Seattle and San Francisco Separating from rest of NFC West
Week 7 of the NFL saw a separation between the two top teams in the NFC West and the rest of the division. The San Francisco 49ers defeated the Tennessee Titans and held on to second place with a record of 5-2, including four straight wins.
The Seattle Seahawks defeated the Arizona Cardinals 34-22 and moved to 6-1. The Seahawks now lead the other two division teams the St. Louis Rams and Cardinals by 3 games, while the 49ers lead them by two. Both the Rams and Cardinals were losers this past week.
Seattle takes on the Rams this week. St. Louis’ season went from bad to REAL bad last weekend as they lost Sam Bradford their starting quarterback to a season-ending ACL knee injury. Now the Seahawks must use little known and little experienced Kellen Clemens as their signal caller.
Since Seattle does not play this week until Monday Night Football, the week is longer and press conferences and injury reports come out a day later (Tuesday) than normal.
Seattle did get a shot in the arm for the offense as Percy Harvin has once against started practicing. The wide receiver started workouts for the first time this season.
Seattle has a three-week window before needing to activate Harvin. Of course, if they choose they can do so prior to the three weeks.
However, so as to not risk any further or an additional injury the Seahawks should and most likely will wait out the three weeks.
Michael Robinson has returned. The former fullback was signed after Derrick Coleman hurt a hamstring. Coleman had beaten out Robinson for the fullback job during training camp.
As the season moves forward, the Seahawks must improve on protecting the ball. On Thursday night against Arizona, Seattle committed four fumbles, which gives them nine over their past two games.
Overall this season, in 7 games the Seahawks offense has fumbled 17 times, which is tied with the Denver Broncos for most in the NFL.
Fumbling is a major concern for the coaching staff as it ends drives, ends momentum and can give the opponent the ball in excellent field position.
Eight of the 17 fumbles committed were turnovers, which is second most in the NFL. Two-thirds of the total turnovers committed by the Seahawks have been fumbles.
On the pace Seattle presently is on, they will finish with 39 fumbles, which is more than any NFL team since 2007, when the Oakland Raiders committed 42. That season the Raiders finished 4-12.
The biggest culprit is Russell Wilson the talented double threat quarterback for Seattle who has eight fumbles thus far. That total is more than eight teams have committed this season and is equal to the total eight other teams have.
The fumbles by Wilson are due to a mixture of being hit in the pocket too often because of lack of protection and due to him not stepping up or holding the ball too long.
This week marks the halfway point in games for Seattle and they are exactly where they planned to be and where most football pundits thought they would be – first place in the NFC West and one of the league’s best teams.
