NFC West moving into state of flux
February 16, 2003
Ira Miller
The 49ers have a new coach. The Seahawks have a new defensive staff. The Cardinals will have a new quarterback. And the Rams should be healthy again.
Next year's NFC West won't be the cakewalk it was for the 49ers in 2002. The division will be different. And it should be competitive.
Dennis Erickson, who announced Saturday that defensive secondary coach Brett Maxie and assistants Jason Tarver, Dan Quinn and Chris Beake would return to the 49ers, will be the only new coach in the division. Someone at Arizona, perhaps Josh McCown, will be the only new starting quarterback in the division. Ray Rhodes is the new defensive coordinator asked to solve a long- standing problem in Seattle.
But it is three other men who will be most on the spot in the NFC West in 2003: Terry Donahue, the 49ers' general manager; Mike Holmgren, the Seahawks' coach, and Kurt Warner, the Rams' quarterback.
Donahue, by hiring Erickson, has established that he is the football man in San Francisco; no more questions, please, about whether Bill Walsh is still in charge. If the 49ers stumble, even if it's because John York has his hand firmly on his wallet, then Donahue must take the heat. It's up to him to get Erickson the players he will need to run his offense, and the first need is for another wide receiver -- just as it was a year ago.
In saying that the 49ers could win the Super Bowl this season, Donahue did not exactly invoke echoes of Carmen Policy's "Super Bowl or bust" mantra, but the meaning was very similar. By that standard, anything short of a championship next season is a failure. And anything short of championship- level personnel on the roster is a failure that would fall on Donahue.
Holmgren is going into his fifth season as the Seattle coach. By his fifth year in Green Bay with Ron Wolf as general manager, he had a Super Bowl team. Holmgren has been slow to rebuild the Seahawks, which is why he is no longer the general manager, only the coach. But now he has Matt Hasselbeck established at quarterback, and the hiring of coordinator Rhodes will help the defense.
Seattle owner Paul Allen has unlimited money but not unlimited patience. In his first four years, Holmgren compiled the same record -- 31-33 -- that Erickson had in the previous four years at Seattle. The Seahawks were 28th on defense in 2002. In his last two jobs, Rhodes took teams that were 30th and 24th on defense and they rose to 4th and 8th, respectively, in a year under him. Holmgren needs him to do that again.
Warner is due a $6 million bonus at the end of this month, and every indication is that the Rams will pay it to retain him. During the 2002 season, he never looked like the guy who had won two MVP awards in the previous three seasons. How much of that was due to a thumb injury lingering from 2001 is open to question, but the Rams' window of opportunity will not stay open for long; Marshall Faulk turns 30 later this month, and Isaac Bruce already did.
In his first three seasons in St. Louis, Warner's passer ratings were 109.2, 98.3 and 101.4. It would not have been reasonable to expect him to continue on that pace, but last year's 67.4 figure was shocking, and there was no discernible difference in the numbers before or after his in-season broken pinky. If the Rams don't rebound this season, management may be tempted to break up the team and try to start over.
There is, of course, a fourth team in the division but, as usual, the Arizona Cardinals are an afterthought. Since the early '90s, every team in the NFL, except for the most recent two expansion franchises, has won a division title or a Super Bowl -- except for the Cardinals, whose last division title came in 1975.
And, even though coach Dave McGinnis does a terrific job of swimming upstream, the Cardinals, once again, do not appear to be in a contending position. They have told quarterback Jake Plummer they won't make more than a modest salary offer to him, which means Plummer will leave as a free agent, his vast promise still unfulfilled. In six seasons with the Cardinals, he led them to a winning record only once and threw more touchdown passes than interceptions only once. His likely destination: Denver.
McCown, a third-round draft choice who threw just 18 passes as a rookie last season, will get a shot at winning the job, along with at least one veteran likely to be signed in free agency. The Cards also are expected to choose a quarterback in the draft, where they hold the sixth overall pick.
For a change, it is a team other than the 49ers -- the Rams -- who must negotiate the division's most difficult salary cap situation. The 49ers are about $6 million over the limit and will have to re-work some contracts, but they don't face the crunch the Rams do with big numbers for Warner, Bruce and Orlando Pace.
The cap is not a problem for either the Seahawks or the Cardinals, which is one reason Seattle already was quick to re-up offensive tackle Chris Terry. But if Seattle expects Rhodes to succeed, it better move quickly to lock up outside linebacker Anthony Simmons, one of the best players in the division.
Arizona has more cap room available than any other team in the league; the Cards are about $37 million under the limit, which will be $75 million. But the reason the Cards have so much cap room is that they have few valuable players. That's why the other three teams all have men on the spot, but not the Cards. The other teams are the ones with expectations.
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