The Seattle Seahawks head into their bye week in a pseudo-tie for first place in the NFC West alongside the likewise 5-2 San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams. The 49ers are 3-0 in the division, so they are technically in first place.
Because each of these teams is well above .500 near the midpoint of the 2025 campaign, it’s clear this will be one of the most tightly contested divisions in the NFL. While San Francisco is in the lead currently, the Seahawks and Rams look like the more complete, dangerous teams in the division, especially with the injuries the 49ers are dealing with.
Seattle plays the Rams in mid-November and mid-December, so those games will be critical for the race to the NFC West crown. In the meantime, the speculation about which should be the favorite to win that race is heating up.
Rich Eisen weighs in on the Seattle Seahawks’ standing in the NFC West race
Rich Eisen was asked on his show if the Seahawks are the most complete team in the NFC West, with the lingering context of Seattle’s impressive showing on Monday night and Los Angeles’ dominance in London Sunday morning.
“I still think it belongs to the Rams,” Eisen said. “The Rams just have a guy who is all-everything in Puka Nacua, where he’s got, what, 45% target share from his quarterback. He goes out, and you want to talk about complete, four tight ends catch passes, two rookies catch touchdowns, Davante Adams, who’s replaced Cooper Kupp, for the lack of better phrase, with three touchdowns. And, Jared Verse, last year’s Defensive Rookie of the Year, has been on an absolute heater, and it’s Byron Young who leads the team in sacks and is tied for the league lead in sacks with nine. That sounds complete to me.”
Eisen pointed out that Seattle’s offense is centered around Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Without a reference point to what the Seahawks offense can do without him, like the Rams have with Nacua, it’s understandable why Eisen came to his conclusions about the offense.
Still, even without that context, both teams aren’t exactly hitting the mark in the ground game. Seattle has just 19 more yards on 27 more carries, though they do have double the rushing scores.
Regardless, both rushing attacks rank near the very bottom of the league in expected points contributed, indicating that neither team’s rushing attacks are nearly as good as they would have hoped.
Defensively, Esien leaned on the two promising young pass rushers on Los Angeles’ defense, but it’s Seattle that creates more pressure on opposing quarterbacks. The Rams have just three more sacks than Seattle, but the Seahawks generate pressure on 26.9% of pass attempts compared to the Rams’ 24.5%.
Obviously, these are two great teams, but when the difference between them is centered on an incomparable example and the defensive comparison doesn’t hold up, Seattle is a lot closer to being the more complete team of the two than Eisen indicated.
Still, to Eisen’s point, Seattle could use better production from players who aren’t in the NFL Offensive Player of the Year race to improve the team’s perception when December rolls around.