Can Rams reign?
Los Angeles aims for league's first championship repeat in decades
The NFC West is the only division in its conference, and one of only two in the NFL, in which all four head coaches return.
Yeah, there has been that much upheaval in those ranks around the league.
For the past few years, to correctly prefigure the final finishing order of the NFC West, you'd do just as well to put items representing the four teams into a big bowl, toss it around, tip it over, and record the order in which the teams fall out — sorta like an ace griller when mixing rub onto raw wings or ribs, before dumping the lot onto a BBQ or smoker tray.
The division has been that topsy-turvy.
The Los Angeles Rams not only are defending division champion but reigning Super Bowl champions. As it happens, the Rams were the only team in the division without a disgruntled star player this off-season.
This is another instalment of my division-by-division NFL 2022 season previews. In each, I'm hoping to provide a fast, informative, definitive update on the four clubs, after seven-plus months of off-season developments.
What impact players have arrived? Which departed? And for better or worse? Also, is there a new coach or GM, or anything else you need to know about a team this off-season? I'll throw in a classic-rock lyric reference in each team's critical question, to keep it interesting.
Herewith, the NFC West, in order of best-to-worst finishes in 2021:
Los Angeles Rams
LAST YEAR: 12-5. First place in the division. Beat Arizona, Tampa Bay, San Francisco and Cincinnati to win Super Bowl LVI.
YEAR BEFORE: 10-6, second place in the division. LEADERSHIP:
Championship-winning GM Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay will attempt to engineer the NFL's first back-to-back Super Bowl wins in nearly 20 years. Snead and the club had been highly questioned for supposedly mortgaging the club's future to try to win the 2022 NFL championship. Mission accomplished. Now, a few other clubs seem to be copying the `draft-picks, shmaft-picks' mentality. And Snead and McVay have been at it again this off-season, as well as throwing new contracts at QB Matthew Stafford and all-pro D-lineman Aaron Donald. Those two deals together gobble up nearly $72 million a year.
DID YOU KNOW?: As heroic as Stafford was down the stretch in 2021, as well as in four playoff victories, he did lead the NFL in throwing 17 interceptions.
QUARTERBACK: All Stafford did in his first season in L.A. — after having admirably languished as an iron man on mostly awful
Detroit Lions teams since 2009 — was leading the club to only its second Super Bowl championship, and first while based in Tinseltown. All those surrendered draft picks notwithstanding, in L.A's trade with Detroit, Stafford's 2021 stats mostly glistened: 41 TD passes, nearly 5,000 yards passing (4,886) and the highest completion percentage of his career (67.2297). And that's after he lost one of his starting WRs late in the season in Robert Woods. Stafford earned his $160-million, four-year contract extension.
IMPACT IN, ROOKIES: Didn't have a draft pick until 104th overall in Round 3, which Snead used on promising G Logan Bruss, who's out for the season.
IMPACT IN, VETERANS: CB Troy Hill (trade with Cleveland), LB Bobby Wagner (free agent from Seattle) and perhaps WR
Allen Robinson (free agent from Chicago). All will start.
IMPACT OUT: LT Andrew Whitworth (retired), edge rusher Von Miller (signed with Buffalo), CB Darious Williams (signed with Jacksonville), RG Austin Corbett (signed with Carolina), RB Sony Michel (signed with Miami), WR Robert Woods (signed with Tennessee). CRITICAL QUESTION:
It's always nearly impossible anymore to repeat as NFL champion. L.A.'s only chance to get back, Jack, and do it again — that's a hat-tip to Steely Dan's 1972 eponymous hit single — might be this: Can the “impactins” at least offset all those “impact-outs,” which might also soon include injured free-agent WR Odell Beckham Jr.?
Arizona Cardinals
LAST YEAR: 11-6. Second place in the division. Lost to the Rams in the wild-card round.
YEAR BEFORE: 8-8. Third place in the division.
LEADERSHIP: There seemed to be hesitance in the front office as to whether Kliff Kingsbury would be permitted to return for Year 4, after the high promise of last season's NFL-best 7-0 start eroded after Oct. 27, with a 4-7 regularseason finish and an ugly, meek exit in the first round of the playoffs. Steve Keim is entering his 10th season as GM. Hasn't won much, but owner Michael Bidwill obviously likes and trusts him deeply.
DID YOU KNOW?: After Murray missed all three of Arizona's November games last season with a lower-leg problem, he wasn't nearly the same. In his final six starts thereafter, including playoffs, Murray played feebly much of the time, throwing just five TDs against five picks as the Cards went 1-5.
QUARTERBACK: Murray self-created a slew of early off-season controversy: Did he really want out? GM Keim scotched all such speculation in late April, and in July rewarded the 2019 No. 1 overall draft pick with a $230.5-million, five-year extension. Look, when the threat of Murray's running is there, much like with Lamar Jackson in Baltimore, he can be one of the most dangerous QBs in the league. But Murray showed that without said threat, he's more or less unable to quickly move a team down the field just with his arm. That massive contract extension for Murray might prove a massive mistake.
IMPACT IN, ROOKIES: Round 2 TE Trey McBride, and perhaps one of a pair of Round 3 pass
rushers in Cameron Thomas and Myjai Sanders. IMPACT IN, VETERANS:
Not much. RB Darrel Williams (free agent from Kansas City), WR Marquise Brown (trade with Baltimore) and G Will Hernandez (free agent from N.Y. Giants).
IMPACT OUT: Edge rusher extraordinaire Chandler Jones (signed with Las Vegas), DL Jordan Phillips (signed with Buffalo), LB Jordan Hicks (signed with Minnesota), WR Christian Kirk (signed with Jacksonville) and LG Max Garcia (signed with N.Y. Giants).
CRITICAL QUESTION:
Until April, it seemed the club and Murray's camp both would wind up thinking — as Greg Lake wrote and sang on Emerson, Lake & Palmer's 1972 prog-rock classic Trilogy — that they'd tried to mend, the love that ended, long ago, although they still pretend. Turns out, both sides didn't waste the time they've got to love again. Thing is, will the Cards regret it?
San Francisco 49ers
LAST YEAR: 10-7. Third place in the division. Beat Dallas and Green Bay in playoffs before losing to Rams in NFC title game.
YEAR BEFORE: 6-10, last place in the division.
LEADERSHIP: GM John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan have sat together in the lead car of one extreme roller-coaster ride since taking over in 2017, especially over the past four seasons, when the Niners have alternated, by season, between not even coming close to making the playoffs (2018, 2020) and reaching the NFC championship game (2019, 2021).
DID YOU KNOW?: Shanahan is 7-4 vs. Sean McVay's Rams, including playoffs. What's more, the son of Mike Shanahan has a 4-2 playoff record, with both losses coming to that year's Super Bowl champ.
QUARTERBACK: Here we are, in the final days of NFL training camp practices, and Jimmy Garoppolo is still a 49er. Everyone had expected him to be traded long ago, what with his second-year successor, Trey Lance, having been handed the keys in 2022. Lance is a multi-talented prospect whom
Lynch paid dearly for, in future draft picks, to land at No. 3 overall a year ago. But when Lance wasn't hurt and did play in 2021, he looked even rawer than forecast.
IMPACT IN, ROOKIES:
Southern Cal edge rusher Drake Jackson was San Fran's first draft pick, near the end of Round 2. WR Danny Gray (Round 3) provides a needed deep threat. Both are backups.
IMPACT IN, VETERANS:
CB Charvarius Ward (free agent from Kansas City), S George Odum (free agent from Indianapolis).
IMPACT OUT:
RB Raheem Mostert (signed with Miami), G Laken Tomlinson (signed with the N.Y. Jets), DL D.J. Jones (signed with Denver) and CB K'Waun Williams (signed with Denver).
CRITICAL QUESTION:
Disgruntled WR/RB Deebo Samuel ended his off-season holdout in June, but still wanted a huge improvement on his $4-million salary entering the last year of his rookie contract. Samuel in 2021 caught 77 passes for 1,405 yards and six TDs, led the NFL in yards per reception (18.2), and added 365 yards rushing and eight TDs as a breathtaking, change-of-pace running back. Now that Lynch and Samuel's agent agreed on a long-term contract extension worth up to $73.5 million, that potentially nasty distraction is eliminated. But what about Lance? Is he ready to start? In pre-season action he still seemed to throw weirdly, with an upward sidearm delivery of sorts that saw him throw too high too often, even on many completions. As Bono sang on U2's Zoo Station, off the band's killer 1991 album Achtung Baby, Lance had better be thinking, “I'm ready, ready for what's next. Ready to duck, ready to dive, ready to say, `I'm glad to be alive,' I'm ready. Ready for the push.”
Seattle Seahawks
LAST YEAR: 7-10. Last place in the division. Missed the playoffs.
YEAR BEFORE: 12-4, first place in the division.
LEADERSHIP: Head coach Pete Carroll and GM John Schneider return for Year 13 together. For the first time since spring/summer 2012 they're in search of a franchise QB — or even just a reliably serviceable one, after having traded Russell Wilson to Denver in March. Ever energetic, Carroll turns 71 in September. He's the NFL's oldest coach, although he sure doesn't act like it. Fact is, Carroll has a big rebuild on his hands, no matter how much he might deny it.
DID YOU KNOW?: Seattle had five fewer wins in 2021 than in 2020 — the worst yearover-year regression, by record, in the NFL.
QUARTERBACK: It's between Geno Smith and Drew Lock. Yeah. Does it really matter which ham-and-egger gets the starting gig? Smith actually didn't play all that badly in midseason relief of the injured Wilson last season. But he's entering Year 10 in the league and there's a reason he has barely seen the field since the Jets gave up on him in the middle of last decade. Lock, meantime, enters Year 4. He's Denver's latest failed high draft pick. Consistency and accuracy are his big issues. Lock has the tools and looks the part sometimes, even for most of a game, but he can't stop making blunders. In his lone season as a designated starter, 2020, he completed 57% of his throws and led the NFL with 15 picks. Over the past two years in Denver he threw 18 TDs and 17 interceptions.
IMPACT IN, ROOKIES:
Several. For once, Carroll/ Schneider got themselves some high draft picks — then used them exceedingly well. Charles Cross (No. 9 overall) will start at LT. Soon, so will LB Boye Mafe (Round 2, No. 40) and maybe monster RB Kenneth Walker (Round 2, No. 41). Walker might wind up the steal of Day 2 — he's fast, powerful and somehow still underrated. Abraham Lucas (Round 3, No. 72) looks to start at RT.
IMPACT IN, VETERANS:
QB Lock, TE Noah Fant and DL Shelby Harris (trade with Denver), DL Quinton Jefferson (free agent from Las Vegas), edge rusher Uchenna Nwosu (free agent from L. A. Chargers).
IMPACT OUT: QB Wilson (traded to Denver), LB Bobby Wagner (signed with L.A. Rams), CB D.J. Reed (signed with N.Y. Jets), TE Gerald Everett (signed with L.A. Chargers), DE Kerry Hyder (signed with San Francisco).
CRITICAL QUESTION: WR DK Metcalf ended his offseason holdout in June, and signed an extension in late July worth $72 million over three years. The obvious question, then, is who's gonna work out at quarterback? As David Bowie sorta sang on his 1972 hit Changes, it might be time for Seahawks fans to turn and face the strange. Even if there's gonna have to be a different man. Eventually.