Seahawks Suddenly in Play for NFC West Title

Wilson has the Seahawks pointed in the right direction with four games to go.

A month ago, you wouldn’t have thought it possible but now the Seattle Seahawks are knocking on the door of the San Francisco 49ers in the race for the NFC West title. Last week, the Seahawks went into Chicago and gladly left with an overtime victory while the Niners were beaten in overtime by the St. Louis Rams.

Seattle has three of their final four at home and each of those home games is against a division opponent while their road game is a winnable one at Buffalo. San Francisco will have their game at Seattle, plus a trip to New England to deal with. Bookending those two games are home contests with Miami and Arizona. Advantage Seahawks who are 5-0 at home on the season.

That’s the way the National Football League works though and now the Niners could go from a team that was destined for home-field advantage throughout the playoffs to a fifth or sixth seed in the playoffs. They should be able to take care of both the Dolphins and Cardinals at home, but they will not be favored in New England or in Seattle so there is still much work to be done for a team that may or may not have a quarterback issue.

The impressive thing about Seattle is the way they fought back last week in Chicago and then took total control in overtime to score a touchdown ending the game without Jay Cutler and company ever getting a shot with the ball. Now things are set up perfectly for the ‘Hawks and Head Coach Pete Carroll. Failure to get into the playoffs at this point would have to be considered a failure.

The Standings: San Francisco 8-3-1, Seattle 7-5, St. Louis 5-6-1, Arizona 4-8

The Games This Week

St. Louis (+3) at Buffalo - The Rams and Bills each won last week defeating the 49ers and Jaguars respectively. The Bills got a strong performance from Fred Jackson who was over 100 yards rushing. Buffalo is fourth in the league rushing and this will be something the Rams will need to contend with in Orchard Park.

The Rams running game is seeing some resurgence as well as Steven Jackson has picked up the pace significantly over the last several weeks. Despite just 48 yards on the ground last week, he did tally 69 yards receiving on five catches. Head Coach Jeff Fisher is really starting to put his brand on this team. They are playing tougher and more aggressive with each week appear ready for the Bills despite potentially bad weather. Buffalo struggles against the run which leads me to taking the Rams this week.

This combination would serve the Niners well on Sunday.

Miami (+10) at San Francisco – Colin Kaepernick was not horrible last week in losing to St. Louis, but it was clearly an off day thowing the ball. He may need to be a little better throwing the ball because Miami is eight in the league at stopping the run. Getting himself and Frank Gore going early will be vital for the outcome of the game.

The Dolphins and rookie QB Ryan Tannehill can look good at times and downright bad at others. I look for the Niners to do a lot of things differently on defense to confuse him to get sack-master Aldon Smith loose. I like the Niners to bounce-back after last week’s loss with a dominating win on Sunday.

Arizona (+10) at Seattle – Anyone remember the images of the Cardinals beating New England earlier this year? Ya, I hardly do either. The Cards have now lost eight straight and Head Coach Ken Whisenhunt has to be on the hot seat. He goes back to John Skelton this week after rookie Ryan Lindley looked about as bad as a rookie could in a 7-6 loss to the Jets last week.

I would not want to be the Cards this week having to travel to Seattle and with them having a ton of momentum. Russell Wilson will play well and the ground game will get going too. Skelton, Kolb, Lindley… It doesn’t matter. Take the Seahawks to win big.