The Seattle Seahawks may have won the NFC West by two games last year, but that alone doesn’t paint a clear picture of just how close both the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers came to winning the division and earning the number one seed. The 12-5 Rams had multiple opportunities to beat the Seahawks and virtually lock up the NFC West in Week 16, then the 12-5 just had to beat Seattle in Week 18 to do it.
What if this year’s division doesn’t just feature one 14-3 team like it did last year,
but two? And what if the Rams come out ahead and win the tiebreakers this time? That could be their ticket back to the Super Bowl because nothing is as powerful as the number one seed. At least one writer thinks that will happen.
USAToday’s Nate Davis not only predicted that the Rams would win the Super Bowl, but that they would win the division in a tiebreaker of the 14-3 Seattle Seahawks, prior to defeating the Seahawks, Cowboys, and Bills in the playoffs.
(1) Los Angeles Rams (14-3): What else needs to be said about this would-be juggernaut? Sure, reigning MVP Matthew Stafford, 38, must continue to defy Father Time. WR Puka Nacua needs to stay out of the off-field headlines as he tries to convince the organization he’s worthy of a bodacious bag. DC Chris Shula has those significant new parts to mesh – and maybe an old one if Donald unretires. At the very minimum, the special teams can’t be an Achilles heel. And the Seahawks remain a bugaboo. Still, the Rams have won 20 of their last 28 games, many of the losses over that stretch of the fluky variety, and have more star power than any team in the league. Anything less than a Lombardi would be a disappointment – especially since Stafford’s age and several expiring contracts, Nacua’s chief among them, could necessitate a drastically altered roster in 2027.
It would be one thing for Davis to cop out and say that no other NFC teams were a real challenge to L.A., and that could certainly happen, but instead he set up a situation in which Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford need every last second of the NFL season to earn the number one seed and win the Super Bowl because he also has the Seahawks going 14-3 this season.
That’s far more exciting. Especially because the Rams and Seahawks face each other twice in the last three weeks.
Consider the massive implications of Week 16 and Week 18 if the Rams and Seahawks both go 14-3.
Presumably if the Rams win the division, they must beat Seattle at least once in that span. Let’s say it’s Week 18.
Then the Week 18 game would be a 13-3 team against a 14-2 team and the 13-3 team wins the Super Bowl. 14-2 vs. 13-3 would be the second-biggest such game in history, only defeated by the time that the 15-2 Lions beat the 14-3 Vikings two years ago for the NFC North and the number one seed.
L.A. vs Seattle could be even bigger than that.
Davis also has the 49ers going 11-6, but losing in the first round to the Bears. He has Seattle beating the Saints and the Cowboys beating the Lions in the first round. Then the Rams beat the Seahawks and the Cowboys beat the Bears, setting up Roger Goodell’s dream matchup of the Rams vs the Cowboys in the NFC Championship.
In the AFC Championship, the Bills beat the Ravens.
Do I think this will happen? It’s all pretty chalky to me. Davis shies away from any surprises, which is never the case. I like at least one team to shock the world this year, and my pick is the Tennessee Titans.
Maybe the Titans won’t win a playoff game, but I’ll say that they can reach the playoffs and Cam Ward becomes one of the NFL’s biggest stars. Having the Saints in the playoffs is a bit surprising, but less so because of the division they play in; although Tyler Shough could also become a star.
The Rams already have many stars of their own. That’s why many expect them to win the NFC West and the Super Bowl, even if for the second year in a row, the division has both of the league’s two best teams.
