Happy About The 49’ers?

Why We Should Be Happy About The 49’ers Success  

While I’m not exactly happy about the 49’ers taking our spot in the playoffs, I am happy we aren’t going into the playoffs at seven and nine with no chance of anything but knocking our draft pick higher. The point is the 49’ers deserve to be there. Our record this year was seven and nine again, bad enough to earn us third place in the dreaded NFC West. However, the record of seven and nine was good enough last year to win the division, making the title of dreaded well deserved. We had about as much competition and rivalry as your local racket ball court. Yet this appears to be changing, things are on the up and up and the NFC West appears to be developing into a respectful division. By not being as easily won by anyone it will make everyone stronger, especially the new millennium Seahawks. This era brought new found success to a team badly needing it. However, it also brought shame and disappointment in the post-season. The reason we continue to traditionally see the same east coast teams have success in the playoffs is that year after year their divisions stay highly competitive. If any of these teams became complacent, the Browns being a good example, it would mean total embarrassment.

This upcoming season things are looking great for our division and great for the Seahawks as well (providing some sliver of hope at quarterback, I mean it’s all we need with our run game just look at the 49’ers). The Rams have hired Jeff Fisher and unlike Josh McDaniels Fisher is the real deal and not some overhyped offensive mind. The point is Fisher knows how to win and he has the stats to prove it. With 17 seasons as head coach of the Titans Fisher has led them to one super bowl appearance, where they were one yard short of forcing overtime, one conference championship, and three division championships, as well as boasting eleven winning seasons in his 17 year tenure as head coach. Nobody can argue that with Jeff Fisher at the wheel, Sam Bradford riding shotgun, and Steven Jackson sitting behind him the Rams will be driving one dangerous car soon enough.

The Cardinals were looking pretty good at the start of this season, but an injury plagued Kevin Kolb and a lack of an off-season really hurt their chances. With all the games missed by Kolb, disregarding the lockout, he was never really able to find his niche and develop chemistry with his receivers. Later in the year the Cardinals defense came on strong and they were able to run the ball effectively. The play of John Skelton also improved greatly and he started to perform at a higher level than most people had come to expect from him. Going into the off-season the Cardinals have one of those good problems, they have two quarterbacks who are going to battle for the starting spot next season. They also will probably be keeping their eyes open in the draft for a quarterback, but I don’t expect them to take one unless very late in the draft if at all. The Cardinals’ season really mirrored that of the Seahawks in that they did not find their identity until midway through the season, by the time both teams were able to make a run it was too late in the standings. I really am expecting great things for the Seahawks next season just as I am with the Cardinals.