NFC West

As we run through the team needs for the NFC West, we jump from Arizona and the division champ 49ers to now taking a look at Jeff Fishers’ St. Louis Rams.

After a promising 2010 campaign, many felt that the Rams were on the up and up. Their franchise quarterback seemed to be just that, the savior and answer to all their problems. He just needed a few more pieces around him and an offensive coordinator that would open up the playbook. Everything seemed to be falling into place quite nicely. That is until a drastic scheme change with no offseason to properly install it was shredded by injuries and more injuries which quickly turned hope into despair.

How will management and the new coaching staff truly change the losing culture at Rams Park? Only time will tell, but in the meantime lets take a look at three areas of concern as free agency quickly approaches.

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Now that you’ve had a look at Arizona’s needs, we continue on in the NFC West with the division’s title holders, the San Francisco 49ers.

Fans and media alike say year after year that this year is going to be “the year” for the San Francisco 49ers. Well, 2011 did end up being “the year” for them, and what a year it was. Under the tutelage of Jim Harbaugh and his staff, the 49ers took a quantum leap that landed them in the NFC Championship game. After getting further than they had since the ’97-’98 season, how do they make the next step and reach the Super Bowl?

We’ll take a look at three areas of concern that could help toward that goal.

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We’ve spent much of the past two weeks looking at the top free agents available this offseason; first with our Top 50 Free Agents, and then with our positional rankings (linked below). Now we’re set to move on and inspect the positional needs for each team, looking at where each has to improve and offering some sensible suggestions as to who could fill the voids.

Up first, we’re turning our attention to the NFC West, beginning with the Arizona Cardinals.

After a season that was supposed to see them re-establish themselves as the dominant force in the division, the Cardinals find themselves staring at the same old problems. So how can they go about fixing them in hopes of challenging the surging San Francisco 49ers? We look at the three areas requiring the biggest improvement.   Read the rest of this entry »

Following on from Mike Clay’s review of offensive depth charts, we are now bringing you their defense-focused counterparts.

What I’m doing here is going team-by-team and taking a look at each team’s roster situation across the three defensive units and Fantasy Football positions (DL LB DB). I’ll also be speculating on a few potential off-season moves we could see each of these teams make.

Arizona Cardinals

Calais Campbell continued the tradition of players having a career year in a contract year and now looks set to be rewarded with a lucrative new deal as the Cardinals will not allow their twenty-five year old defensive-end hit the open market. Opposite Campbell will continue to be the dependable Darnell Dockett who himself signed a $56m, six year deal in only 2010. 330lbs nose-tackle Dan Williams ended the year on IR but is expected back as a starter after improving from his disappointing rookie campaign. The alternative could be sixth round rookie David Carter who played 249 snaps and graded +1.6 against the run. Veterans Vonnie Holliday (UFA) and Nick Eason are only depth options, if they even manage to retain roster spots. Read the rest of this entry »

Nobody quite saw the San Francisco 49ers taking control of the NFC West like they did. With their relentless defense, they choked the life out of their rivals and eased to a divisional crown.

It wasn’t just the impressiveness of the 49ers that led to their divisional dominance. No, some poor play at the QB spot throughout the division, coupled with some porous offensive lines, made life easier for the Niners than it should have been. It means the St Louis Rams are in rebuild mode with a new front office and coaching staff. It means the Arizona Cardinals are reportedly looking at Peyton Manning to help them get closer to returning to the playoffs. And it means the Seahawks will likely be involved in another host of changes this offseason as they look to hit on the winning formula.

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The most maligned division in the NFL once again produced a mixed bag from its teams this season and for the eighth straight year an NFC West squad collected a postseason victory. The division produced one of the best sides in the NFL, one of the worst, and two teams who had up-and-down season that offered hope to the optimistic that they might make strides next season and equal evidence to doubters that they could fall back in 2012.

But 2012 is for the future and right now we are honoring the best players from the NFC West for the 2011 regular season as we make the final stop on our All-Division tour. The team unsurprisingly features a high number of San Francisco 49ers, but each team had players to be proud of this season and one St. Louis Ram has a rare honor that was afforded to no other player in this series. What was that honor? Read on and find out as we unveil our last All-Division Team for 2011.

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This championship weekend was rightly billed in many quarters as offense versus defense; who would win the age-old battle? In both games, the side with the better offense advanced to the Super Bowl, but in neither case was it on the back of that offensive unit. The Jim Harbaugh-led 49ers suffered a similar fate to his brother’s Ravens earlier in the day,  a special teams gaffe handing victory to a big-market opponent.

In wet and windswept conditions, each offense took advantage of meager opportunities to send the game to overtime, but neither side looked capable of making the telling play before fatigue set in on either defense. After largely holding their own in the first half, the Giants’ offensive line capitulated in the second, leaving Eli Manning a sitting duck. On the other side, just a week removed from his heroics, Alex Smith appeared to revert to type, completely unable to find his wide receivers and move the San Francisco offense out of first gear. San Francisco has had a stunning first season under Jim Harbaugh and have great momentum to build on to potentially dominate the NFC West, but that positivity may be lost for the next month as they try to put this galling loss behind them.
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As we got deeper into the second half of this game, you just knew it was going to take a mistake from one of the offenses (or indeed, the special teams) to break the deadlock. So great was the defense’s stranglehold, it seemed we may be in for an even longer game than the one we got.

I’ll leave the Giants’ defense for my colleagues to pick up tomorrow, but the topic here is Justin Smith and just how New York went about trying to combat him. The truth is, they invested a lot to hold him in check which worked to begin with, but then, when they were left with no option but to leave him one-on-one, it was usually to their cost.

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The New York Giants at the San Francisco 49ers. Now that is an old school matchup in a season of new wave offenses. In a season where offenses have had their way with the league, the 49ers have got themselves to an NFC Championship game with the league’s best defense, and the Giants only really started to look like themselves when their defensive front four began to fire on all cylinders. To get to this game each side had to knock off one of the league’s best offenses and the Giants had to take down the defending Super Bowl Champions in their own back yard. Now the two sides meet in a rematch of their Week 10 encounter with the winner headed to Indianapolis for the Super Bowl.

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A finer playoff game you could never hope to see. This game had it all, big plays, stifling defense, periods of yo-yo scoring and a final two minutes that will live long in the memories of partisan and neutral fans alike. In the game the San Francisco 49ers couldn’t win they did just that–and in absolutely spectacular fashion. The 49ers had a narrow margin for error in this game and in a game they dominated with five takeaways and led by as many as 17 points, they only just edged out the victory with a touchdown in the final 10 seconds. The 49ers needed every advantage they gave themselves in this game and just scraped out victorious with some new heroes crowned in the great folklore of 49er playoff history.

For the defeated New Orleans Saints, the franchise is still without a road playoff victory and even though the offense came alive late, it was mistakes by the offense early that proved costly. Read the rest of this entry »