Week 4 - Crown them?

This is an actual exchange between the Vulture and a superintelligence over at Vox Popoli:

Vulture: San Francisco vs. Rams - they are who we thought they were. SF is 3-1 in the pitiful West...playoffs here we come!

VD: If you want to crown them, then go ahead and crown their asses!

For those of you unfamiliar with the Dennis Green reference, here is the link to his epic meltdown. It's a classic. An absolute classic.

But the question bears asking: is it time to crown the 49ers NFC West champions? Look at the opposition. The Cardinals are struggling, the Seahawks are old and injured, and the Rams...?

Ah, yes, the Lambs. They could do little right yesterday, and what little they did right was usually wiped out by stupid penalties. The final score, 35-0, doesn't even BEGIN to reflect the beatdown the Niners laid on the woeful Lambs. Even with the Niners only ahead by 7 late in the 3rd quarter, I wasn't the slightest bit worried. The Rams are a horrible, horrible team. Horrible on a Biblical scale. Only Cecil B. DeMille was capable of capturing an epic FUBAR such as the Rams are right now.

Defense and special teams played an inspired game for the Niners. Patrick Willis and company were MONSTER. There were two touchdowns scored by the defense and one scored by special teams. But the offense? Dude, the offense is S-T-R-U-G-G-L-I-N-G. 90% of the offensive problems can be traced to a single source: offensive line play. Our line is just plain not getting it done. They can't run block. They can't pass block. If we hadn't blown our first round draft pick on that puto Michael Crabtree and had drafted Michael Oher instead, we might not be in this pickle.

So, how long can our defense carry us? I'm not sure. No defense is so strong that it can completely negate a poor offense (one exception: the 2000 Ravens). But I'm confident that Coach Singletary will come up with some way to overcome our weakness and get the team to where it needs to be.

The season is at the 25% completed mark. The Niners are 3-1, 3-0 in division. Unless the Cardinals can right the ship and get on a roll, or the Niners experience an epic collapse, the Niners winning the West is pretty much a foregone conclusion. How the team does in the playoffs beyond that remains to be seen.

Still, there's a level of excitement in 49er-land that I haven't felt in 7 long years.