Last week, a couple of blockbuster trades became official in the NFL, namely the Los Angeles Rams trading Pro Bowl edge rusher Jared Verse and a haul of draft picks for superstar Myles Garrett.
The move immediately put the rest of the NFL on notice, as the Rams were already seen as a top Super Bowl contender prior to the move. It also added to an already-loaded NFC West race that only got more competitive with Garrett now in the division.
Following a very competitive division battle that went down
to the final week of the regular season last year, we saw the San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, and the Rams all change quite significantly this offseason.
San Francisco didn’t lose any key pieces, while adding wide receiver Mike Evans, linebacker Dre Greenlaw, and defensive tackle Osa Odghizuwa. They also expect to return several key players from injury, including Fred Warner, Nick Bosa, and George Kittle.
Meanwhile, the Seahawks saw a couple of pieces head elsewhere in free agency. Running back Kenneth Walker went to the Kansas City Chiefs after winning Super Bowl MVP. Edge rusher Boye Mafe got a big deal from the Cincinnati Bengals. Safety Coby Bryant signed a three-year contract with the Chicago Bears. And cornerback Tariq Woolen went to the Philadelphia Eagles on a one-year deal.
The Rams, on the other hand, looked to go all in. They traded a first-round pick for Trent McDuffie, signed a fellow cornerback in Jaylen Watson, and then, of course, traded for Myles Garrett last week.
That leads us to quite the three-way battle in the NFC West, which has been a yearly battle that usually comes down to the wire for the past few years.
Currently, the Rams are the favorites to win the division, with FanDuel Sportsbook giving them -105 odds to do so. The Seahawks are second at +200, while the 49ers are third at +320.
Will the 49ers end up as the third-best team in the division? They do have a quite a tough schedule, especially over the back half, but we’ve seen how prior results don’t usually apply to future seasons directly.
Seattle is the defending champions and proved to be a force to be reckoned with, but head coach Mike Macdonald has a new offensive coordinator, as well as a lot defensive changes to work with.
Similarly, the 49ers have a lot of players that are coming off serious injuries, which has seemingly been a problem they haven’t been able to escape.
For the Rams, they’re clearly going all-in with their two-year window under Matthew Stafford. But, as durable as the star quarterback has been, he’s 38 years old this season.
Nonetheless, we’ll see the division battle play out from the very beginning of the season, when the 49ers and Rams face off in Week 1, all the way till the very end, when the Rams and Seahawks face off twice in the final three weeks.
