West Coast, No Coast

I am holding my nose while writing this post. That’s right, I am typing one-handed. I was trying to get my picks in for the NFL games this weekend and started looking at the standings for the west division teams in both conferences.

It is a really good thing that I haven’t eaten yet.

How was I not aware of this? How am I so out of touch with the NFL this year? When did the AFC and NFC West Division teams become so bad? The eight teams that we are talking about are Denver, San Diego, Kansas City, Oakland, Arizona, Seattle, San Francisco, and St. Louis. Oh, you may want to put down any sharp objects for the next few minutes and consider the following…

Of the eight teams in the two divisions, only Arizona and Denver currently have winning records.
Arizona will host a playoff game next weekend, and they have lost 3 of there last 4 games by a combined 130 – 41. I saw the games and the score does not indicate how bad the beatings really were.

Only one team – San Diego – has scored more points this year than their opponents. San Diego is 7 - 8 heading into today’s games.

Denver is the only team of the eight with a winning record against out-of-conference teams.

Of the eight teams, St. Louis, San Francisco and Oakland have already had coaching changes and only San Francisco has made a permanent change.

Holmgren was on a farewell tour already, so we are going to have a coaching change in Seattle.

When all is said and done, we could have as many as six of the teams change coaches this off-season -- only Shanahan and Wisenhunt appear safe.

Either San Diego or Denver will host a playoff game next week.

Not only is it likely to two 11 win teams will be on the road in the first week of the playoffs because of the putrid west coast teams, but it appears that at least one 11 win team is not going to make the playoffs!

I don’t know how I missed this. If not for the NY Jets going 0 – 4 against the NFC West this year, it would be a lot worse. This is awful and I understand why people complain about the division structure being bad for sports and playoff seeding.

I should point out that I am happy with the divisional/conference structure in sports. Win your division and you should get an opportunity to move on. Don’t win your division and I am not sure that you deserve to be considered for a championship run. I have been very consistent about this position in Pro football, college football, and baseball. Wildcard teams are really only there because of television money and I think it devalues sports championships.

Having said that, even I can’t believe how bad the west coast teams are! I know that this stuff is cyclical, but come on…these teams are awful. I will steal from others with this closing but all eight teams should just ride off into the sunset. Since they are on the west coast, that simply means drowning in the Pacific and erasing both divisions.