2026 NFL Preview: NFC West
Alright, here we go. The NFC West was the best division in football last year and it wasn't particularly close. Three teams won 12+ games, which had never happened before in NFL history, and the fourth team was so bad it made the whole thing look like a typo. The division produced the Super Bowl champion, the MVP, and the incredible NFC Championship Game. Then everybody went out and got better in the offseason. Except one team. You'll immediately figure out which one.
Going 1 through 4. And yes, I know exactly what I did with the top spot. Save it for the group chat.
1 – San Francisco 49ers
2025: 12-5 (3rd in NFC West)
Yes, I have my own team ahead of the defending Super Bowl champions and the team Vegas says is the Super Bowl favorite. Am I a homer? Obviously. Have I ever pretended otherwise? Never. Here's the case.
The 49ers won 12 games last season while their starters missed north of 50 games, which is legitimately one of the more impressive things I've ever watched. They stole a wild card game in Philly, 23-19, over the defending champs. Then they went to Seattle and lost 41-6. Forty-one to six. I've watched a lot of 49ers football and that one still hurts
Here's the number that explains everything: San Francisco finished DEAD LAST in the NFL in team sacks with 20. Myles Garrett had 23 by himself and now he plays in this division. Last year I said this defense had holes like Swiss cheese and needed to score 50 a game to win. I stand by every word. Raheem Morris comes in as the fifth defensive coordinator in five seasons, which is not a typo and is not normal. Robert Saleh left to take the Titans job.
There is good news though! Fred Warner is back and practicing in full after that broken and dislocated ankle, and he said he feels better than he ever has. Nick Bosa is back from the ACL and Trent Williams said he couldn't even tell Bosa had been hurt. They traded for Osa Odighizuwa, got Dre Greenlaw back from Denver, and Alfred Collins looked like a real player as a rookie. If that front stays upright, 20 sacks becomes 40 and this whole conversation changes.
If. IF. The injury stuff has already started, because of course it has (Thank you, electrical substation). George Kittle opened camp on PUP with the Achilles he tore in that Seattle playoff loss, though Lynch is optimistic on Week 1. Ricky Pearsall's season is already over — PCL, straight to IR, in July. Bosa, Greenlaw, Kyle Juszczyk, Mike Evans, Jacob Cowing and rookie De'Zhaun Stribling have all been in and out of practice. It is August 5th. Come on.
And then there's the thing nobody wants to talk about. Kyle Shanahan was in a head on car accident on July 14 and suffered a concussion, three broken ribs, a broken nose, a broken hand and needed 40-plus stitches in his face. He's been at camp in a limited role with Chris Foerster running the practice field. Lynch doesn't expect him to miss Week 1. That's the most important sentence in this entire preview and I hope it holds.
The receiver room is completely rebuilt — Mike Evans, Christian Kirk, and Deebo Samuel back on a one-year deal. Jauan Jennings is a Viking. Brandon Aiyuk is technically still 49ers property and spends his time posting videos calling them names, which is a wild way to exist. CMC had an NFL-high 413 touches last year and made first-team All-Pro. Purdy is healthy and shining in camp.
Win total is sitting around 10. They open Week 1 against the Rams in Melbourne, Australia, which is awesome but a brutal way to start. But if a healthy Bosa, Warner, Kittle and Purdy are on the field for 17 weeks then this is the most complete roster in the division. That's a monster "if" and I'm making it anyway.
2 – Los Angeles Rams
2025: 12-5 (2nd in NFC West, lost NFC Championship)
Last November I wrote "Yes, I'll admit it, the Rams are the team to beat in the NFC. You're welcome, Alex." Sorry Alex, I'm taking it back by exactly one spot. Everything I'm about to write is the argument for why I'm wrong to do that.
The Rams had the No. 1 offense in football last year — first in total yards (394.6), first in passing (268.1), first in points (30.5). Matthew Stafford won MVP at 37 years old with 4,707 yards and 46 touchdowns. Puka Nacua was first-team All-Pro and led the entire league with 129 catches and 80 receiving first downs. Davante Adams caught 14 touchdowns, most in the NFL, on only 60 receptions. They went to Seattle in the NFC Championship and lost by four.
So what does Les Snead do? He goes out and trades for Myles Garrett. THE Myles Garrett. The reigning Defensive Player of the Year coming off a season where he set the single-season sack record with 23. Jared Verse went to Cleveland in the deal, which stings a little, but you make that trade Every. Single. Time. Then, just to be superteam, they added Trent McDuffie AND Jaylen Watson from the Chiefs to fix a secondary that was the one soft spot on the roster.
Last year Garrett had 23 sacks by himself. Byron Young (12), Kobie Turner (7) and Braden Fiske (3) combined for 22. Now they're all on the same defensive line. I don't know what to tell you other than insane. Chris Shula has already said he's letting Garrett do what Garrett does rather than forcing him into the scheme, which is the correct answer.
The one real question is the receiver room behind the top two but we can’t forget Nacua’s unpleasant offseason. After Nacua's 129 catches and Adams' 60, the Rams did not have a single other receiver with more than 18 receptions. Eighteen! That's why everybody was so confused when they used the 13th overall pick on quarterback Ty Simpson with Makai Lemon and KC Concepcion still sitting on the board. The answer, apparently, is tight ends — they've got Colby Parkinson, Tyler Higbee, Terrance Ferguson and rookie Max Klare, and they led the league in 13 personnel usage. It works until a playoff defense decides it doesn't.
Camp watch items: Garrett has missed multiple straight practices with lower-body soreness and McVay has publicly waved off any concern, which is what every coach says right up until it isn't. Stafford is on a load management plan where he sits days one and three of every four-day block, because he's 38 and they'd like him alive in January. Byron Young is working through a lingering knee thing. Nacua's extension is coming and it's going to be enormous.
The Rams have the highest win total in the NFL at 11.5, tied with Baltimore, and they're the Super Bowl favorite at +550. They open in Melbourne against my 49ers, they play at Levi South on Christmas against Seattle, and they close the regular season hosting Seattle again.
If I'm wrong about the top of this division — and I probably am — it's going to be because of this team.
3 – Seattle Seahawks
2025: 14-3 (1st in NFC West, Super Bowl LX champions)
I spent most of last season being wrong about the Seahawks. In Week 6 I called their defense their downfall. In Week 8 I admitted I might hate them slightly less. By Week 11 I finally said out loud they were a very good team. They then went out and won the whole thing. So let's just start by saying that I have no credibility here. Which is exactly why putting the defending champs third is either brave or extremely stupid. Probably stupid.
Seattle went 14-3, the best record in franchise history, grabbed the No. 1 seed, obliterated my 49ers 41-6, beat the Rams 31-27 in the NFC Championship, and then handled New England 29-13 in Super Bowl LX at Levi's Stadium. Jason Myers hit five field goals, a Super Bowl record. A.J. Barner scored their only offensive touchdown. Kenneth Walker III went for 135 yards on 27 carries and took home MVP, becoming the first running back to win it since Terrell Davis in 1998.
And then Walker signed with the Chiefs. Your Super Bowl MVP, gone in free agency. He comes back to Lumen on Sunday Night Football on October 25 and that stadium is going to be electric.
So who runs the ball? Zach Charbonnet tore his ACL in the divisional round and will likely miss the start of the season, which leaves first-round rookie Jadarian Price. Price was Jeremiyah Love's understudy at Notre Dame — yes, the same Love the Cardinals just made the richest rookie back ever — and averaged 6.0 yards a carry in his career. The worry is workload: he had 15-plus touches exactly once in 41 college games. Also on the depth chart is Emanuel Wilson, who some of you may remember I picked up off waivers in Week 12 last year and absolutely loved.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba is the best receiver in football and I hate saying that. He won Offensive Player of the Year, led the NFL with 1,793 receiving yards, set the franchise record, and got a four-year, $168 million extension for his trouble. Around him: Cooper Kupp, Rashid Shaheed on a new three-year, $51 million deal, Jake Bobo, and Tory Horton coming back from the shin injury that cut his rookie year short. Barner turned into a legitimate weapon in year two — 52 catches, 519 yards, 6 TDs — and could go to the Pro Bowl this season.
Sam Darnold is 29, has a Super Bowl ring, and is learning his third offense in three years under new coordinator Brian Fleury after Klint Kubiak left to become the Raiders' head coach. Leonard Williams says the new scheme uses way more motion. Devon Witherspoon doesn't have his extension yet but is refusing to hold in, which is exactly the guy he's been since he got there.
Win total 10.5. They open at home against New England on a Wednesday night in a Super Bowl rematch. Six primetime games, a franchise record. Everything they do this year is a target.
The Seahawks are the Hard Knocks feature this year. Will I be watching it? Absolutely not.
4 – Arizona Cardinals
2025: 3-14 (4th in NFC West)
Somebody has to be last and Arizona made this real easy for me. The Cardinals went 3-14 and became the first team in NFL history to finish nine full games behind the rest of its own division. Nine games! That's not a bad season, that's a bad decade compressed into 17 weeks.
The Kyler Murray era is officially done and dusted. Arizona released him on March 11 and is still paying him $36.8 million to go play for the Vikings, who are paying him $1.3 million. Read that again. The Cardinals are paying Kyler Murray significantly more to NOT play for them than Minnesota is paying him to actually play. Jonathan Gannon is gone too, replaced by first-year head coach Mike LaFleur, who was running the Rams' No. 1 offense last season. That's a genuinely good hire. But the offensive coordinator hire made me question everything — Nathaniel Hackett, who spent last season as a defensive analyst in Green Bay. A defensive analyst! Now he's calling plays in the desert. I'm not saying it won't work (it probably wont work), I just want everyone to be clear on what we're all watching here.
Jacoby Brissett finally got paid — a reworked one-year deal worth $15.5 million guaranteed that can reach about $21 million with incentives — after skipping voluntary work and holding in through minicamp. Honestly? He earned it. Brissett threw for a career-best 3,366 yards in 12 starts on a roster that gave him nothing. Rookie Carson Beck is the guy to watch when this thing goes sideways in October. And it will go sideways in October.
The headline is Jeremiyah Love. Arizona took a running back third overall and handed him a fully guaranteed four-year, $53 million deal — the most guaranteed money any rookie running back has ever received, blowing past Saquon's $31.2 million benchmark from 2018. Do I think you take a running back third overall when your roster has massive holes at every level? Absolutely not. Do I think Love is going to be awesome? Oh yes. Brissett watched one week of camp and said "I see why we paid him $50 million." The issue is Arizona already had James Conner and Trey Benson and then went out and signed Tyler Allgeier anyway. That's four running backs and one football.
Marvin Harrison Jr. is the actual season here. Three years in, he's at 103 catches for 1,493 yards across 29 games and has still never cracked 1,000 yards in a year. He ended last season hurt in BOTH feet. Camp has been a rollercoaster — he went viral for the wrong reasons, then turned around and had his best day of the summer including a beautiful toe-tapper on the sideline. The separation is absolutely there. The hands come and go.
On defense, Darius Robinson and Walter Nolen were back-to-back first-round picks who have combined for four career sacks. Four. Between the two of them. Lol. So brutal.
Vegas has the win total at 3.5, the lowest in the league, paired with a top-three hardest schedule. I'll nibble the over because Love is that fun to watch, but definitely little o.