When I was asked to blog on this site, Kevin Lee asked me what division would I be interested in writing about if the AFC East was taken?  I said the NFC West, no question.  There are 4 stellar teams out there who all have a chance at the post-season.  Plus, I think Arizona has finally turned the corner and while they won’t make the Super Bowl, it should be the start of something great.  It is going to be a tight, exciting race to the finish. 

Like my ProLine ticket yesterday, I could not have been more wrong.  That said, there is still hope and promise for the future.  The reason why I say that is when you consider the teams and try to pinpoint what exactly the problem is for their lack of success, you can’t, not really.  Seattle has its core group of players with some exciting add ons, St. Louis, Arizona and San Fran, are developing a core group of players and this year should have been the year at least one of those groups should have crystallized.  But this is apparently not to be, although I have to say, I am getting excited, and cautiously so about Arizona.

Something just isn’t right in Seattle.  I watched the game yesterday, I have researched the team online, reading just about everything I can and there is nothing there.  Yes, there are some injuries, but that doesn’t quite explain the team’s lack of success.  So for lack of a better explanation, and with absolutely no proof of it, I simply have to think there is something going on behind the scenes there that explains their lack of success.  21-0 to the Pittsburgh Steelers?  While I now think the Steelers are not pretenders and they are for real, I just cannot believe how they shut the Seahawks down with their two starting receivers sidelined and a bunch of guys injured on defence.  I really wonder where Seattle is going to go from here on in, and this is part of the reason why I think at this point, Arizona has to be the favorite to win the division.

Arizona, as you all know beat St. Louis yesterday, but not as soundly as I would have liked.  Sure, they were on the road, in a dome, but they could have done better against a very unhealthy St. Louis team missing both their starting quarterback and running back as well as pretty much their entire offensive line.  But then again, Arizona was also missing some key components too.  The big non-story I guess is that Leinart is now down with a broken collarbone and is out indefinitely.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing?  Tough to say really, short term, I think it might be a good thing for all concerned with potential controversy swirling like a dust devil in the desert.  This resolves the whole Warner in relief situation that could have really degenerated into something bad (sure Warner is Leinart’s roommate, and has said all the right things, but did anyone else detect some insincerity in some of Warner’s comments about the situation?) and Warner is playing pretty solid and one has to assume because of that the offensive line has gotten better.   Long term not so good if one forgets the potential controversy brewing, putting Leinart into good game situations would have helped the team down the road and that unique way of developing a young QB may have paid huge dividends for years to come.

Anyway, I think Arizona is on a bit of a roll and looking ahead at their schedule, it doesn’t look too bad especially if St. Louis, San Fran and New Orleans don’t start making strides towards getting better. 

I guess this just leaves the 49ers to talk about but after watching yesterday’s game against the Ravens, I am still a little sleepy, in fact I fell dead asleep sometime during the 2nd quarter thinking that it looks like Steve McNair has developed a beer gut.

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Last post (s) by Chad Boyd

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