The Cold Hard Football Facts Are The Rams Get No Respect!

Our friends over at Cold Hard Football Facts just posted a quick glance at the NFC, as well as divisional information about the NFC West. The facts are that the St. Louis Rams received the ultimate dis by not even having the team name mentioned in the article! Thats right in a weak division with only four teams in it the Rams were not even mentioned in a 500 word article. Are the Seattle Seahawks that good? No the article goes off on them as well. If the Seahawks are not going to be any good, than doesn’t that make the St. Louis Rams an immediate contender? The Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers are briefly mentioned but not even a sniff for the Rams. Are we already a carcass? Sure the Facts, do give us some facts about how bad the division is, but hey we’ll take the division crown in NFC West, we aren’t proud. Show some spirit and send RAMblin’Fan your thoughts and comments.

"NFC WESTIcy Issue: How bad is the NFC West?Icier Response: Let’s put it this way: the NFC West is so light, shapeless and ethereal that physicists have recently declared it a gas.Arizona and San Francisco are trendy picks in some circles to dethrone perennial divisional champ Seattle and perhaps even – we’re trying not to laugh here, folks – make some noise in the playoffs.But it’s difficult to envision any kind of noise coming out of a division that, since its creation, has proven utterly incapable of competing with the rest of the NFL.The NFC West took its current indefinable “shape” with the divisional re-alignment of 2002.Over the six seasons since then, just seven NFC West teams have reached the playoffs. That’s only one more playoff team than the absolute minimum possible dictated by the NFL’s pesky “divisional champs automatically reach the postseason” rule.And five of those seven playoff teams have been the Seahawks – the closest thing in this sad, limp, empty potato sack of a division to a dominant team.But even Seattle is a watered down version of a regular divisional power. Mostly, the Seahawks have simply feasted on the dead-weight detritus that floats around the bottom of the pigskin petri dish that is the rest of the NFC West. Yes, Seattle was the NFC’s No. 1 seed and won the conference title in 2005 … but then got smacked around in the Super Bowl by the AFC’s No. 6 seed, Pittsburgh.And since that Super Bowl loss, over the past two seasons, Seattle has won just two games against Quality Opponents (teams that finish the season .500 or better). That’s it. Two long seasons and two measly victories against teams with winning records. And this is the best team in the division! We can’t even make up stats that good, folks.The Cold, Hard Football Facts began tracking Quality Wins back in 2004. Seattle has been the undisputed class of the NFC West over that period, capturing all four divisional crowns. But the Seahawks boast just six Quality Wins (not including playoffs) since we invented the stat back in 2004.To put Seattle’s six Quality Wins over four seasons into perspective, consider that New England boasted seven Quality Wins last year alone – nine if you count the playoffs.In other words, Seattle is a true paper tiger– barely able to compete against Quality Teams, partly because they rarely ever face Quality Teams. Division powerhouse Seattle is a mere 6-10 vs. Quality Teams since 2004 – that’s just four games a year against teams with winning records.This inability to compete by Seattle says quite a bit about the hopes of the entire division. Yes, NFC West upstarts Arizona and San Francisco may be poised for that big “breakout season” that many “pundits” predict – if you define a “breakout” season as a 9- or 10-win campaign and a wildcard-round playoff loss."