The coaches they are a changin'

Well, we've already seen Eric Mangini (Jets), Rod Marinelli (Lions), Romeo Crennel (Browns), and Mike Shanahan (Broncos) get their walking papers. There are other coaches that shouldn't be resting easy today, including; Jim Haslett (Rams), Herm Edwards (Chiefs), Marvin Lewis (Bengals) and, while I don't expect it, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a change in New Orleans at the expense of Sean Payton or one in Dallas at the expense of Wade Phillips. We already know that there will be changes in Seattle, and while it would surprise me, I think Jacksonville might consider a change. That's at least ten potential coaching changes in the offing.

Little more than 30 percent of the league's coaches could be collecting unemployment before this year's free-agent class has a chance to hit the market. I want to take a moment to go through each of the above and address some of the issues...

I'm not going to address Seattle as Mike Holmgren is leaving of his own accord, so let's start with Mike Shanahan. I've always felt that Shanahan was one of the league's more overrated coaches. I will give him credit for creating and running an offensive scheme that could probably make me a 1000 yard rusher in the NFL - and I'm a broken down 38-year old with bad ankles. However, for all his offensive genius, he's regularly missed in his search for the heir apparent to John Elway (consider, Bill Belichick, traditionally considered a keen defensive mind, has already had two quarterbacks perform up to snuff after Drew Bledsoe, then the best quarterback in franchise history, went down. Shanahan is on his third since Elway, the last two are journeyman back-ups, and the jury is still out on the current one).

A lot of people are surprised by the Shanahan firing. I'm not. Since Elway's retirement, Shanahan has had ten seasons of which he only had four seasons of more than nine wins. In his four seasons with Elway he had only one that had fewer than 12 wins. Even with the one 8-8 season in 1995, Shanhan averaged 12 wins per season with Elway as his quarterback. Since Elway's retirement Shanahan has averaged 9 wins per season and eight per season for the last three.

The team was in command of its destiny until it lost four of its last six, including losses to the moribund division rival Raiders, and the struggling Bills. Two winnable games that would have made the final game against the Chargers moot.

In Kansas City, Herm Edwards' fate is held in the hands of whoever replaces long-time president Carl Peterson. If I were a betting man, I would say his days in KC are done. I like Edwards but feel he has some shortcomings as a head coach. He seems to make bad decisions in critical pressure situations, which is what lost him the job in New York. My guess is that he returns to a coordinator position.

In the Meadowlands Brett Favre was the coach-killer. Honestly, as little as I like Eric Mangini, that late season collapse should have signaled the end of Mike Tannenbaum who saddled Mangini with Favre.

The reasoning for dropping Mangini who had two winning seasons in his three years there was that Tannenbaum gave Mangini a revamped offensive line, a former MVP at signal caller, and a beast in the middle on defense - never mind that the collapse can almost wholly be laid at the feet of Favre, Tannenbaum's hand-picked savior of the franchise, or that the quarterback they cut in favor of Favre arguably had an MVP-type season, or that the beast of a nose-tackle wasn't fit enough to stay on the field and be effective in the fourth quarter.

So Mangini is looking for work. If he can't land a head coaching job, it should be interesting to see if anyone will take him on in some capacity. My guess is that Spygate burned a lot of bridges for him.

Rod Marinelli was the beneficiary of Matt Millen's handiwork finally coming to full fruition. Marinelli may or may not be a good coach, but getting stuck with Matt Millen's picks, it's hard to tell.

Crennel's undoing was having a locker room full of really talented guys that couldn't figure out what it took to win, and Jim Haslett - well, Haslett had a couple of issues working against him, not the least of which was that the Rams are just plain bad.

Also a problem for Haslett - the double standard in the application of the Rooney Rule.

Mid season the Rams wanted to give Haslett an incentive laden contract. If he met the incentives, he came back as head coach, if he didn't, then it was at the discretion of the Rams. The NFL decided, as Haslett was an interim head coach, that the provisions were in violation of the Rooney rule.

Here are my problems with that -

The spirit of the rule was that it open up interview opportunities for minority coaching candidates. The 49ers were allowed to sign their interim head coach, Mike Singletary, to an extension without having to interview anybody - so, in essence, Norm Chow, Romeo Crennel, and possibly soon to be unemployed Herm Edwards, and Marvin Lewis had no chance to interview for the HC position in San Francisco. Not to mention the obvious inequity in regards to the way the league handled two coaches in the exact same position based solely on the color of their skin.

Also, I fail to see how what the Rams did is significantly different to what the Cowboys did in signing their offensive coordinator to a contract stipulating that he becomes head coach when Wade Phillips leaves, or the fact that a similar contract exists in Seattle between the Seahawks and Jim Mora, Jr.

In essence, Haslett got screwed because the NFL decided to apply the Rooney Rule capriciously.

In Cincy I expect that Lewis will be gone after six turmoil-filled seasons during which he averaged fewer than seven wins per season, and broke the eight-win barrier only once. Hailed as a defensive guru, only once - this past season - were his defenses in Cincy ranked higher than 20th, and at 16th, they were barely in the top half of the league. The average rank for his defenses since getting the job - 23rd.

Rooney

Named for Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Rooney Rule came into being in 2003. The Rooney Rule came about in an effort to level the playing field for minority candidates for head coaching positions. In essence, the rule mandates that any team that has an opening for a head coaching position must interview at least one minority candidate.

While I'm not really thrilled by the rule in general, it doesn't really bother me either. It has definitely generated results. According to Wiki, "At the start of the 2006 season, the overall percentage of African American coaches had jumped to 22%, up from 6% prior to the Rooney Rule."

However, there's a fine line between effective and stupid. And this is stupid.

To sum up, the Rams submitted a contract extension for Jim Haslett to the league. The extension was contingent on Haslett reaching a certain number of wins and he would remain the team's head coach for "X" number of years.

The league rejected the contract, saying that the team was trying to circumvent the Rooney Rule.

Huh?

He's already the team's head coach. There is no opening, unless he fails to perform - which is true for any coach.

If they want to argue that he wouldn't be coach at the end of the season, then what I want to know is how this is any different than what the Cowboys or the Seahawks did in writing into the contracts of assistant coaches that they would succeed their current head coaches. I mean, it's not like they're requiring either of those teams to comply to the Rooney Rule in order to fill the spot once Wade Phillips and Mike Holmgren are done.

So, why is what the Rams are doing any different?

This is just one of those things from the NFL executive offices that just doesn't smell right.

Consider - if Haslett has a decent season with the Rams, and everyone knows that he's their man, what coach, in his right mind, is going to debase himself by interviewing for an opening he knows doesn't even exist?

This is just idiotic.

The defense is still a bit offensive

The Patriots have clawed their way back into a share of first place with their win over the Rams combined with the Bills loss to the 'Phins.

Once again, Matt Cassel was solid in his role as signal caller, and could have been even better if not for drops from Randy Moss (two touchdowns missed, and a deflection of his hand ended as an interception), and normally sure-handed Wes Welker (dropped a sure first-down, and fell in his route leading to interception two). Cassel led the offense to 23 points on 63 percent passing in spite of an erratic and often ineffective running game (although Kevin Faulk did average 4.1 yards a carry and was the Cassel's best weapon, accounting for a combined 107 yards and a highlight reel touchdown reception).

While I believe the offense could have been better - the team needs to do a better job of helping Cassel out - I don't have too many complaints about the offensive performance other than those noted above.

The defense, however, continues to bother me.

Overall, they did what they needed to do, coming up with the big third down stops pretty regularly. What wasn't good was the regularity with which the Rams hit big plays. Three St. Lois receivers had catches of at least 19 yards, two of them averaged more than 20 yards per catch and one, with six receptions averaged more than 27 yards.

These are not reassuring numbers.

They are a step backwards from last week when the Pats gave up virtually nothing deep.

Will they adjust sans Rodney Harrison? I hope so - but this really wasn't the sort of adjustment I was hoping to see, and I don't care what the record says, next week's Sunday night tilt against the Colts looms large. Even a wounded Peyton Manning is dangerous, and I would like to see that the secondary has made the necessary adjustments to win in Indy next week.

And on a separate note, for those of you who missed it, check out my last post on commercial viability. It's a gas.

Live from the Outer Banks, iiiiiittttt'sss the Aaaaannnngry Fan

So, I've been in Corolla, NC, for the last week (I'm still there as I type this on the porch of the beach house the family has rented). It's been a little difficult to give a rat's ass about a whole lot going on when I've been sitting in breezy low 80 degree temperatures. It has also been kind of hard to focus with my two daughters and four nieces tearing around the house like miniature banshees. So I have largely been spending days at the beach cranking through Dennis Lehane novels.

Some quick thoughts and then my pre-season take on the NFC West...

Is it just me, or has there been a domino effect on the bullpen every time Clay Buchholz has pitched lately? He struggles, they go to the pen, and they struggle. It's almost as though they're taking their cue from whoever the starter is and if the starter sucks it up, so too does the pen. I haven't looked closely to see if this is true, but it certainly feels like this is what's been happening lately. It's probably for the best that Buchholz was sent back down.

If the Sox can't come up with a viable replacement for Buchholz, a guy who can go at least .500 in his place, the Sox are going to lose out on the division, and likely the playoffs, as the AL Central looks like it has a pretty strong chance of sending two teams to the big dance.

Carl Pavano is expected to start for the Yankees on Saturday. Stick a fork in 'em. Right now this is their rotation -

Mike Mussina
Carl Pavano
Darrell Rasner
Andy Pettitte
Sid Ponson

That's not only not a championship rotation, it's a rotation that's barely average. Only one of the starters gives up fewer than four runs per nine innings pitched, and that's Mike Mussina. Not exactly known for coming up big in the late season pressure games (sure, he hasn't been awful in the post-season, but 7-8 with a 3.42 ERA is hardly dominating, or impressive).

Now onto the West...

This is a hard one to call because, like the AFC West, the NFC West is rife with mediocre and bad teams. It's hard to ascribe any separation between the Rams and the 49ers, as well as the Cardinals and the Seahawks. The two duos definitively make up the top and the bottom of a bad division. One of the teams might surprise, it's always possible, but this is how I see it...

4. 49ers - I think this is a team going backwards. They appear to lack a true NFL quality quarterback, instead having three guys that would be back-ups on other teams. Frank Gore is solid at running back, but the passing game and the defense are suspect. I have a hard time seeing this team improve on the five wins of a year ago, and suspect that they could slip to a four win season easily.

3. Rams - Like San Fran, I'm not convinced of this team's improvement. However, with contests against the rival 49ers (twice), the Jets, Dolphins, Falcons, and Bills, there's a chance this team could eke out five or six wins, although, I suspect at least one loss to the Niners, and possible losses to the Jets and Bills. I wouldn't be surprised by three wins, but I would be by any more than six.

2. Seahawks - I haven't been thrilled by this team's personnel moves since the Super Bowl loss to the Steelers. I think they overpaid for Deion Branch, an oft-injured, undersized receiver who got it into his head, and into the Seahawks' heads that he was better than really is. They let one of the better offensive linemen on the team walk away. They signed TJ Duckett, who I feel has never quite lived up to what little hype has surrounded him. The only signing I liked was Julius Jones. While they are clearly one of the most consistent teams in the NFC, I believe time has chipped away at their hold on the division and that they may be in danger of missing the post-season this year. All that said, I'm looking at nine wins, maybe ten for this team.

1. Cardinals - I'm buying into the hype. The last time I did, I got burned, but I'm going to ride with it again. Knowing the history of this team, they could easily wind up at the bottom of the division, but I think they're poised for a playoff run. They have a young, high-octane offense in place that has shown signs of life the last two seasons. With the offensive weapons in place, the Arizona brain trust has concentrated on their defensive shortcomings, and the buzz out of the desert is that the D could be pretty good this year. If that happens, this could be a team that makes some noise. They'll have their work cut out for them with all the teams from the East on their schedule, but I can see them stealing one here and there to fight their way to around ten wins.

The righteous and the wicked

As fans we are typically raised in our own particular denomination - Sox, Yankees, Colts, Penguins. Sometimes it's because of family, sometimes it's regional.

We've been raised to believe that there is something pure and good about sports.

The character of Terrence Mann in Field of Dreams concludes his keynote speech with, "And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."

The fact is, people that play sports - and I'm not talking about those of us that play pick-up games of basketball on Saturdays, or in softball leagues after work - no, those that were competitive enough to be in that handful of players to ever make it to the majors, the coaches, the trainers, these people are some of the most competitive people in the world.

They look for edges, often going out of the bounds allowed by their sport, sometimes venturing into the outright illegal. And this is not limited to American athletes or coaches.

Look at Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Barry Bonds, Bjarne Riss, Roger Clemens, and Lyle Alzado to name a few. By all reports, these people are the ones who looked for shortcuts, looked for the edge that going outside the bounds of the rules of their sport, and sometimes the laws of their country.

If you doubt how competitive these people are, consider that Pete Rose ended the career of a catcher in an All-Star game. A game that didn't even count.

The history of professional sports is a history of cheating and controversy, as much as we would like to convince ourselves otherwise, as often as we try to convince ourselves otherwise, the fact remains that there is nothing clean about pro sports.

The Patriots have Spygate, the Chicago White Sox will always have the Black Sox Scandal, the Packers and Lions will always each have a highly regarded player (historically speaking) in the 1960's who were both suspended for a season for gambling on the game. The Reds will always have Pete Rose, and Rose will always carry the stigma of betting on baseball.

Questions will always dog Floyd Landis and Lance Armstrong. There will always be questions regarding the timing of Martina Hingis and the timing of her retirement in regards to an alleged positive test for cocaine, violating the WTA's drug policy.

In spite of mounds of incontrivertible evidence that pro sports is rife with cheating, we, as fans, get indignant over the fact that an opposing team cheated to win. We yell cheater(!) and point fingers, and try to claim the team that is the subject of our affections in a given sport is on some sort of moral high ground.

As a Red Sox fan, I always felt, from a public standpoint, that the Sox and the fan base lost the moral high ground on the steroid issue back in the mid 1990's when they added Jose Canseco to the roster. I felt it then, I feel it now.

Owners hold cities hostage, favorite players bail in favor of better money elsewhere, officials get nailed in gambling scandals. But we keep coming back, and we defend our teams with the rabid, one-mindedness of a pitbull. We are Crusaders for the Patriots, Giants, or Eagles.

Sometimes we are misguided in our attacks, sometimes because of misrepresentation by the press, sometimes because we are going to impress our preconceived notions upon a team we don't like, and have no desire for the making a judgment based on the facts. It is a religion, like all religions, based on faith and emotion.

And like religion, the government has no place in the games, unless the governing bodies of the games turn their heads and look the other way when federal and state laws are violated. For those of you who do, think about it this way - hypothetically, you own a contracting firm and are a member of your local chamber of commerce. You cut corners by setting studs two inches farther apart in your building than you are supposed to. Arlen Specter calls for an investigation into your business practices by Congress and compares your violation of building standards to illegal practices by the CIA. Anyone else sense the incongruity?

As for the Anti-trust Exemption that people claim give him the right. Let them remove it. See how football suffers. If football looses the exemption, then the draft goes away. The exemption is what allows the NFL to tell a player coming out of college that the Bills, or the Raiders, or the Panthers own a player's rights for a year. That goes away and the teams with the best profit margins - the Patriots, the Redskins, the Cowboys, and large market teams like the Giants are the only ones that can get the best talent coming out of college. Football becomes baseball.

Teams like Buffalo, Green Bay, Tampa Bay, Tennessee...they might as well kiss their collective futures goodbye.

As for Specter...this is a joke. His impartiality is questionable, at best, considering he's an Eagles fan and is pretty much tailoring his inquiry to the Eagle's Super Bowl loss to the Patriots, and his second largest contributor during the last election was Comcast, one of the companies locked in the legal dispute with the NFL over the NFL Network. He comes off more as a fan pissed about his team losing a championship than as an official trying to protect the integrity of the game.

And as a fan, he's wielding the cudgel that he he has - the Anti-trust Exemption - in a matter that was already handled in-house, as it should have been.

As for his claim that the NFL might need the evidence it destroyed at a different time, this isn't a court of law, nothing illegal was done. What need is there to hang on to evidence that had already leaked to the press to the embarrassment of the NFL? Specter is mistaking an in-house issue for something of the severity of baseball's steroid scandal, which did indeed violate federal law.

And people wonder why the Republican Party took a beating in the last election.

As fans, sometimes we need to temper our emotions. Sometimes we need to do a little footwork on our own, and not completely trust the media - they are, after all, in the business of selling papers and advertising. It behooves them to present stories in a way that will allow them the largest possible circulation. It's why the headlines were, "Pat's caught stealing signals," rather than, "Pat's caught putting together game film from forbidden location."

Presenting the story as taping from a location not allowed, but that stealing signals is...just not a sexy story.

It's why we'll never know what really happened with Terrell Owens just before the beginning of the season, but "attempted suicide" sells papers.

Sure, in our judicial system everyone is accorded the benefit of the doubt - innocent until proven guilty. But that's not the way the court of public opinion works.

For the detractors of the Patriots, this season will always be tainted - in spite of the fact that they were probably the most scrutinized team in the league this year, that the film was confiscated before the end of the first quarter of the first game and the NFL said that there was no way that the film could have been used, that nothing else untoward happened during the season. Those same people will always doubt the validity the 2001 win over the Rams due to unsubstantiated rumors that the Patriots taped the Rams' walk-through the day before. It's the nature of being a fan who doesn't like a team, or who resents a team.

But it remains the same for other teams that this happened to - the Yankees of the late 1990's will, in many people's heads, always have the taint of a large number of steroid users on that club. For some, it will always be remembered that the 1972 Dolphins were without a first round draft pick due to a penalty levied for tampering with a coach (Shula) who was still under contract with another team.

The instances of cheating and impropriety in sports are legion. And anyone who thinks they root for a team that's innocent, well they're just kidding themselves.

Buying the hype, selling the fertilizer

Just some random thoughts as we go into Super Bowl week...

There has been a lot of talk about the non-story of Tom Brady's ankle. If Brady was carted off the field after his ankle was rolled on in the game against the Chargers eight days ago, I would be concerned. But today I see it as a non-story.

In 2001 Brady was lifted from the AFC Championship Game against the Steelers when his ankle was twisted under him in the first half. Drew Bledsoe came in and marched the Patriots down the field for a score and captained the Patriots to victory, creating a quarterback controversy going into the game against the Rams a week later. A WEEK LATER.

This year Brady has had two weeks to recover and never had to be removed from the Chargers game. As a matter of fact, he was 7 for 7 passing after the sprain. He was 15 of 26 before.

Thought two -

The New York Giants are the chic pick among a lot of the pundits. So much so that I think I have heard more of the national talking heads pick the Giants than the Patriots. The reasoning - they have the defense and the running game to cause the Patriots problems...or...The Patriots have to lose sometime...or...The bye helps the Giants to plan for the Patriots...or...Look who the Giants had to beat to get there. The Patriots had an easier road...or...Because of what they did against the Patriots in the final regular season game, the Giants know they can win.

I don't know that I would lay money on the Patriots, given the spread. However, I think the Patriots are the likely winners in this contest.

Yes, the Giants have a great running game, but so did Dallas, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, and Pittsburgh. And yes, the Giants D has been great, particularly in the post-season. However, the last time I checked, neither Bays - Green and Tampa - have the offensive weapons of the Patriots, and neither does Dallas (and for anyone who wants to try to argue that, tell me - who would you really rather have at QB? Romo or Brady?).

Then there's this -

In his time with the Patriots, Belichick is 24-4 when facing the same QB for the second time in a season (I might be off on that number, but I think it's right). Coughlin is 1-3 following a bye with the Giants. Belichick is 13-7 (including with the Browns) after a bye, but has won his last ten straight.

As for who the Patriots beat - the Jaguars, according to the talking heads, were supposed to be the strong defensive team with the powerful running game that was supposed to topple the Patriots from their perch. Now they're a "who did the Patriots really beat" team.

Everyone out of New England is talking about how the Colts would have given the Patriots a better game, but they struggled mightily against the banged up Chargers team that eventually faced the Pats.

As for the last point. The bottom line is that the Giants couldn't hold the Patriots off late in the game, and then Eli turned the ball over at the least opportune of times while trying to mount a late drive.

I'm not saying that the Giants don't have a chance. I just don't see solid logic behind the reasoning that I'm hearing from those predicting a New York win. I do think it's gonna be a helluva game.

Signs your team is headed in the wrong direction

• When ESPN promotes your game, they announce, "watch the Bears led by returner Devin Hester take on..." Let's face it, if the biggest star/most exciting player on the team you root for is the kick/punt returner, your team is in trouble.
• Matt Millen is the general manager of the team you root for. This needs no further explanation.
• Your general manager decides, in spite of all the other glaring weaknesses on the team, to let the team's leading wide receiver go in free-agency, and replaces him in the draft with a an injured kick returner that's not projected to be a number one receiver in the league. To make it worse, the GM let's him go to a division rival.
• Pundits struggle to justify why your team took a third-down back with a top five pick over a defensive end with nine-and-a-half sacks in his second year...and continue to claim that they still would have taken that running back over the defensive end if they re-did the 2006 draft today.
• The best excuse your defense can come up with for why they lost a game is that the refs were against them. Not that their own coordinator called a time-out, not that they killed themselves with obvious and blatant penalties - no, it has to be the refs' faults.
• Your franchise quarterback cops a guilty plea to a federal offense, players publicly feud with your new head coach on the sideline, and then said coach bails on the team 13 games into his contract. Quality judgement there by that front office.
• The best thing that can be said about a team's season is that they got their first win before the Dolphins.

Let's see - that would be, in succession: Chicago, Detroit, Miami, New Orleans, Baltimore, Atlanta, and St. Louis. Combined, those teams have a 29-69 record (aided greatly by the Saint's 7-7 record, and overall a rip-roaring .296 winning percentage). Are there other teams with problems? You bet. Are all of these teams heading in the wrong direction? You bet.

On a different note...

Over Thanksgiving, my brother-in-law noted some guy in the press bitching about the way Belichick dressed. If it bother people, fine. Is it Belichick probably thumbing his nose at the deal the NFL has with Reebok? Yeah, it probably is.

However...

Here's the funny thing - my wife was scanning the Patriots on-line store, presumably for a Christmas gift for me. While there, she noted something interesting - the Pats are marketing a Belichick hoodie as well as a Belichick throw. For the hoodie they're charging $75.00 and $45.00 for the throw.

What other team is able to market clothing under the name of the coach? Sure, you'll see the "like the polo worn on the sidelines by Mike Holmgren," or one of the other coaches, but you won't see it listed as "Holmgren Sideline Polo," it will be listed as, "Coach's Sideline Polo."

Welcome to Patriot Nation. It love's its coach.

Conspicuously absent

My apologies for my recent absence. There were some recent electrical storms that have wreaked havoc with my Internet access here in Western Maryland. I am, however, back now...so, on with the NFC West (finally)...

Arizona Cardinals - Can Matt Leinart and the Cardinals offense progress and build off of last year? Last season Leinart showed flashes of why he was a top draft pick as a QB, often making something out of nothing behind a spotty offensive line. The team has the skill position players in place to make the jump to contender in a weak division, but has historically had issues at quarterback and along the line. If Leinart can stay upright and get the ball out to his big wide-outs, then they will have a chance every week.

St. Louis Rams - Can the front office get Marc Bulger in to camp in time to build off of last year's success? Last season, after several down seasons, the Rams challenged the Seahawks for the division title. Inconsistency plagued the team as they sometimes beat the tough opponents and struggled against the weak ones. However, the offense - led by Bulger and running back Stephen Jackson - clicked down the stretch. If either of those two cogs is not ready for the opener, then the Rams are starting the season with a handicap.

San Francisco 49ers - Can the revamped receiving corps have success? San Francisco made a quantum leap forward last year, showing life on offense. In order to bolster the roster, the 49ers brain-trust went out and got Darrell Jackson from the Seahawks and Ashley Lelie from Atlanta to revamp their receiver corps. If Jackson is healthy, he could still be a legitimate number one receiver. However, it should be a cause for concern that the Seahawks were willing to deal him within the division, and Lelie has been a bust his entire career. A receiver with number one sort of talent, Lelie has only occasionally shown the ability to live up to his potential.

Seattle Seahawks - Can they hold off the rest of the division? Last season the 9-7 Seahawks back-slid, barely finishing ahead of the 8-8 Rams and the 7-9 49ers one season after walking away with the division and going to the Super Bowl. There are a lot of ifs that need to be answered with this team in determining whether or not they can hold off the rest of the division - if Deion Branch can step it up and be a legitimate number one receiver in a system other than the Patriots (most scouts have him as the second receiver), if the revamped secondary can gel in training camp, if Shaun Alexander can fend off time and return to the form he had two seasons ago while avoiding injury. These are some of the questions the team needs to answer - and if the answers to any of these are "no," then it could be a very tough season for the team from the Emerald City.