The NFC West picture has started to sharpen, and the gap at the top is hard to ignore. Seattle keeps looking like the class of the division, San Francisco is still unbeaten, and the rest of the field is already scrambling to keep up.
The Seahawks backed that up again by rolling past the Los Angeles Chargers in a game that was never really as close as the final score suggested. It was effectively over by halftime, even if the referees kept bailing Justin Herbert out. Mike Macdonald’s team is 3-1 through four weeks, and while they’re not flawless, they continue to look like the kind of dominant, well-rounded outfit that won the Super Bowl last season.
That’s why Seattle still sits at No. 1 in the division. Even with one loss, the Seahawks have done enough to remain the team everyone else has to chase until proven otherwise.
San Francisco holds the No. 2 spot at 4-0, and the record speaks for itself. The 49ers are undefeated, and they are a great team by every measure.
Still, there are some caveats in the first month. Their opening win came against a team that had just traveled across the world hours before, and then they handled two of the worst teams in football.
Even the Denver Broncos win comes with an asterisk, since they were missing their top two corners. Injuries keep hanging over Kyle Shanahan’s team, too, and the sense is that it’s only a matter of time before they implode like they always do.
The Los Angeles Rams are next at No. 3, and the shine has come off the preseason hype fast. Before they played a snap, plenty of people were calling them the best team in football history. Instead, they’ve already taken two losses, and it took late-game heroics plus a signature Jalen Hurts/Nick Sirianni meltdown to avoid slipping to 1-3.
Matthew Stafford hasn’t been as sharp, and the defense that was supposed to overwhelm teams has looked brittle and slow. The Rams are still dangerous, but they’re not the superteam some people tried to crown before the season.
At the bottom, the Arizona Cardinals sit in familiar territory at 1-3. They’re on a three-game losing streak, and the only real surprise is that they won at all in Week 1, because weird things do happen in the first game of the regular season.
There just isn’t much to work with yet. The quarterback situation is unclear, the roster lacks talent on both sides of the ball, and a first-year head coach is trying to hold it all together. The Cardinals were always likely to be bottom-feeders, and they still look like a team a draft or two away from being a borderline playoff contender.
For now, the division belongs to Seattle. The Seahawks have their flaws, especially on offense, but they keep finding ways to win and dominate anyway.
Sam Darnold has made some questionable decisions, the running game hasn’t really taken off, and there’s still cleanup work to do. But the defense is doing heavy lifting at an elite level.
Mike Macdonald and Aden Durde have built what looks like the most physical and dynamic defense in football. Nick Emmanwori is back to full strength and even lining up at edge defender, while Devon Witherspoon keeps breaking up everything in the secondary. Up front, Leonard Williams, Ernest Jones IV, DeMarcus Lawrence, and Byron Murphy II form the scariest defensive front in the game.
The Seahawks’ Week 3 loss gets treated like a fluke, a trap game, and it’s hard to argue with that when they were still close to pulling it out despite fumbling deep in their own territory and throwing a pick-six late. Right now, nothing the other NFC West teams have done suggests they’re anywhere near Seattle.
In Other News...
Seahawks Win Came With One Ugly Problem Fans Wont Ignore
The Seahawks left no doubt about the result in Sundays 30-23 win over the Chargers, and there was plenty to like beyond the final score. Connor OTooles recovery of a muffed punt helped set up an early touchdown, the defense forced three turnovers, and Derick Halls late fumble recovery closed the door as Seattle moved to 3-1.
Still, the victory came with an ugly number that was hard to miss: a franchise-record 150 penalty yards. Even with the lead never truly slipping away, the constant flags kept the Chargers around longer than Seattle would have preferred, leaving the Seahawks with a win that looked convincing on the scoreboard and messy everywhere else. [Read more 🡒]
Seahawks May Have Avoided A Huge Leonard Williams Problem
Leonard Williams left Seattles game against the Chargers in the second half with a lower-body ankle injury and never made it back on the field, which immediately raised the kind of concern the Seahawks would rather avoid this time of year. The veteran defensive lineman has been a key part of Mike Macdonalds defense this season, so even a brief absence would have carried some weight for a unit that leans on his presence up front.
Macdonalds early read offered at least some relief, saying the injury does not appear serious, but the next few days will still matter. Williams availability for the Seahawks upcoming matchup with the 49ers will hinge on how he looks in practice, and until those reports come in, Seattle is left trying to gauge whether it dodged a major problem or just bought itself a short wait. [Read more 🡒]
Seahawks Are 3-1 But This Win Exposed A Costly Problem
The Seahawks got the kind of messy AFC-to-NFC crossover game that tends to reveal as much as it rewards, with turnovers and flags shaping the afternoon almost as much as the play calling. Drake Thomas picked off Justin Herbert on the Chargers first snap, setting an early tone at Lumen Field, while Seattle answered with a 28-yard touchdown run by Shaheed and a defense that kept poking at a Chargers offense trying to settle in.
But the more the game wore on, the more the penalties became impossible to ignore for a 3-1 team trying to look like a true contender. Seattle and Los Angeles both had drives slowed or stalled by flags, and the Seahawks own mistakes left them having to fight for every clean sequence. For a team with a winning record, the concern is less about the flash plays than whether that sloppiness is becoming part of the identity. [Read more 🡒]