NFC WEST

1. RAMS (9-7)

I'll make this short and sweet. If you took the Detroit exhibition seriously, you'd say this is a team that's Super Bowl bound. And if you did, then I've got this piece of land I want to sell you. I like the Rams' offense just fine. Defense is OK until you get to the secondary, then you see holes. I ripped their coordinator, Larry Marmie, last year, so I won't do a repeat number.

2. SEAHAWKS (9-7)

And out of the playoffs, see? That'll teach you to fold, when I picked you to go to the Super Bowl, as I did last year. I like the components of this team, except their wideouts drop the ball and their defense takes the pipe as the stakes get higher. In other words, this has the makings of a choke team. Now tell me exactly what I sound like? You're right, like a guy who's just failed to cash a big bet and is bitter. Well, I mean, they were my Super Bowl team, for God's sake.

3. CARDINALS (7-9)

Kurt Warner's Preseason Statistics Year Team Comp.-Att. Percentage Yards Yards/Comp. 2003 Rams 23-26 .885 198 yards 8.6 2004 Giants 28-38 .737 303 yards 10.8 2005 Cardinals 37-60 .617 368 yards 9.9

They're everyone's sleeper playoff team, but not mine. The game that sent Giants' QB Kurt Warner to the bench last year was ... you're right, the Arizona contest in Week 10. He sat for the rest of the season. I guess Dennis Green felt he owed him a favor because now he's gonna wear the red and, uh ... the gold and ... what the hell are their colors? Warner's exhibition season stats have followed a familiar pattern for the last three years.  High completion percentage, low yards per completion. These are what are known as dink stats, and they're especially dinky when you consider the vanilla defenses of the preseason. Nope, I don't think the Warner experiment is gonna work, just as I didn't think it would with the Giants.

4. 49ERS (3-13)

What is there to say? Alex Smith was supposed to usher in a new era. The exhibition season closed that case. Some era. So with the sadness of an old 49ers fan, I will say there must be happier times ahead, when the treasury is full again and the free-agent market will be stocked with exotic delights.