NFC West
As Of Right Now, All Roads Point To The West. The Western Division Of Both Is Wildly Competitive. The NFC West Doesn't have a four-teams battle from top to bottom like the AFC West. They Have Three Playoff Teams From Last Year. All Of Whom Looked Like They Could Win a Super Bowl At One Point, And Nothing But Injuries Could Prevent Either One From Making Another Move To NFC Championship.
The Rams, Cardinals, and Niners will have Conference Shaping Battles. The Niners And Rams Met In The Conference Championship Last Year and Represented The NFC In The Super Bowl Two Of The Past Three Years. The Only Lowly Team, The Seahawks, May Still Have A Little Moxie To Spoil All This Playoff Talk For At least One Of the Divisional Rivals Despite Seattle Being ranked last In The Division.
Another Special Quality Of This Division; Are Rivals. The Rams, Seahawks, and Niners Have All Played Significant, Meaningful Football. All Three have Played In two Superbowl’s Each Since 2012. They’ve Had To Muscle Each Other Along The Way.
They were speaking Superbowl; the Rams Won. I LOVED to See A BIG gamble Pay Off, But I'm Not “All In” On This Team. The Rams Winning FELT more Like The Giants of Old. They Got “Hot”; They Made a Run. They Made All The Right Moves and All The Right Plays. Thye Caught A Mostly Ailing Bucs Team Out of Position And Down Bad, But They're No Juggernaut, Or at Atleast they Embodied Juggernaut For The Moment: X-Men Anyone. The Algorithms That Control, The Pay Out, Don’t Favor Trying To Run The Same Model Of Success Twice. The Cardinals Tabled An Expensive Resolution For One Of The NFL’s Numerous Contract Conflicts This Off Season When They Gave Kyler Murray 40 Million A Year. Just In Time To Lean in more significant On His Big Play Ability. “If Not Now Then When. If Not Me, Then Who.” the Niners Are Trusting Trey Lance To Lead The Offense. Kyle Shanahan Raised The Bar In San Francisco And The NFC West Itself, Now Can He Reach Up To The Level He Set? The Seahawks Took The Road All Long Time Contenders Must Take, Into The Uncertainty Of A Rebuild. Fortunately, The Seahawks Have assists, In Draft Capital. When You Can’t Get Wins, Assets Are Always A Plus. With The Least Intimidating Quarterback Room In The NFL, Wins Are Scarcity Waiting To Overtake Your Team.
I Read A lot of Training Camp Slogans This Off Season. All The Hard swirling Mono gram Marketing Teams Put together So Fans Can Get A Under Surface Level Understanding. Their Team’s Method, Goal, Or Their History. The Niners Have The Best.
Compared To The Anatomically Confusing “Climbing To The Top”(Eagles), To The Terse “GoBucs,” Or The Vicious Cycle, Running In Perpetuity—Wile E Coyote Type Chase—“Building The Browns”(The Browns). The Niners Are Even, Timeless palindrome: “Brick By Brick.”-- A Line That Could Move Hemingway To Tears.
Brick Are Often Thought Of Antagonistically. Usually A Missed Shots In Basketball. That’s Not Necessarily The Premise Here. Head Coach Kyle Shanahan And GM John Lynch Are Molding Compound The Team On Their Team One Good Move On Top Of Another And Letting The Ground Set And Propagate Better Results, Exponentially. The Compound Effect. Still, The Niners Have Missed A few Fair Shots Of Their Shots Along The way, And No Carpenter Gets Paid To Build In Perpetuity. Eventually, The Structure Must Yield Results.
Two Ago, They Made The Super Bowl and Ended One 3Rd quarter Collapse From Championship. After A Loss Year Due To Two Significant Injuries To Star Players, A Team Less With Talent, And An Intriguing Quarterback Dilemma Marched One Step To another Late Game Meltdown From A Super Bowl. The Turns Of The NFL Life Cycle Are Merciless.
Earlier This Off Season, The Niners Informed Incumbent Starter Jimmy Garoppolo That The Team Will Move Forward With His Chiseled Cheek Bones and Golden Arm. Why Would The Niners move On From A Man With A Record Of 31-5 Overall, 66 Touchdown, And a 5-2 Record In The Playoff? Because Another Chin Strap, .38 Special Arm Holstering
Winner With Greater potential And Aggressive Legs Stands Prepare To Receive The Thrown. But Not All Things Look Beautiful In Sunny Northern California.
Nobody Trades Up In The Draft And Waits To start Their Prized Quarterback; Ready Or Not, Trey Lance Will Have To Take On The Power. Every Know What To Expect from Kyle Shanahan's Offense; he Wants To Run The Ball; according To Analysis By Sharp Football, Nobody Ran The Ball More On 1st Down Than The Niners, Almost To Mock General Wisdom. The Offense Finished Fifth In DVOA, and That With Jimmy Garoppolo’s Wide Range Of Outcomes. He Crumpled Under Pressure And Threw A Dizzying Amount Of Interception Without Producing Taking Large Shots Downfield. He Played Safe and destructive, Simultaneously. Still, Garoppolo Exhibited pencil Point Accuracy, And That’s an Attribute Invaluable In A Shanahan System. Garoppolo Ranked Amongst The Best In Quick Short Passes and Finished Second In Adjusted Completion Percentage. Now, He’s Unemployed. Some Like Myself Wonder If his Replacement Would Serve Better With another Year To Learn, But The Sooner You Can Start Evaluating Your Quarterback In Live Action, The Better. Nobody Knows What The Niners Have In Trey Lance, Except The Niners—Maybe. Kyle Shanahan Only Suffused More Vagueness Into The Matter When Press By Reporters On Trey’s Status. “He’s Played Up To What We Expect,” said Toa Reporter Monday. “Some Good. Some Bad”
Trey Lance played One Season At The School That Produced Carson Wentz, and In a Short Stint Of NFL Action, He Scrambled And ADDED a Down Field Element. in Start Against Houston, He Set the Highest Mark For Down Passes By 49ers Quarterbacks. On 21 Pass Attempts, Lance averaged 11.5 Air yards per attempt. Further, More He threw “the most yards on 10+ air yards passes (205) by any 49ers QB in a game over the last three seasons.” (NFL Next Gen Stats)
Of course, Garoppolo and Nick Mullens Set The Benchmark Pretty Low. But the Downfield Strike Always seemed Like The Missing element. Now We Await To See How transitive And Deft That Downfield Command Sponges Across 18 Weeks. Yes, He Had A lot Of Success, But His Throwing Motion, It’s Ugly. In Football Contrary To Life, “Ugly” Things Are Cause For Attention And Speculation. I’m Not The Only One Who Took Notice Of Trey Lance’s Dip Elongated Throwing Motion. Ted Nuygen Of The Athletic Discuss And Even Interviewed A Throwing Coach On Matter. The Conversation Boiled To The Matter Of “Velocity” And Giving The “Hip” (Lower Half Of The Body Time To Realign With The Arm. “dipping the ball is part of loading up to generate power.” But Lance Has More At Work Than A Dip; He Throws Sideways-Almost Chicken Winging The Ball. He Side Wends The Ball, All for the sake of power, But His Release Rank Amongst The Slowest in The League Because of His Weak Pitching Motion.
Furthermore, Power Won’t Solve His Accuracy Or Timing Issues. He, Lance, Dips The ball far Too Low. “It should be fluid and build speed,” Hewlett Quoted On Quarterback Release. Lance Profile Has Neither Fluidity nor Speed. The Awkwardness Of the Throwing Motion Comes Out So Pronounced. Other Quarterbacks, Such As Lance’s Fellow Draft Mate Trevor Lawrence Also Has Secondary Dips and Motion To His Throw, But He Beats Lance In His Anticipation. He Beats Defenders And His Mechanical Deficiencies With Acuity.
The Shanahan Offense Has Special Wrinkles Sewn in Their Play Call. All NFL Offenses Are Build On The Same Concepts, sails, Meshes, and Daggers. But Depending On Personnel And Situation, every Level Of Offense Oscillates Accordingly. Those Wrinkles Evolve.
Different Route Concepts Combinations Coordinate Across Different Levels Like Planes In The Sky. A Niners Play Caller And. Quarterback Play Air Traffic Controller. The Niners Can Open Up Hole On Different Levels Of The field. Lineman Are In Motion, play Action In The Back Field. Targets In Windows Down the Felid Closely Quickly Like Exits In Spy Movies.
None Of The 49er's Wide Receivers are Proficient In Separation. Brandon Aiyuk, Debo Samuel, and George Kittle are All Big Possession YAC Guys. And Timing Matters More than Velocity.
Unless Shanahan Intend On Opening His Playbook And Tying His Play Calls To The Strengths And Proclivity Of Lance—Seemingly unlikely, His Coaches Consist Of Mostly “Yes” Men—All Of That Downfield Work AMOUNT to Nothing.
The 49ers Have A Quarterback Proof Roster. Despite $ 29 Million Invested Into An Benched Arm, The Niners Have Great Talent At Other Positions. As Such, George Kittle, Debo Samuel, Nick Boss, Pete Warner, Overcoming Deficiency at The Most Important Position Shouldn’t Turn Into A Malignant Challenge.
Even If The Niners Give Him a Limited Number Of Attempts, 3500 Yards This Year Looks Like A Good Bench Mark For Lance. Add To the Purse 20 Or More Touchdowns and Around 10 Interceptions because the Nature Of The Game And The Arithmetic Suggest Increase arm Swing Also increases The Chances for Errors. Under Shanahan The Niners Have Never Ranked Higher Than 16th and Passing Attempts and Finished Last Season n Rank 29ll.
Cardinal’s Quarterback Kyler Murray Got Paid. The Figures Are Astronomical: five-year extension worth $230.5 million, $46.1 Million Per Year up There With Any Quarterback In The League. With Going Rate For Star Quarterbacks Rising He’ll Be Paid On Bargain Level Rates In Two Years. Assume the Numbers Rise If He Pushes For An Extension Early; it Wouldn’t Surprise Me. For Now, Murray Has The Opportunity To Prove he’s The Straw That Makes The Team Move.
The Contract “Discourse” Dominated Much Of Hat Transpire Across The Cardinal’s Off Season. The “Messy” Wiping Of Social Media Fiasco That Caught That Instigated The Err Of The Contract Protocol police. You’d think The Team Stayed Pat Or Something… Oh, Wait, They Did. They Brought Back a Tight End Zach Ertz And Now Look Poise To “Run It Back” Or “Air Raid It Back.” The Cardinals Also Lost Wide Receiver Christian Kirk, To The Most unexpected Contract Of The Off-season. Two moves Strangely Conflict With The Cardinals, MO. The Cardinals Targeted Tight Ends Only 17% Of The Time and Ertz Generated On 0.05 Per Attempt. Ertz Numbers Rose after LEAVING HIS place as Wide Receiver Two In Philly, But he’ll A SAFETY Blanket--A Checkdown Option. The Cardinals Preferred Using Their Running backs As Route Runners In Empty Sets. James Conners and Chase Edmonds Didn’t Push Downfield On Average But Opened Chasm In The Short Range. Conner Averaged 11.54 Yards Per Route Ran, Number 1 According To PFF and Edmonds Finished Ninth(7.68). No Team Had Another Duo In The Top Ten. The Stratagem Serves To Spread Defenses Out a Pick Which Matchup To Exploit.
The Cards Began The Season 7-0. Their Four Wide Receiver Were The Stuff That Gave Secondary Nightmares—the Downfield Route Combination Put The Cardinals On Another Plane. By week 7, The Cards Were 32 Points Per Game and Over Four Hundred Yards Of Offense.
The Cardinals Struggled Down The Stretch. Regressing From The Best Team In Football Into A Team Into The Misread They We’re The Year Before, In 2020. A String Of Injuries, Including A Knee To All-Pro Deandre Hopkins In a Lost Against The Rams, Produced To The Carre Coughing The NFC west. By The Wild Card Rounds, The Rams Returned the Favor and humiliated The Cardinals. The Two Teams Looked Like Two Opponents Playing On Two Different Stratospheres. From Contender To A Stepping Stone The Cardinals Went.
There are Two Vantage Points. You Can Look At Kyler Murry’s Season. One End, Murray Finished Second The League In Big Time Throws, A Count/Measurement Of “Impressive” Throws, This Despite Missing Four Games. He’s A Machine. On Those, He Finished With 41 Total. My Mathematical Skills aren’t As Enviable As My Lexicon, But That 41 Extrapolated Over 17 Games at A rate of 8.1 Equals That’s 50(Or More)Almost Ten More Than Tom
Brady Who Finished First With 42 Over The 18 Week Schedule. Because Of His Height(5’10), His Target Has A “underlying” Natural Degree Of Difficulty Throw. By Most projections, Murray Should Continue To Amass BTT Throws. Murray Has Surprising Great Pocket Navigation Skills Uncanny For The Height Adverse Players At His Position. On The Opposite Spectrum, We Have A Kyler That LLooksAnything But “Big Time “Without Deandre Hopkins. Expectedly The Cardinals Play Decline Offense but The Differences In Output and Number We’re Stark.
A Tail Off In Production without Your Best Player, Expect. But A The Cardinals Had A Complete Collapse Offensively. Hopkins Number We’re Whisper-Ish, 42 Receptions 572 Yards And 8 Touchdowns, His Presence, His Forcing Defenses To Account For Him. The Ability To Create Space, Convert short throws Into Massive Returns. No Other Cardinals Receiving Threat Could Supplement, Much Less Fill, That Gash. No One--Not A Well Trained Eye, Or Data Sheet--Can Separate A quarterback Play Apart From His Team. Kliff Kingsbury Certainly Scheme Up A plethora Of Route Combinations and Concepts To Attack Defenses. The Options Are Left At Kyler’s Feet To Make The Correct Read, manipulate Defender, And Use His Legs Opportunistically.
Cardinals averaged 18.8 points in the final five-game Without Hopkins. The excellent news is that Hopkins will be back with the Cards in 2022. Hopkins Will Serve A Six Game Suspension To Begin Due To A PED Violation. Elsewhere the Cardinals Leading Receiver Left For Jacksonville, and Running Back Chase Edmonds Went Further South To Miami.
The Cardinals Traded For Former First Round Pick, Former Murray Teammates Marquise Brown. The Former Raven, Brown He’s Still One Dimensional, But That One Dimension Teams Love To Hoard, And It’s Speed. Brown Grew Frustrated With The Ravens Unimaginative Offense And Now Finds Him Under The Operation Of One of The Downfield Designers In Kingsbury.
The Seahawks Undertook The Least Remarkable Quarterback Battle Of The Past Two Decades. Thankfully The TeamResidese In Seattle, The Coffee Mecca Of The Northern Hemisphere,e Because Their Quarterback Depth Chart Boast Of The StuffThats Will Keep The Coaching Staff Up Late At Night. Pete Carroll And Staff Are Looking Over Two “Forlorn” Second Round Picks That He, Carroll, Can Bequeath Responsibility Of One The Least Effective Offenses. Geno Smith, The West Quarterback Turn Jets Savior, Who Finished His Jets Career One Win Shy Of Tying Sam Darnold For The Most Wins By A Quarterback In Their Stint In Green(13). Geno Notch His Thirteenth Win In Seattle When stepped In For Russell For Three Throwing For 705 Yards, 5 And 1 Interception. He Knows The Offense. He’s A Proven Backup, And all Indications Are He’ll Win The Job. When He Arrive In New York, Fans Were Sure The Team Had Finally secured “The Franchise Guy.” as It Turned Out; if You Need The Right Bet To Secure You A Top Pick, It's Geno. He’ll Give Seattle A Front Row Ticket To Quarterback Prospects C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young, Or Will Levis.
In The Meantime, Slotted Behind Geno—In A Equally Auspicious Position To Net The Seahawks A Top Pick—Former Broncos Starter Drew Lock. Lock Started 13 games Two Years Ago, Threw For Nearly Three thousand Yards. He looked less than Superbowl Caliber, But He Had “Possibilities.”Given The Unforgiving Nature Of The Bronco, receiving Corp Lock Could Svore Another In The Starter Spot. But Denver’s Not The Kind Of Girl That Likes To Take Things “slowly.” In A Twist of Fate, They Brought In Teddy Bridgewater, Who Took The Job. Because Teddy’s Career Hasn't Gone The Way Of A SUPERSTAR, The Move Serves as A VOTE of Confidence To Drew. Thanks To Teddy’s Brutal Injury History, Lock Snuck In Two Games, And Finished With A Touchdown Percentage Of 1.8 And A Interception Percent Of 1.8. “Balanced As All Thing Should Be.”
Interestingly--Or interestingly--Teddy Bridgewater Had a short Stint With The Jets. Not Directly After Geno Departed But In His Wake No Less. Bridgewater Would Bounce To New Orlean, Carolina, Then Denver, Where He--As Mentioned Above-- Pushed Drew Lock Out Before Flaming As WELL. Maybe Seattle’s True Starter Is Taking Second Team Reps In Miami. Otherwise, Geno Smith Will Once Again Trek Through The Corridors Of An NFL Stadium, A Starter. Elsewhere the Seahawks Extended Pro Bowl Wideout DK Metcalf. He’s A dynamic-Productive Receiver Limited By, If Nothing Else, The Seattle Offense Scheme.
In This New NFL Frontier, The Popularized and Prevailing Theory On Roster Construction Rest On This Dictums: “if Your Quarterback “Sucks” builds Superior Receiving Group.” Seattle Kept Most of Its Veteran Laden Defense In Tow Rather Than Undertake The Enterprise Of Rebuilding. Pete Carroll And GM John Schneider will Have an Infrastructure In Place.
After a Few Year Shredding, The NFL To The Bristle One Of The Best Offenses In Recent Memory—An Innovative Work Of A Master— Kept Flattering Into Confusion And Ultimately Falling Short Of Knocking On Or Knocking Over Super-bowls Door. Suddenly Sean Mcvay Had An Epiphany. They Had To Act. Super Bowl Windows Don’t Close In The NFL, They Break. Because Of Salary Cap, Injuries, and The mirthless Science Of Drafting And Scouting, NFL Teams Can’t Trust The Rolling Over Of Momentum From Year To Year Like Teams In The NBA Would—Think Sixers, Bucks And Suns. All Contenders Build From Scratch On The Compound Effect. In The NFL, That’s Not The Case. In Football, As In Life, You Have To Go “All In.”
GM Les Snead entered The “F*** Them Picks” Model Of Team Building. A Number Of Those “Screwed” Went Towards Acquiring Matthew Stafford. Head Coach Sean McVay Needed an accurate Arm To Drive The Offense. In Two Swings, That Arm Took Down The Dragon Tampa Bay Buccaneers. On The Finals Play Of The Drive, The Bucs Countered The Rams With A Formula Of Their Own All In, A Casino Blitz, Sending The House. Gambling On Which Stafford Would Appear; the One With The Highest Qb Rating In The Fourth Quarter. The One With The Highest Qb Rating Against The Blitz Or The One Who Throw Seven Interceptions On Deep Passes. The Odds Played In Stanford’s Favor. But According To reports From Camp, Throws Like Those May, Brady is Out Of His Hand Infrequently This season.
An Elbow Injury Beseted Stafford. The Degree Of The Issue He’s “Downplayed,” But For A Team As Top Heavy As The Rams, any Nick Here Or There Could Spell Catastrophe Across The Board. The Rams Won. They Made Going All In The New Age way To Win A Super Bowl. With Limited Development Left Over, The Team Moved To Extend Or Resign Anyone With A Pro Bowl Or All Pro Nod To Their Name. The Rams Have Just Over $80 Million Devoted To Four Starter This Year According To Figures ( OVERTHEACap.) By 2024 That Number Swells To $102.45 Million For Just Three:49.5 million cap hit for Matthew Stafford; $26.25 million cap hit for Aaron Donald; $26.7 million cap hit for Jalen Ramsey. These Figures Don’t Include Contracts For Cooper Kupp Or Allen Robinson. Players who are Worth It But The Roster Will Age And Thin Like Hair. Even if The Cap Increases Steadily In The Years as It’s Expected. They’re The Moderately Successful Version Of the Practice The Saints Have Employed For Years.
The Rams Are Very much The Same Team as A Year Before. what matters Now? The Same Circumstances Going To Unfold.
