Enough with the 7-9 Whining

I love how the media is outraged that a 7-9 team could potentially win the awful NFC West. Most pundits are saying that if a team with a losing record participates in the postseason, the league should change the playoff seeding rules, because it would be unfair for a 11 or 12-win (wild card) team to play on the road while a vastly inferior team gets to stay home and host a first-round game.

What a load of crap.

First of all, none of the local Bay Area media who are flapping their jaws about this on KNBR and in the Chronicle and Mercury should even be concerned with this scenario, because IF a 7-9 team wins the NFC West, it sure as hell isn't going to be your beloved 49ers, who haven't won a road game on this continent all year - and that includes a putrid loss at Carolina. Anybody who thinks the 49ers are going to win in St. Louis on Sunday has not been watching this team's pratfalls every time they put on their road uniforms and wet the bed in opponents' stadiums.

The 49ers needed a career day from Troy Smith (by the way, it would be nice to know our starting quarterback will be this week - any day now, Singletary) to eke out an overtime victory over the Rams at home. I don't like the chances of history repeating itself in whatever they call that dome this Sunday. The Niners stink. They will lose. End of story, end of year, end of Singletary, end of The Smiths.

Secondly, if the league has a problem with the overall quality of the NFC West, they only have themselves to blame. I was perfectly happy with the old-school NFC West, consisting of the Niners, Rams, Falcons and Saints. I didn't ask for the league to import the Seahawks from the AFC and toss in the Cardinals from the NFC East cellar to replace the Falcons and Saints (who currently have 12 and 10 wins, respectively). The Seahawks will always remind me of meaningless preseason matchups and mediocrity. The Cardinals, despite the league's attempts to the force the issue by cramming them down our throats in prime-time matchups every year, will NEVER be a rival.

If the old NFC West alignment was still in place, we'd be looking at a dogfight between the defending Super Bowl champs and a dominant Falcons team for the divisional title while the 49ers and Rams would simply be afterthoughts playing out the string. But that's not the case. The NFC West suffered more upheaval and loss than any other division in the league during the realignment.

You asked for it, you got it. Quit your whining.