49ers back in the hunt? Strange goings on in the NFC West

Article by Rob Newell

If I had said to you in preseason that there would be a week in this regular season that the only winners in the NFC West would have been the San Francisco 49ers you would have most probably have laughed in my face, well who be laughing now?

This was a weird and wonderful week and in reality the team that come out of the week the best could just be the St Louis Rams, who off the back off the Seahawks and Cardinals defeats managed to beat the heck out of the bye week.  But back to San Francisco…

 

The first play from scrimmage in this one, saw Kaepernick throw a run of the mill WR screen to Boldin in the flat, only for Boldin to reverse field and work his way right away across the field to end up with Kaepernick out in front as a lead blocker.  As that play went for a first down, we should have been thinking that this was going to be the Niners day.

As the game went on, you could see all the breaks going in the Niners favour, even down to Justin Tucker missing a field goal for the Ravens because his foot just seemed to disappear in the field.  Remember this is the stadium that will be hosting the Super Bowl in February and one of the best Kickers in the game couldn’t even stand upright at a kick, the NFL must be worried.  There have been signs that the San Francisco offence is beginning to click, the Niners fanbase has been waiting on that long pass to Torrey Smith all season and based on this game that connection may just be starting to come together.

You have to feel a little sorry for this Ravens team, this defeat takes them to 1-5 for the season, and the 5 defeats have been by a combined 22 points, you have to think that had Terrell Suggs been fit therefore the Ravens would have a few more wins by now.  Strange to think that just 3 seasons ago this matchup was a Super Bowl, stop and think how many of those players are no longer playing the game.

In Pittsburgh, Bruce Arians took his Arizona Cardinals team back to the team where he spent much of his career and who tried to retire him just a few years ago.  Since then Arians has won two coach of the year award and maintained a thriving friendship with Ben Roethlesburger, something that Todd Hayley is not going to be accused of anytime soon.  Big Ben was desperately trying to get fit for this one, but couldn’t do it, and the Steelers struggled as backup Mike Vick went down injured to bring in third string Landry Jones, who looked awful in preseason.  Jones however ignited the Steelers and this game may have seen Vicks last snap in in the league.

The Cardinals though will probably still not know how they lost this one, Carson Palmer threw for 421yards, John Brown got 196 yards receiving with Larry Fitzgerald just under 100 yards as well, but this much maligned Steelers defence held firm and despite all those yards the Cardinals only scored 13 points and lost the chance to distance themselves in the race for the division.

The reason the Cardinals had a chance to distance themselves at all was thanks to the team that knocked them out of the Playoffs last year, Carolina Panthers who went into Seattle and overcame the famed 12^th Man Home Field advantage to beat the Seahawks 27-23.  A result which prompts the question, what is going on in Seattle?

They gave up a big 4^th quarter lead against the Cincinnati Bengals last week, but losing on the back of that at home, that will worry the Seahawks and should they lose again on Thursday night football to San Francisco, Seattle would drop to the bottom of the division.  The Panthers remain unbeaten and now that they have beaten a team that is recognised as a good team, the rest of the league will now take notice.  The Legion of Boom struggled to stop Greg Olsen who went off for 131 yards.

The Rams meanwhile got to sit and watch this safe in the knowledge that their rookie sensation Todd Gurley seems almost unstoppable and as teams adapt to him, Nick Foles should now have more available targets with the space that opens up.  Meanwhile the league have been looking to set up Town Hall meetings in the cities of St Louis, Oakland and San Diego, so we may know a little more soon about what the geographical makeup of the West will be next year, is LA calling?