{"id":864287,"date":"2026-04-11T22:18:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T22:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/864287\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T22:18:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T22:18:28","slug":"rams-strong-offseason-still-isnt-enough-to-dethrone-seahawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/864287\/","title":{"rendered":"Rams\u2019 strong offseason still isn\u2019t enough to dethrone Seahawks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5f\">The defending Super Bowl champions have had a quiet offseason. The Seattle Seahawks<a href=\"https:\/\/12thmanrising.com\/seattle-seahawks-have-an-obvious-kenneth-walker-iii-replacement-staring-right-at-them\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> lost Kenneth Walker III <\/a>and Coby Bryant in free agency, and with only four draft picks and a cautious approach to spending, their roster is mostly complete.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5i\">That&#8217;s not necessarily a bad thing, though. This team had the top-scoring defense and the third-best scoring offense in the league, and with most of their core pieces still under contract, they should be just fine.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5l\">That&#8217;s why not even <a href=\"https:\/\/12thmanrising.com\/rams-free-agency-has-created-new-headache-for-seattle-seahawks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">adding Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson<\/a> was enough for the Los Angeles Rams to take down the Seahawks. In NFL Spin Zone&#8217;s latest power rankings, Lou Scataglia still <a href=\"https:\/\/nflspinzone.com\/nfl-power-rankings-2026-biggest-risers-and-fallers-as-the-draft-nears\/2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">has the Seahawks at No. 1<\/a>, with the Denver Broncos right behind them, and then the Rams.<\/p>\n<p>The Seattle Seahawks are still the team to beat in the NFL<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5r\">&#8220;The Super Bowl champions are the best team in the NFL, and while they don&#8217;t necessarily have the best quarterback in the world, the current group was plenty good enough last year and should be plenty good enough in 2026,&#8221; Scataglia wrote. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5u\">Of course, that doesn&#8217;t mean that general manager John Schneider can just rest on his laurels. Defending champions can&#8217;t afford to get complacent or overly confident, especially in such a tough division.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5x\">The Arizona Cardinals shouldn&#8217;t pose much of a threat in the NFC West. The San Francisco 49ers <a href=\"https:\/\/12thmanrising.com\/seattle-seahawks-cant-help-but-be-jealous-of-49ers-under-radar-signing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">made good moves<\/a> and should be better to a degree, but Mike Macdonald seems to have Kyle Shanahan&#8217;s number. The Rams, on the other hand, are a different story.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"60\">The Seahawks went 2-1 against them last season and should hold bragging rights after a dominant outing in the NFC Championship Game. That said, their three matchups went down to the wire, with games decided by 2, 1, and 4 points, respectively. That&#8217;s not the type of team you want to sleep on, especially with them seemingly going all-in to play in the Super Bowl at home at SoFi Stadium.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"63\">It&#8217;ll all go down to whether the Seahawks can round up the roster with their four draft picks and add a couple of veterans on cheap deals. This team clearly doesn&#8217;t have a ton of needs, but divisional games are always a toss-up, and the Rams look like the only legitimate threat in the conference. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"66\">They clearly feel the same way about Seattle, and their efforts to bolster the secondary are a clear response to Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Rashid Shaheed.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"69\">The only thing harder than winning a Super Bowl is winning the next one. This is a copycat league, and with everybody either trying to replicate the Seahawks&#8217; formula or building a team to counter their strengths, Mike Macdonald will be under more pressure than ever. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6c\">The Seahawks are the team to beat until proven otherwise, but looking down on their opposition has doomed so many great teams in the past. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The defending Super Bowl champions have had a quiet offseason. The Seattle Seahawks lost Kenneth Walker III and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2081],"tags":[7,6,238,237,261,2635],"class_list":{"0":"post-864287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-seahawks","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-seahawks","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-seahawks","13":"tag-seattleseahawks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116388399047465293","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}