Seahawks pick up the pace as Niners start to find feet under Gabbert

Article by Rob Newell

We have reached that part of the season where everything in the NFC West starts to change, it seems to be an annual thing and this year seems to be no different.  Just a few weeks ago, we all thought that the San Francisco 49ers were sure fire number one pick contenders, the St Louis Rams were good shots for a Wild Card and the Seattle Seahawks were as likely to beat themselves than the opposition.  Now just a few weeks later, all that has changed, but first let's have a quick look at the division leading Arizona Cardinals.

 

Coming off a run which has seen them beat their 3 divisional rivals the Cardinals are rolling and look to be on course for a bye week and the number 2 conference seeding, also the Cardinals had their own moment of history in the 4^th quarter of their blowout road victory over the Rams when Larry Fitzgerald hauled in the 1000^th catch of what will be a Hall of Fame career.  The Cardinals 27-3 victory was only that close thanks to the quality of the Rams defence who spent a lot of time on the field in this one.

 

Seems a long time ago that Todd Gurley went 4 straight weeks over 100 yards and was being crowned rookie of the year already, add in a Wide Receiver core missing its safest pair of hands in Stedman Bailey, and has now developed a case of the drops, with a QB competition between Nick Foles and Case Keenum, neither of whom would start elsewhere based on this season's evidence, and you see why Head Coach Jeff Fisher felt the need to fire his offensive coordinator on Monday.

 

Might this be too little too late, there is a groundswell of opinion that Fisher himself may be in danger in St Louis, or indeed even Los Angeles, we await to hear more on that, I am sure it was just coincidental that just after the league have met to discuss LA the Rams chose to wear the old LA Rams throwback uniforms.  Speaking of uniforms, have you seen the Rams colour rush uniforms for the final home game of the year?  Let's just say if the lights in the dome go out you may not know for a while.

 

Any remember this time last year when the Seahawks were trying to be more of a passing team, it wasn’t working so they went back to what they did best with Beast Mode and suddenly the Super Bowl run started.  Then in the offseason Jimmy Graham was bought in as the missing piece, and one again we were looking at a Seahawks passing game, which up to now hasn’t really worked and this time Beast Mode is out injured when Graham also is lost for the season.

 

Time to panic for Pete Carrol? Not a chance, the next man up at Running Back is undrafted rookie Trevor Rawls who this year has outbeasted the beast mode.  The Seahawks have once again reverted to their strengths and getting Jeremy Lane back in the Legion of Boom has helped too, but the Seahawks are rolling again.  The division may be unreachable now but they have got themselves into a playoff spot and after the way they dismantled Adrian Peterson and his Vikings in Minnesota, there will not be any NFC team happy to play Seattle come January even without the Seahawks 12^th Man advantage.

 

What about the 49ers?  After their offseason, they could be relied upon to suck surely? Well maybe why Colin Kaepernick was playing they could, but Jim Tomsula a few weeks ago decided to give Blaine Gabbert a chance, and things have looked up for the Bay Area team ever since to the point where the 49ers are now tied record wise with the Rams and most people believe Kaepernick is likely gone elsewhere next season.  Gabbert may not be the long term answer either, but playing behind the same offensive live as Kaepernick and with less options at RB and Receivers thank to injury, Gabbert has got this team moving and was one bad referee call away from being 3-1 since taking over.

 

Ironically Gabbert may be playing too well and the Niners may miss out on one of the top QB’s in the draft next year thanks to the performance of Gabbert, this may just be Blaine’s team for a season or so as the Niners look for the next QB of the future.  Also I challenge anyone to look at how well the Niners defence is playing and not agree that Navaro Bowman deserves some serious consideration for comeback player of the year, if not for second place in the JJ Watt award for defensive player of the year.

 

I will finish with one cautionary note for Cardinals fans, yes your team is going great but there seems to be a problem in getting the play into the huddle at times, they are a team that have been caught several times for delay of game, and in last few weeks have completed big pass plays on several other plays when the ball has been snapped late and got away with it.  The Cardinals are great and a balanced team no matter what facet of their game you look at, but I’d like to see the clock management managed just a little more carefully, manage that and we could be talking about another Super Bowl appearance fro the NFC West.