NFC West Notebook―Special L.A. Confident(ial) Edition

The NFC West Takes A Beating

Full disclosure: My secret hope was that while writing the NFC West Notebook I’d be covering a lot of weeks where the Seattle Seahawks shined and their rivals struggled. I mean, the Arizona Cardinals would put up some fights, obviously, especially with David Johnson and a solid defense leading the way. Maybe the Los Angeles Rams would prove pesky in a few games. But, like, really, what could we expect from Jared Goff—who went 0-7 last year, remember—and the youngest head coach in the modern football era? About the only team that has lived up (down?) to my expectations have been Kyle Shanahan’s Santa Clara– I mean, San Francisco 49ers.

And yet here we are, a few days out from a rather dismal outing by the NFC West. Well, unless you live in Los Angeles. Then you may be stunned for very, very different reasons―namely that your Rams, recently returned to you from the Midwest, played a rather good game of the football on Sunday, decimating the Indianapolis Colts by 37 points. (Yes, you read that correctly. I double- and then triple-checked. 37 points.)

Enough has been written about the poor officiating and self-inflicted wounds apparent in the Seahawks’ disappointing first game against the Packers. If you really need to reopen those wounds, I recommend taking a look at Lee Vowell’s “5 Takeaways from Seahawks loss to Packers.” There were some hard lessons learned on Sunday. Ones that I hope inform the rest of what I’m still hopeful will be a great season for the Seahawks.

As for those of us keeping an eye on our rivals, let’s take a look around a division currently being dominated by a professional football team from Los Angeles. To quote Special Agent Dale Cooper, “What year is this?”