1. Seattle Seahawks
Look, I fully admit — I played it safe this year. Safe sleeper (Kansas City), safe top-10 (Baltimore over Denver was my only wonky pick), safe picks for the 12 playoff teams (Chicago stealing Green Bay's spot = my biggest risk), and even the safest of Super Bowl picks (Seattle over New England, a.k.a., the Pete Carroll Bowl). But you know what? Sometimes you have your crazy NFL seasons, and sometimes you have your NFL seasons that veer more toward going chalk. This feels like a chalk season to me.
Anyway, remember when we used to make snarky jokes about the NFC West? Suddenly Niners-Seahawks is the NFL's single-best rivalry — if I could watch only one home-and-home this season, I'd pick the Seattle-S.F. games without blinking. (Runner-up choices: New Orleans–Atlanta, Green Bay–Chicago, Ravens-Bengals and Giants-Cowboys. Finishing last: Oakland–San Diego.) And it's not going to be a fleeting thing. Thanks to the head coaches (who genuinely dislike each other), the QBs (sharing that same Playmaking Young QB corner), the stadiums/crowds/atmospheres (both enjoyable, especially Seattle) and the blue-chippers on both sides (extensive), Seahawks-Niners has a chance to be a hybrid of everything we enjoyed during the peaks of Patriots-Colts (the star power) and Ravens-Steelers (the bad blood/division rivals thing).
Year after year after year, I can see the Niners and Seahawks measuring themselves against one another, lobbing potshots at each other, making sketchy roster moves clearly intended to piss off the other team (Chris Harper, everybody!), and maybe even getting into one of those postgame pseudo-brawls with 120 players milling around two assistant coaches who are screaming at each other. If it gets REALLY good, once or twice, we'll see a free agent switch from one side to the other for more money, and we'll all consider him a massive traitor — like how Red Sox fans felt about Johnny Damon in 2006. I think it's going to be a blood feud. I think it's going to be what Rex Ryan always wanted the Jets-Patriots rivalry to be … you know, before the Jets died.
It's going to be fantastic. I can't wait. But for 2013? I think it's Seattle's year. In Russell Wilson we trust.
