'John Schneider is as good as any GM' says 49ers GM

The 49ers and Seahawks are bringing back their rivalry with a side of respect: Seaside Joe 1525

Dating back to 2011, the NFC West has been a three-team race in which the argument for “Who’s done it better” could be made for any of them depending on how you frame it. And I know how good of a case the Seattle Seahawks have for it—as well as the bias we’re going to bring into the courtroom of NFL debate—but it is dependent on the framing.

For example, how legitimate is Seattle’s argument if I say that the case begins in 2015 and not in 2013?

In the past eight years, the Seahawks can say that they’ve avoided those years in which they’ve completely shit the bed like the L.A. Rams and San Francisco 49ers sometimes do. Seattle has made the playoffs six times, compared to four times for the Rams and three times for the 49ers.

However, the Seahawks don’t have many playoff wins to show for it and the ones they do have (Blair Walsh misses on the ice, a victory over the Lions, a victory over Josh McCown’s Eagles) I wouldn’t go hanging up on the fridge. Those really intimidating Seattle teams of 2012-2015 that outscored opponents by 140+ over the course of the season, we haven’t seen one of those since then. Last year, the Seahawks made the playoffs by scored 407 points and allowed 401.

To the Rams credit, they reached the Super Bowl in 2018 and won the Super Bowl in 2021. They’ve boasted both a top-ranked offense and a top-ranked defense under Sean McVay.

And if you isolate Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch’s tenure just down to the last four years, the 49ers have gone to three NFC Championship games, have had a top-five defense by yards in each campaign, and two 13-win seasons plus a Super Bowl appearance.

Between these three franchises, each team makes their “play” and sometimes they run and hide for a little while until they’re re-energized. Clearly, that is the state of the 2023 Los Angeles Rams, still healing from going all-in for the Super Bowl two seasons ago.

In the case of San Francisco, Lynch and Shanahan made a huge gamble on Trey Lance by sacrificing first round picks in 2022 and 2023, then kept pushing their chips in with a haul of day two picks for Christian McCaffrey. The 49ers had little to do in the top-80 of the draft this year, then made a play for Penn State safety Ji’Ayir Brown with the 87th overall pick. Remarkably, despite their long wait to make a draft pick, San Francisco then selected a kicker—Michigan’s Jake Moody—with their next third round pick at 99th overall.

Either a sign of confidence or stupidity.

Then there’s the Seahawks play, which was trading Russell Wilson for a haul of draft picks that finally allowed Pete Carroll and John Schneider to participate in decisions at the top of the order. With that one deal, Seattle was able to add two top-10 picks (the two-highest that the Seahawks have had since 2010) and two second rounders. The return looks something like this:

CB Devon Witherspoon

EDGE Derick Hall

EDGE Boye Mafe

OT Charles Cross

WR Dareke Young

TE Noah Fant

QB Drew Lock

DL Shelby Harris

DL Tyreke Smith

Seattle also saves money by parting with Wilson and they’ve certainly used some of the to upgrade their defensive line and keep the quarterbacks who replaced him.

Showing his respect, 49ers GM John Lynch couldn’t help but acknowledge that John Schneider and Pete are coming for his gold and that they won’t look the same as the Seahawks team who San Francisco did a three-sweep on last season:

"Well, I'll say this, [Seahawks GM] John Schneider is as good at this job as anybody in our league," John Lynch said Thursday morning on KNBR's Murph & Mac show. "And so you always know you're going to have competition with he and Pete Carroll, the way they work together, and they do it really well. They've kind of reinvented themselves numerous times.

"So when we got here (in 2017), Seattle had the upper hand. The Rams then got it, and we kind of have taken control. But we know Seattle is coming. We know the Rams are coming. Arizona had a really good draft, so you always better be going."

"But yes, we feel the Seahawks coming. They're really good. They had a really good draft last year. I think they've repeated it this year. But the most important thing is that we continue to focus upon ourselves, and I think we continue to make our roster better. I think this draft class will only add to that. And we're excited about our football team.”

The 49ers have done what a lot of fans wish their teams would do, which is focus on being dominant in the trenches. With a top-ranked offensive line and defensive line, it helps their talented players at other positions (George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, Fred Warner, Talanoa Hufanga, Deebo Samuel, McCaffrey, Brandon Aiyuk, Elijah Mitchell, Charvarius Ward) be even more dominant than they would for a team that wasn’t winning battles up front.

Bonus: Comparing 2022 Seahawks to the roster and depth chart changes in 2023

Neither team is entering the season with a quarterback situation that you would think a franchise needs to have in order to compete for a Super Bowl. And yet, both of them could. The Seahawks did it often about 10 years ago, and the 49ers are doing it right now.

I won’t be shocked if these are the last two teams standing in the NFC next January.