KIRKLAND – To call what’s going on in the NFC West a “race” is akin to dropping two stones in a pond and calling it a swim meet.
It’s like calling the NHL lockout a meeting of the minds. Or NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” a beauty pageant.
The Seattle Seahawks and St. Louis Rams are limping alongside each other, wondering who’s going to collapse first.
That either of these teams is still alive for a playoff berth is amazing. That they’re both in position to win the NFC West, well, that says something about the NFC West.
“It’s a strange business,” Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren said. “… I’m disappointed we’re in the position we’re in, but we’ve been in worse positions before. It’s still very much in our hands.”
If the postseason started today, the Seahawks (6-5) would play host to a playoff game against wild card Minnesota (7-4). Even more amazing is the fact that St. Louis (5-6) would earn the other wild card by virtue of the division tiebreaker over the New York Giants. The Rams are 1-6 against teams outside of the NFC West.
The Arizona Cardinals, a last-place team if they were in any one of three other divisions, are two games back at 4-7. At 1-10, San Francisco has been eliminated from the division title race because it loses all tiebreakers with Seattle.
It’s very possible that a 9-7 or 8-8 team could win the West. Since 1991, just two 9-7 teams – the 1999 Seahawks and the 2002 New York Jets – have won division titles. The 1985 Cleveland Browns remain the only 8-8 team to have won a division title.
Since the NFL schedule expanded to 16 regular-season games in 1978, 154 division champions have been crowned in non-strike years. Fourteen of those won nine games or less. The Seahawks have done it twice, in 1988 and ‘99.
The perception is that the NFC West is not a very competitive division. The lone team with a record above .500 – Seattle – has just two convincing wins this season, both of which came against division opponent San Francisco.
Yet Seahawks fullback Mack Strong doesn’t like the perception. He read some comments from a Buffalo player following Sunday’s game that said the Bills played in a more physical division. That, the Bills player insinuated, was a key factor in Sunday’s result.
“I think that’s garbage,” an animated Strong said Monday. “It’s complete garbage. We have men on this team that can play with anybody in this league. We pride ourselves on doing it the right way. Being physical, that’s what this game’s all about.”
In a sense, the Seahawks see their position as an amazing stroke of fortune. They’ve struggled the past two weeks, but actually passed the Rams nine days ago and held on because of a St. Louis loss Monday night.
“You never know who’s going to beat who and how things are going to turn out,” Seahawks cornerback Marcus Trufant said. “All we can worry about is ourselves. We just try to take care of our games and get victories.”
The way the Rams have played since a Nov. 14 win over Seattle, the Seahawks could conceivably lose their remaining five games and be a 6-10 division champion. But that probably won’t happen, and the Seahawks know it.
“We’re running out of time,” Holmgren said. “It’s down to a five-game season. We’ve been at it since July, played 15 games including the preseason. Now it comes down to five games, and whoever does the best in these five games will win the division and go to the playoffs.”
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