Seahawks rivals: The best NFC West team of week four

The Seahawks won their first game in the division this week to move into good position. How did the rest of the NFC West fare?

The Seahawks defeated the Cardinals with a strong team effort on Sunday. Arizona hasn’t contended for the NFC West crown the past few years, but they’ve still been a tough opponent for Seattle during that time. From the start of the 2016 season through last season, the Hawks were just 3-2-1 against the Cards. Even more telling, the point differential was only 130 to 123 in favor of Seattle. The Seahawks win was a big step forward in this rivalry. How did our other rivals fare?

Arizona Cardinals. Spoiler alert here – the Cardinals lost last week. In their first two games, they fought hard to come back, forging a tie against the Lions and falling short versus the Ravens. In week three, they were overmatched versus the Panthers. It was much the same case against the Seahawks. Arizona was able to move the ball in their 27-10 loss, but couldn’t cash in often enough.

Kyler Murray matched Russell Wilson in passing yards but had a very costly turnover, the pick-six by Jadeveon Clowney. He did score on a nine-yard run, but Arizona’s kicking game sabotaged them as they missed two field goals of 43 and 48 yards. Those misses not only robbed the Cardinals of six points but gave the Seahawks excellent field position. The Hawks took advantage of practically every Cardinals mistake, while Arizona failed to capitalize on Seattle miscues. It looks like a long season in the cellar of the NFC West out in the desert.

San Fransisco 49ers. The Niners took over sole possession of first place in the NFC West with the brilliant strategy of sitting the week out. I can’t imagine that coach Kyle Shanahan can be too thrilled to get their bye week after just three games. It does give them a week to prep for the suddenly resurgent Cleveland Brown, though.

So far the Niners have looked much better against the common NFC West opponents. They annihilated the Bengals 41-17, beat the Steelers, and easily defeated the Buccaneers, who we’ll discuss in just a bit. San Francisco may have had the week off, but so far they rank third in yards allowed, fourth in points allowed, and third in points scored. They’re a solid NFC West contender.

Los Angeles Rams. The guys with the curly horns overwhelmed the Saints in week two, the best performance of the year and started out 3-0. Despite that start, their offense hadn’t really clicked yet. The team that topped 400 yards in offense 11 times in 2018 has only bested 350 yards once, that in their win over New Orleans. They got good news Sunday versus the Buccaneers as they rolled up 518 yards and 40 points. The bad news is they allowed 464 yards and 55 points in their loss to Tampa Bay.

Jared Goff finally got going, as he passed for 517 yards and two scores. Unfortunately for the Rams, it took him 68 attempts to do it, and he was picked off three times. Tampa Bay got off to such a fast start, Los Angeles couldn’t use their ground game to geed effect. In fact, they only ran 11 times and only gave Todd Gurley the ball five times. This was a bad look as they dropped into a tie with Seattle for second place at 3-1.

So who had the best week in the NFC West? Obviously it was the Seahawks as they’re the only team that won. Among their rivals, I have to give it to the Niners. At least they didn’t lose. Overall it wasn’t a good week for the division. AS long as the Hawks win, I’m fine with that.