Arizona Cardinals
2024 Record: 8-9 (3rd in NFC West)
Head Coach: Jonathan Gannon (3rd season)
Notable Additions: OLB Josh Sweat, DE Calais Campbell, DT Dalvin Tomlinson
Notable Departures: DT Roy Lopez, ILB Kyzir White, DT Khyris Tonga
Biggest Reason for Excitement: They're in the Best Spot They've Been Since 2021 Right Now
2024 marked another big step forward for the Cardinals rebuilding efforts under Jonathan Gannon and Monti Ossenfort. Their win total doubled from 2023 and both their scoring offense and defense saw significant improvement (24th to 12th on offense, 31st to 15th on defense) that landed both units in the top half of the league for the first time since their last playoff-bound team in 2021. It does need to be said that it wasn't a complete triumph as they went 2-5 after their Week 11 bye including a disheartening 0-3 in 1 score games.
Poor close to 2024 aside, the Cardinals remain in a good position to further improve in 2025 and earn their first winning season since the aforementioned 2021 campaign. They have a coach in Gannon that's done a good job of establishing a culture where his guys compete every single week and after a couple of seemingly fruitful drafts, the roster is in pretty good shape and could be in line for further improvements after Ossenfort went out and made some potential impact signings in free agency (Josh Sweat, Dalvin Tomlinson, Akeem Davis-Gaither, Calais Campbell-returning to the team that drafted back him in 2008 after 8 seasons away). There are some dark clouds lurking over them including a division that could conceivably be very tough if the injury/new QB gods are merciful to them and the Packers stock going up following their acquisition of Micah Parsons last week that could dash their playoff hopes, but even if they fail to advance to the postseason, it's pretty much indisputable that they're in the best spot they've been in a bit right now
Biggest Reason for Concern: Not Having the Horses to Get Out of the Middle of the Pack
Underneath the optimism that is surrounding the Cardinals at the moment is a pretty major question that nobody whose invested in this team is eager to contemplate, let alone answer: Is this team good enough to rise up from the middle of the pack? My answer to this pivotal question as of today would be a Tony Romo-esque stream of high-pitched sounds and noncommittal words haphazardly strung together to the point where anybody listening would either quickly tune me out or elect to give me a field sobriety test on the spot.
What makes this particularly tricky to analyze is that despite all of their improvements over the past 2 seasons, there's still nothing they do notably well. Their biggest strength in 2024 was rushing offense, where they ranked 7th in the league. The thing that the numbers don't tell you is that strength is under the constant threat of turning into a weakness as their lead back is James Conner-who turned 30 in May and hasn't exactly been known for durability over the course of his career (last season was the 1st of his 8 NFL seasons in which he didn't miss multiple games). 2nd year pro Trey Benson could presumably step in and keep the ship afloat behind this pretty strong run-blocking line led by Paris Johnson Jr. and Hjalte Froholdt as he's a hard runner who matched Conner's YPC (4.6) as a rookie, but his workload was too sparse (69 total touches in 13 games) to get a handle on what he's really capable of.
When you look beyond the lack of clear strengths in units, the attention has to turn to their top individual players. The book on Kyler Murray through 6 pro seasons is that he's a steady, respectable starter who has struggled to elevate his game to the next level and at this point, it looks like he's going to need a stellar supporting cast in order to do so. Trey McBride has blossomed into one hell of a target-hogging possession receiver over the past couple of seasons, but his continued inability to get into the endzone (6 TD's over 3 seasons including a comical drought that lasted from Weeks 1-16 last season) has prevented him from being considered a truly elite player at his position. As ridiculous as some of the criticism that's been lobbied at him has been in the wake of his peers Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr. having historically good starts to their careers, Marvin Harrison Jr. was merely solid as a rookie and his questionable on-field chemistry with Murray has raised concerns over his long-term fit with the Cardinals. Garrett Williams was quietly one of the best corners in the league last season, but he's yet to prove that he can sustain that level of play long term. Budda Baker may be the most individually accomplished player on the team with 7x Pro Bowl and 4x All-Pro appearances to his name including receiving dual nods in 2024, but there's a real case to be made that the impressive resume he's accrued is more a result of him benefitting from playing in an era that has lacked HOF-caliber safeties than him being a truly great player. Finally, there's one of the newest Cardinals in Sweat-whose pretty consistent productivity level with the Eagles over the past 5 seasons (6+ sacks, 12+ QB hits every year) will be put to the test right away give the considerably weaker pool of front 7 depth/talent that's surrounding him in Glendale. Nothing about any of these guys screams elite and that could very well be a problem at this crucial juncture where people are going to start expecting them to have more favorable results after they exceeded expectation in back-to-back seasons.
Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Defensive Additions Bolstering This Defense
The beauty that came with the Cardinals' defensive improvements last season that were spearheaded by the emergence of Garrett Williams as a potentially great starting slot corner, continued strong play from their starting safety duo (Baker, Jalen Thompson) and Zaven Collins proving that the team was wise to take a gamble on his continued development after signing him to a 2 year/$18 mil extension last offseason by having a career-best season (57 tackles, 5 sacks, 7 TFL's, 7 QB hits, 2 forced fumbles, 1 pass defensed) as a rotational edge player is that it provided Ossenfort a much clearer idea of what spots they were good at and where they needed to further improve. The answers to the latter weren't overly surprising: Front 7 and outside corner. Front 7 was of particular focus as aside from the aforementioned free agent pickups they used 3 of their top 4 picks in the draft (Walter Nolen, Jordan Burch, Cody Simon) to add to those areas.
With Nolen starting the year on PUP as he works his back from a calf injury he suffered prior to camp and Burch and Simon currently slated to be backups at OLB and ILB respectively, there will be a handful of new faces getting heavy reps to start the year. The front 7 guys will be the aforementioned group of free agent pickups in Sweat, Tomlinson, Campbell and Davis-Gaither. Sweat is being tasked with being the new face of a pass rush that ranked in the middle of the pack a season ago with 41 sacks while the wily veteran duo of Tomlinson and Campbell will be holding down a completely overhauled interior that represented their biggest weakness as a unit a year ago. Davis-Gaither is a less sexy name than his fellow free agent signings as he was nothing more than a spot starter for the Bengals until last season when he effectively replaced Germaine Pratt in the starting lineup, but he could prove to be one of the biggest keys to this whole operation as the Cardinals are in dire need of an inside linebacker that can do a better than average job in coverage and against the run and his relatively green nature makes him a better bet to do so than his fellow starting ILB Mack Wilson-whose racked up considerably more playing time than him since entering the NFL in 2019.
Their outside corner pickup, rookie Will Johnson out of Michigan, is one that I personally really like and could turn this group that finished a respectable 14th in pass D into one of the best in the league if it works out. Concerns over his recent injury history (turf toe, hamstring pull, a knee ailment that required surgery) sent this once-projected top 10 pick tumbling into the middle of the 2nd round, which plants him firmly in top-tier steal territory if he pans out. In terms of the actual football part of Johnson's scouting report, his tendency to chase splash plays is something that gets him into trouble from time to time, but his fluidity in coverage and instincts/ball skills combo is something that's valuable enough to take a chance on him.
These new guys along with the continued growth of players like Williams and Collins and steadiness from their longtime vets in Baker and Thompson presents a golden opportunity for this group to further improve and just think about the difference a legit good defense could make in the bloodbath that will be the NFC West/Wild Card race.
Bottom Line:
There's plenty of reasons to believe the arrow will continue to be pointing up in Arizona in 2025. Whether it's enough for them to make the playoffs is a different story entirely and their ability to improve enough to be able to adequately compete with the more skilled, seasoned teams in this conference will likely go a long way in deciding their fate.
Los Angeles Rams
2024 Record: 10-7 (1st in NFC West)
Head Coach: Sean McVay (9th season)
Notable Additions: WR Davante Adams, DT Poona Ford, C Coleman Shelton
Notable Departures: WR Cooper Kupp, G Jonah Jackson, DT Bobby Brown III
Biggest Reason for Excitement: Swapping Out Cooper Kupp for Davante Adams
Cutting ties with Cooper Kupp is something that felt sacrilegious for the Rams to even consider as recently as a couple of years ago. But last year had a real end of the line vibe to it as he put together a 3rd straight underwhelming, injury-riddled season following his unreal 2021 All-Pro campaign that saw him top the league in receptions, receiving YDS and TD's and cutting ties him during the offseason would have manageable financial ramifications for the Rams as he had only 2 years left on his current deal. Given Kupp's experience and Puka Nacua's firmly entrenched status as WR1, the belief was that the Rams were going to add a veteran who was cool with being a WR2 in a pass-heavy offense to replace Kupp. That veteran ended being Davante Adams.
Despite being roughly 6 months older than Kupp, Adams has aged much better-putting up 5 straight 1,000+ YD seasons and missing only 6 games from 2020-24 (3 of which were last season when the Raiders sat him while healthy as they worked to trade him) despite handling a heavy workload everywhere he's been. While there's a risk of the 6x Pro Bowl/3x All-Pro WR finally hitting the wall at 32 going on 33, nothing about his play last year indicates that will happen. Once he shot his way off the Raiders 3 games into season and made his way over to the Jets to reunite with his old pal Aaron Rodgers in mid-October, he looked like himself pretty much right away. What Adams brings to the Rams offense is vertical playmaking and a much-needed legit redzone threat (Adams hasn't scored less than 8 TD's in a season since 2019 when he played in a career-low 12 games due to a bout with turf toe keeping him on the shelf for 4 weeks mid-season) and Nacua's presence should allow him to see a similar level of open targets that he enjoyed playing alongside young star Garrett Wilson with the Jets last season. There's a feasible scenario where both Adams and Nacua each clear 1,200+ YDS this season and if that were come to fruition, watch the fuck out for the Rams.
Biggest Reason for Concern: Matthew Stafford's Health
As Matthew Stafford inches towards 40, it seems like he's dealing with a different ailment that's threatening his ability to remain on the field or at the very least, play at the level he's expected to play at. This season it's a back injury that's kept him on the shelf for the duration of camp. While no explicit confirmation has been made by the team or Stafford regarding what the specific injury is, the whispers currently spreading through the NFL rumor mill is that it's an aggravated disc that will need to be carefully managed all season.
Another Stafford injury, particularly one to his back, is the last thing that the Rams needed to happen as he heads into his age 37 season. What makes this particularly hard to swallow is that they actually considered moving on from prior to free agency and there were discussions about trading him to the Raiders or Giants before they ultimately decided to keep him around after he agreed to restructure his contract. As resilient as Stafford been in recent years, all of the shots he's taken and ailments he's battled of late have already taken a toll on his game as he hasn't been quite as sharp over the past 3 years as he was prior to sustaining this rash of completely unrelated injuries in recent years. A nagging serious ailment like a back could further limit his already compromised mobility and reduce the crispness of his throwing motion to the point where his career could be in jeopardy of continuing. While Sean McVay is a gifted enough coach to take this team to the playoffs with backup Jimmy Garoppolo under center, the Rams' only chance to win another Super Bowl this year will come with Stafford under center playing at a level that is at least close to what he's played at over the past couple of seasons and they'll be crossing their fingers that this back injury doesn't prematurely ruin their pursuit of another ring.
Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Getting Their Offense Back into Top 10 Form
Considered talking about their defense here as offense has been the sole focus of this section so far, but I think they're stuck in the same limbo they've been in over the past couple seasons of being an average group with a couple of standout players on it (Jared Verse, Kobie Turner) and I'd be surprised if a full season of Kameron Kinchens starting at free safety and 2 new vet starters in the front 7 (Poona Ford, Nate Landman) changes things all that much. What really held the Rams back last year, especially when they got into a Divisional Round slugfest with the Eagles, was their offense. They had a very un-McVay-like operation last season as they ranked 20th in scoring offense, 24th in rushing offense, 24th in 3rd down offense and 25th in redzone offense. Passing offense was their only solid metric was they finished 10th-which was identical to their finish in 2023.
Trying to identify the cause of these frankly pretty shit numbers is a puzzling and difficult exercise. Their offensive line actually held up pretty well on the whole, Stafford's yardage/TD totals were only slightly behind his 2023 output and they were able to match their 2023 record of 10-7 when they ranked near the top of the league in all of these same categories. Could it be something as simple as Kupp declining further and another WR failing to step up and fill the void? Was McVay's playcalling weaker? Did Kyren Williams-despite running for 1,299 YDS/14 TD's-averaging nearly a yard less per carry (4.1 to 5.0) screw up their ability to move the chains on 3rd down and score more consistently? Frankly, somebody who really dug deep on the Rams would have to tell me as their offensive operation never gave off the appearance that they were notably worse than they were the prior season whenever I watched them.
Considering my lack of answers for as to why they feel so sharply from 2023 to 2024, I can't offer any insightful solutions to this issue. What I will say is that having a productive WR2 emerge alongside Nacua and getting Williams YPC closer to his 2023 average seems like a logical place to start. The final word I have on this matter is that if their offense gets back to their near universal top 10 levels of 2023 and the defense remains in the middle of the pack, they could have a real shot to make it out of the NFC for the first time since they won the Super Bowl in 2021.
Bottom Line:
The Rams in the McVay-era are always a threat to contend and as long as Matthew Stafford doesn't get done in by his ailing back, they should be once again in 2025.
San Francisco 49ers
2024 Record: 6-11 (4th in NFC West)
Head Coach: Kyle Shanahan (9th season)
Notable Additions: DE Bryce Huff, QB Mac Jones, S Jason Pinnock
Notable Departures: CB Charvarius Ward, WR Deebo Samuel, ILB Dre Greenlaw
Biggest Reason for Excitement: Robert Saleh Returning as DC
Kyle Shanahan's decision to have Steve Wilks be the fall guy for their Super Bowl loss to the Chiefs in 2023 backfired spectacularly as his replacement Nick Sorensen proved to be a major downgrade. While there were some injury problems that the 1st time DC had to contend with, they weren't pervasive enough on the whole to fully explain away the depth of his groups struggles. They were pretty soft against the run (18th in the league), bad on 3rd downs (24) and abysmal in the redzone (31st in the league). Pair these struggles with a limp, injury-devastated offense that liked to turn the ball over and you have yourself the kind of powerhouse pairing that gives you the 4th worst scoring defense in the league. Given that Sorensen dragged this group down a remarkable 26 spots on the scoring defense list from where they finished in 2023, he was of course fired at the end of last season and ironically, has since returned to his roots on special teams as he was hired to be the Cowboys special teams coordinator back in late January.
After 2 straight seasons of firing DC's he didn't trust, Shanahan had the luxury of being able to turn his old buddy Robert Saleh-who was heading back to the coordinator ranks after being fired by the Jets Aaron Rodgers last October-to fill the role that has given him non-stop fits since DeMeco Ryans left for the Texans HC gig. The pedigree that Saleh is bringing with him to his 2nd stint as 49ers DC is well-known. He turned the 49ers group into one of the toughest, fiercest units in the league during the final few seasons (2018-2020) of his time there, and did a similar thing with the Jets from 2022-23. Best of all, Shanahan won't feel compelled to shitcan him if the team struggles this year given the respect he has for him after working together for so long (Saleh and Shanahan previously served together as assistants with the Texans from 2006-2009 before reuniting with the 49ers in 2017). Saleh is going to have his work cut out for him in trying to restore this group to their former glory as he'll be tasked with developing 4 first time starters including 3 rookies (Kalia Davis, Mykel Williams, Marques Sigle, Upton Stout) and 2 young guys (Renardo Green, Dee Winters) who were inconsistent during their 1st rounds of meaningful NFL action last season, but between his strong track record as a defensive coach and the great veteran pieces (Fred Warner, Nick Bosa, Deommodore Lenoir) he has leading the team on the field, it remains a feasible outcome.
Biggest Reason for Concern: State of the Offensive Line
One of the funniest things the 49ers have done over the last few years is basically hinge the state of their entire offensive line on Trent Williams. As great as Williams is, he has a lengthy track record of getting dinged up over his career and every time he's gone down from 2022-24 (12 games missed over this stretch), the group has melted down to the point where it's like they forget how to do their jobs without having Williams' game to keep referring back to. Williams just turned 37 in July and is coming off a season in which he missed the final 7 games with an ankle injury, which further heightens the recklessness of this strategy.
Making matters worse for the supporting cast surrounding Williams is they lost another starter when guard Aaron Banks left for the Packers in free agency and have to shoulder the short-term blow of having 2nd year right guard Dominick Puni play through a knee injury that knocked him out of the 2nd preseason game a few weeks ago. While Banks certainly isn't worth the deal the Packers gave him (4 years/$77 mil/$27 mil), he was steady enough of a run blocker to be viewed as an average starting guard. As for Puni, he was quietly pretty solid for the bulk of last season (80.5 PFF grade, which ranked 11th amongst all guards) and they have to be hoping that his play won't be impacted whenever he decides he's ready to suit up (that could very well be Sunday versus the Seahawks as he returned to practice earlier this week).
Beyond Puni and Williams, the starting group consists of the returning C/RT duo of Jake Brendel and Colton McKivitz and Banks' replacement at LG Ben Bartch. McKivitz is the "star" of this trio as he's been a servicable-ish RT over the past 2 seasons since Mike McGlinchey left for the Broncos in free agency, Brendel kind of is what he is at this point as the 49ers have just decided that they'll live with his deficiencies as a pass blocker to benefit from his relative strength as a run blocker and Bartch is a bit of question mark as he has only logged 2 starts since the Jaguars traded him to San Francisco at the deadline in 2023 and was average-to-below-average when he was regularly playing back in Duval County. The biggest point of concern however would be who would play in the absence of Williams and that would be none other than converted guard Spencer Burford. Burford got benched for Puni at the start of last season and has somehow now gotten the assignment to transform into a left tackle after stinking shit on the inside. In what universe does that make sense? The threat of Burford holding down the LT spot in the event of an injury means that Williams remaining healthy is more imperative than ever this season.
Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Health
No team in the league is more dependent on remaining healthy the 49ers. We've seen what happens when their key guys stay on the field (2019, 2021, 2022, 2023-where they advanced to the Conference Championship or Super Bowl) and what happens when they don't (2020, 2024-6-win seasons). It's more than fair to say that whether or not Christian McCaffery, Nick Bosa, Williams, Fred Warner, George Kittle, etc. spontaneously combust is the difference between the 49ers contending and picking within the top 12 selections of the draft. Things aren't off to a great start on this front with Brandon Aiyuk and Malik Mustapha starting the year on PUP, Jauan Jennings and Puni getting banged up over the summer and newer member of the Bay Area Fragile Boys Ricky Pearsall-who pulled his hamstring in camp and missed ample time during his lengthy college career-being thrust into a featured role with Aiyuk being on the shelf, but we can't just assume that half the team is going to end up on IR until it actually happens, so pick those heads up 49ers fans and engage in whatever ritual you see fit to try and prevent the vengeful soft tissue/ACL/broken femur fairy from coming for your best players.
Bottom Line:
Regardless of their famously erratic injury luck, this is the least confident I've been in a 49ers team ability to compete for quite some time for reasons that I can't fully explain, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they regressed to the middle of the pack.
Seattle Seahawks
2024 Record: 10-7 (2nd in NFC West)
Head Coach: Mike Macdonald (2nd season)
Notable Additions: QB Sam Darnold, WR Cooper Kupp, OLB DeMarcus Lawrence
Notable Departures: WR DK Metcalf, QB Geno Smith, WR Tyler Lockett
Biggest Reason for Excitement: The Hiring of Klint Kubiak as OC
Ryan Grubb's journey to the NFL only lasted a single season as Mike Macdonald made the pretty surprising decision to sever ties with him after a 10-7 season where the offense performed in line with what they did under Shane Waldron in 2023. While Grubb's short tenure paired with pretty average job performance spared him from turning into a Darrell Bevell or Brian Schottenheimer-esque figure in Seattle, it's also hard to imagine fans are overly sad to see him go. To the surprise of some people, the 'Hawks were able to land arguably the hottest name on the OC market this season in ex-Saints OC Klint Kubiak to replace Grubb. A Kyle Shanahan disciple and the son of offensive guru Gary Kubiak, Kubiak has developed a reputation as one of the next visionary wizkids that's going to take the league by storm. Now, admittedly nothing Kubiak has done so far supports this belief as his previous OC stints were a pair of 1-year runs with the Vikings in 2021 in which he led them to the 14th ranked scoring offense in Mike Zimmer's final year in Minneapolis and a Saints team that quickly hit a wall last season after posting 40+ points in two straight games to start the year and Derek Carr was eventually lost for the season with a hand fracture. The silver linings here are is that he did get good QB play out of the vets that he worked with (Kirk Cousins, Carr) and new Seahawks starting QB Sam Darnold has experience running his system after spending the last 2 years with Shanahan in San Francisco (Kubiak was also the passing game coordinator there at the time) and Kevin O'Connell with the Vikings and the Seahawks weapons chest (Jaxson Smith-Njgiba, Kenneth Walker III, Zach Charbonnet, Cooper Kupp, Jake Bobo, rookies Tory Horton and Elijah Arroyo) is definitely better than what he had with the Saints last year. As long as Darnold can retain much of the sharpness he showed with the Vikings last season and the run game can pick up from the dire level it's been at in each of the last 2 seasons (28th in the league), this group could very well end up finishing in the top 10.
Biggest Reason for Concern: Swapping Out Geno Smith for Sam Darnold
When people were trying to figure out a landing spot for Sam Darnold if the Vikings elected to not retain him, the Seahawks weren't on very many people's radars. Geno Smith had been steadily pretty good for them since he landed the starting job following the departure of Russell Wilson in 2022 and at age 34 going on 35 with a pretty clean injury history, the fears of Father Time coming for him aren't really there at this point in time. We all know what happened next: Smith gets traded to the Raiders and shortly after, Darnold signs with the Seahawks on a 3-year/$100 mil deal. Despite Darnold being 8 years younger than Smith and coming off an excellent 2024 season that landed him in the MVP conversation, this move isn't definitely an upgrade for the Seahawks.
Let's start with what the Seahawks are losing in Smith. There are some things that he did that people seem to take for granted. He handled pressure well, was extremely accurate at every level of the field (his completion percentage over the past 3 seasons is a terrific 68.3 and hit 70.4% last season) and was composed enough to almost always shake off picks, slow starts, etc. Darnold brings precisely none of those traits to the table and that could be a huge problem considering the top Achillies heel of the Seahawks: Offensive line.
It's not a secret that Darnold full blown imploded in the final 2 games of his Vikings tenure against the Lions and Rams. What primarily caused that implosion? Horrendous offensive line play, particularly on the interior. Take a guess at what the biggest weak point of the Seahawks line is... Could rookie Grey Zabel change the complexion of this longtime crutch of the 'Hawks? Conceivably, yes. But what if he doesn't? Then, you're looking at a scenario where Darnold is under siege all the times. Smith got sacked 50 times and threw 15 picks last year as somebody who handled interior pressure well. Just imagine what Darnold's numbers could look like if the line continues to suck with back him there. Given that his flustered ass has thrown double digit picks in every single season in which he's started 10+ games, it's not crazy to think that Darnold is capable of having a 2019 Jameis Winston-season (aka the infamous 30 TD/30 INT year) if the protection is at least as bad as it's been over the past few seasons. If the frantic mess version of Darnold shows up this season, fans will be calling for the heads of John Schneider and Macdonald for getting rid of the sneakily steady Smith in no time at all.
Key to Reaching Their Ceiling: Mike Macdonald Taking This Defense to Elite Level in Year #2
It took no time at all for Macdonald to leave his mark on the 'Hawks defense. After back-to-back 25th-ranked finishes under Clint Hurtt, Macdonald and his DC Aden Dudre got them all the way up to 11th in scoring defense in 2024. Where his impact was particularly felt was in the development of their younger players like Derick Hall-who finished with 8 sacks in his sophomore campaign after logging 0 as a rookie, Devon Witherspoon mixing it up more around the line of scrimmage in addition to remaining a legit top corner-which helped boost his tackle total to 98 after posting 79 as a rookie and Coby Bryant becoming a much more effective player upon switching to safety from corner-logging the first 3 INT's of his pro career and a career-high 6 passes defensed. Macdonald's 2nd season in Ravens is when things went things took another step forward and they became the top defense in the league, which was the driving force behind him landing this job. He'll be hoping to do the same thing with the 'Hawks in year #2.
What will it take to elevate this group further in 2025? Simple: Getting tougher against the run (the improvement from 31st in 2023 to 16th last year was a nice start, but it's still not good enough), further developing the young guys-particularly 2024 1st rounder Byron Murphy II who struggled as a rookie and having their sneaky deep collection of veteran impact players (Julian Love, Leonard Williams, Boye Mafe, newcomer DeMarcus Lawrence) continue to play at a high level. The potential for greatness really is there with this group and if Macdonald can unlock it, then we just might be looking at a dark horse contender to take the crown in this closley contested division.
Bottom Line:
It would really surprise me if the play of Sam Darnold isn't the catalyst for dictating their fate this season. Right now, I think they'll be a middler at best as I'm not confident that this line will be able to provide Darnold with the peace of mind he needs to cook.
Predicted Standings:
1.Los Angeles Rams (11-6)
2.Arizona Cardinals (10-7)
3.Seattle Seahawks (7-10)
4.San Francisco 49ers (7-10)
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