle Juszczyk, FB
Most
people laughed a few seasons ago when the 49ers signed Juszczyk to a four year
$20 million deal. I was laughing as well, considering that didn’t just make him
worth twice as much as any other fullback, but in the top ten of all running
backs in average annual value at the time. But I did have to admit that if
anyone was going to get the most for their money paying for a fullback, it would be Shanahan.
Shanahan’s
scheme relies on a great deal of play action and lateral movement, disguising
play concepts for as long as possible to engineer players open. The 49ers don’t
rely on wide receivers simply beating man coverage—which is good, because they
don’t have the receivers to do that. They rely on trickery, and nothing messes
with a defense’s head like a fullback in a pass pattern. Juszczyk isn’t going
to break any of Jerry Rice’s records, but he is by far the best receiving
fullback in the NFL. He has eclipsed 30 receptions in each of the past four
seasons, more than all but two other fullbacks have in that stretch combined.
He is the perfect fit in Shanahan’s offense, a creative weapon that is a
nightmare for any defense to try to track.
No comments:
Post a Comment