Can the Seahawks, Rams & 49ers Live Up to the NFC West Hype This Season?

Put yourself in Les Snead's chair for a second. Last season the defending Super Bowl champions came into his building twice. One of those games went down the tubes on a two-point conversion, after his defense fell apart late, after Sam Darnold caught fire, after Puka Nacua had already run free to take the lead. Mike Macdonald then decided to go for two again in overtime and won it.

Then came the NFC Championship game.

You come out of a year like that and you call Andrew Berry and you finish the conversation you have been having for years. Can we get Myles Garrett done or what? The Aaron Donald possibility on top of it, as Rich put it, is just gravy. The cherry on top.

Now flip it. If you're Seattle, there is no counter available. The Garrett trade happened in June. There is no answer for Donald walking back through the door. You cannot dig into your own past and solve it.

What you can do is what Macdonald is already doing, which is ratchet the intensity up until the building feels it. Hard Knocks caught it. Derick Hall, who had already shown up to camp in a monster truck, got too close to Darnold in a drill. Macdonald told him to stop it. Hall did it again. Macdonald threw him off the field, and when Hall complained vehemently and profanely, the response was not negotiable.

"I don't care what you're saying. I'm running the effing practice."

Credit the Seahawks for letting the cameras keep that in. The standard complaint about Hard Knocks lately is that it has been scrubbed, that teams no longer let you see anything real. This is the opposite, and it is exactly why the show exists in the first place. If you're a Seattle fan, you watch your head coach run a player off the grass and think, hell yeah.

San Francisco is the murkier one right now. Christian McCaffrey has tightness. Nick Bosa is week to week. Niners fans are left to wonder whether any of that is contract related or genuinely physical, and if it's physical, that's a problem. Brock Purdy looks terrific. The young kids look terrific. Nobody knows.

Worth remembering how that team's last preseason went. Everyone decided the 49ers were going to be hot garbage, and they nearly won the entire regular season in their division and conference.

August is hopium month. Everyone is 0-0, everyone thinks they can win the division, and that is a large part of why this sport works.

The Titans, meanwhile, are down in Santa Clara for joint practices, which put Robert Saleh back where he once belonged twice over. Rich's son Cooper delivered the local detail: the visitors got the side of the field closest to the electric grid.

All of which brings the argument back around. NFC North fans will tell you every year that their division is the best because it's cold. Rich isn't hearing it. Kyler Murray opens at home against Green Bay and then goes to Chicago, which is a tough two weeks, and Murray also spent recent seasons playing the Rams twice, the 49ers twice and the Seahawks twice every single year.

Which division wins more games this season? Rich didn't hesitate.

The West, man.