NFC West gets boost from Arizona's surge

Go ahead, make your jokes about Seattle's four-team corner of the NFL. The NFC Worst? Yeah, heard that one. Even used it a few times myself.

And the one that it's a division that functions more like subtraction, taking away from the quality of the rest of the league? Hmmm, that would be hilarious. To a bunch of mathematicians.

The NFC West has been considered the dregs of the eight-division league for a while now. It hasn't had two teams finish above .500 in the same season since 2003. In 2006, the division featured three of the five worst-scoring defenses in the league, and this season it was the division with the worst combined record in the league.

But today, a team from the NFC West will play for the conference title for the second time in four years, and the Cardinals reached this point by winning consecutive games against playoff teams from the NFC South, which was considered one of the best divisions in football this season.

But by all means, keep cracking those jokes. The division's regular-season performance certainly merits a little ridicule, just don't forget that the division has represented itself more than adequately in postseason.

Going back to the playoffs following the 2004 season, the NFC West has the best playoff winning percentage of any division in its conference. Only the AFC North and AFC East have put up a better record in that time.

Just because the division as a whole has been characterized as low-grade dog food, it doesn't necessarily mean the division winner will be chewed up and spit out by the wild-card opponent.

What's that, you say? The West winner has the advantage of playing at home in that first-round game and five of the NFC West's last seven playoff victories came at home. Well, if that's such a guarantee of success, then how come home teams are 3-5 through the first two rounds of the playoffs this season?

What the NFC West's postseason success really speaks to is the increasing unpredictability of the NFL playoffs. Even a tournament stilted with byes and home-field advantage doesn't erase the fact that simply getting in gives anyone a chance to win.

There was no sign the Arizona Cardinals were ready to get on this kind of roll. They entered the playoffs having lost four of their last six regular-season games, and they hadn't beaten an opponent from outside the NFC West since Oct. 12.

But in two playoff games, Arizona has showed a two-back running attack, a defense that has nine takeaways, and a receiver, Larry Fitzgerald, who has shown that his hands can be as strong as a vise grips or as soft as cotton.

Now the Cardinals stand one win from making the Super Bowl, which would be the second time in four seasons the NFC's best has come from the NFC West. So much for all those barbs that the division that has been so consistently poor that the Seahawks' run of four consecutive titles might as well have had an asterisk attached.

The bar has been raised on the Seahawks as they failed to win the division for the first time in five seasons. The division that some have considered a joke now is a challenge.

"We have to take back the dang NFC West," Seahawks coach Jim Mora said. "The NFC West champions are playing for the NFC Championship this Sunday, and that is great and I hope they win and I hope they go and win the Super Bowl.

"It gives us another challenge to go out there to go get, and it motivates us and inspires us."

Danny O'Neil: 206-464-2364 or doneil@seattletimes.com