Catchy headline no? This is exactly what Vince Verhei from Football Outsiders said in a recent piece on ESPN, an article for insiders called "Plugging The Holes: NFC West".
I have to admit, I agree for the most part with his assessment of the Niners, Cardinals and Seahawks, but as far as the Rams, he goes a bit overboard.
Let's start by reviewing what he says about the other, aforementioned teams:
Cardinals: Concerns with getting after the quarterback on the DL. Calais Campbell was their sack leader last year with 6 sacks and ranked 39th in the league. Joey Porter and Clark Haggans will be a combined 68 years old, and nothing to back them but late round draft picks. AGREED
Niners: Frank Gore? Let's see a mini holdout coupled with coming off a hip injury (broken hip). If Gore can't bounce back from the injury, then who will the Niners depend on? Anthiny Dixon? Kendall Hunter? Who?? Exactly. AGREED
Seahawks: Secondary? Trufant is really the only proven veteran on the team... what are the other names you ask? Kelly Jennings, Walter Thurmond, Roy Lewis and Kennard Cox. Let me give you a moment to Google their names.. ahem.. Seattle did nothing to shore up this area in free agency.. so.. AGREED
Now we get to my favorite part.. the Rams. Vince says WR is the biggest question mark. I can't disagree, but he goes way overboard.
Here it is and I quote:
The Rams tried to upgrade the position, signing Mike Sims-Walker away from Jacksonville and drafting Austin Pettis out of Boise State and Greg Salas out of Hawaii. But it's not likely that any of these players will even crack the starting lineup.
So Sims-Walker won't crack the starting lineup? If not, then who?
He then goes on to talk about Donnie Avery:
If there's a secret weapon here, it's Donnie Avery, who had 17 20-yard plays between 2008 and 2009 but missed all of last season with a torn ACL. Word out of Rams camp, though, is that Avery has been missing practices with a sore hamstring.
So hasn't 80% of the league.. these types of things are typical this year, particularly because of the lockout. He made no mention of Donnie running 4.3 40's again.
Let me know your thoughts.