Saturday’s game between Rams and Seahawks highlighted much of what we already knew. The Rams defense is the dominant unit of the entire season. Russell Wilson was fired five times, launched an interception – he should have made a double, and Seattle was never comfortable with the attack.
Jalen Ramsey’s PFF score was 56.3 in this game. He was shot six times against DK Metcalf, allowed three receptions for 33 yards and interrupted a pass. When you only evaluate goals, it exposes the flaw in your evaluation system. The point is that Rams has a cornerback that can close one side of the field, which opens everything up for the rest of the defense.
On the other side of the ball, Jared Goff remained Jared Goff, while Rams ran the ball effectively and relied on Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods to do the heavy lifting in the passing game. Jamal Adams was not good at coverage all season, and he was fortunate enough to allow only 78 yards of coverage. He is a risk when he goes over ten meters. In both the last two games, Sean McVay struggled to isolate and target Adams. This is revealing, especially considering what the Seahawks gave up to acquire Adams.
Seattle head coach Pete Carroll received a ton of criticism on Monday morning after saying that Seattle’s main focus towards 2021 would be to play football more often and effectively, for example. Joe Fann of NBC Sports.
Naturally, people will follow Carroll’s quote and joke about “let Russ cook”, but if you’ve watched Saturday or the Seahawks in the past two months, he’s right. For some reason, we always ignore games where Russell Wilson doesn’t play well. He didn’t look like one of the first 3 QBs of the last half of the 2020 season, with more stuff on his plate.
This brings me to the question: are the 49ers prepared to take back control of NFC West next season? The Rams defense stripped off the Seahawks offensive line. Seattle couldn’t do much of anything, which is why its attack had a 31% success rate on Saturday. Seattle doesn’t have its next two choices in the first round.
The wage ceiling space is also important to keep in mind. Take a look at the salary cap projections for each team:
Here is a quick look at all the estimated teams in 2021 of wage cap space compared to their 2020 record
Top right = good record, good limit position
Top left = good registration, poor cover position
Bottom right = bad registration, good cover position
Lower left = disaster pic.twitter.com/3Wo7luqCJg– Jason_OTC (@Jason_OTC) January 11, 2021
None of the four NFC West teams has much room for maneuver for their salary cap. The Rams are handcuffed while Goff occupies 19% of his space in the cap, and Los Angeles also doesn’t have a choice in the first round, thanks to the replacement of Jalen Ramsey.
I didn’t mention cardinals for a reason. They need a lot of help. Arizona had a successful season, but missed an excellent opportunity after three games over 0.500 and not making the playoffs in a conference that does not feature the same caliber of teams that the AFC did. Have you watched Kliff Kingsbury this season and thought, wow, are the Niners having trouble moving forward? I think not.
Until further notice, fair or otherwise, the Cardinals will not be taken seriously. Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins are a lethal combination, but the attack depends a lot on this pair for the production. That’s how the Cardinals came back in the middle of the season: a loss to the Dolphins, a hail victory over the Bills, then three straight losses to the Seahawks, a Patriots team that was no good, the Rams, two victories squeezed over the NFC East and defeats to the 49ers and the Rams, where their attack looked putrid.
Where does San Francisco fit into all of this? Saying “when this team is healthy” ignores much of that team in recent seasons. You choose, and the 49ers were injured in that position. Seriously. Even in 2019, Robbie Gould lost time due to an injury. The teams kicker lost time with injury.
Still, they remained competitive in 2020, despite what appeared to be half the cast being on the injured reserve. For this exercise, let’s assume that Jimmy Garoppolo is still in the 49ers and healthy in 2021 – that will be the only constant that we will use in this case, the defender’s health.
Knowing that the Rams and Seahawks lists will remain relatively unchanged, do you still think that the Niners will be the division’s kings next season?