Eugene Lanzoni gives the teams of the NFC West a little makeover.
The NFC West is the laughingstock of the league. League officials have even considered folding some of the teams into the ACC where the competition would be more comparable. Zing! But seriously if these teams are to ever regain credibility they’ll need to make monumental changes looking into the future.
San Francisco 49ers
Let’s face it, the NFC West ain’t pretty. In fact, the 49ers are the only team in the division that doesn’t need a radical makeover, and even they aren’t that appealing to watch. Sure, they’re 7-1 and have staged one of the more remarkable turnarounds in recent years, but at the same time they’re a very inconspicuous team.
Hardnose defense + an aggressive ground attack + a damage control quarterback may be a sound football equation for regular season success, but without any lightning rod superstars to provide a face for the franchise it won’t exactly maximize tv ratings. Guys like Tony Romo, Michael Vick, and Chris Johnson all have one thing in common: they’ve generally sucked this year given preseason expectations and yet they still receive widespread attention from fans and the media that they don’t justify with their on-field play. Meanwhile Vernon Davis, Frank Gore, and Alex Smith have all performed better in their respective roles and receive little to no recognition.
San Francisco is a major market that now boasts a major contender in the NFL. Next they need to garner major nationwide recognition by creating a more exciting product to watch and by establishing a compelling superstar for the nation to scrutinize and the fans to rally around. Guys like Crabtree, Davis, and Gore need to find a way to fill this role until a suitable replacement can be found for Smith at the qb position.
MOVE THAT PLAYER! - Alex Smith is the guy they need to move going into the future. It’s all well and good that he controls the ball and no longer detracts from the team. However a team of this caliber deserves a signal caller who actually brings something to the table and who excites fans by mounting late game comebacks through the air. Playing it safe doesn’t sell well to fans, but Brett Favre gunslinging does. Guys like Newton and Tebow throw more picks than Smith, but they also make plays and make games fun to watch.
St. Louis Rams
The 49ers are actually a great team that I’ve been nitpicking for flaws. The fact remains that they’re 7-1 and, despite my comments above, they don’t really have much they need to remedy. However the rams are a horse of a very different color because they’re a god-awful team that doesn’t appear all that dreadful on paper. They’re a nightmare fix-up job because their problems aren’t quite as obvious. Sam Bradford and Stephen Jackson alone should earn them at least four wins in the pitiful NFC West and yet they’re sitting on just a single win at the halfway mark of the season.
The solution is simple but somewhat unsatisfying. Time is what the Rams need to put them back on top, pure and simple. Experience and draft picks are commodities dependent on time, and like with the Lions, the transformation of St. Louis from pretender to contender will take time to complete. Young talents like Bradford on offense and Long on defense need time to mature and yearly draft picks will be needed to shore up their defense and bolster their receiving corps. Detroit went through very similar growing pains on its path to prominence, and this Rams squad bears a great many similarities to that team. The future looks bright for this team, and if they play their cards right they might yet be able to pull themselves out of the gutter and into the spotlight.
MOVE THAT PLAYER! - Stephen Jackson is a reliable back who has great burst and intensity coming out of the backfield. With that being said, this is a split that needs to happen. The Rams need to embrace their youth and look to the future, a future in which Jackson unfortunately has no place. There are plenty of teams that would pay an arm and a leg for the skillset Jackson brings to the table, and the Rams could parlay his aging talent into fresh legs to fill out their skill positions. This would also enable Jackson to go to a playoff contender where he’d have the chance to make a competitive impact before his career gets away from him. This is a classic “it’s not you, it’s me scenario”, but both sides would benefit and hopefully they could remain friends.
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