Hawks now the mystery team in West

Beginning today, the Seahawks can either reaffirm their dominance of the NFC West, or their prospects of winning it for a fifth straight time can take a major blow.

Today's game against the San Francisco 49ers is the first of two straight divisional games, with the St. Louis Rams coming to Seattle next week.

The NFC West is often criticized as one of the NFL's weakest, with one mystery team and three others that are usually bad or fall short of expectations.

The Seahawks, because of injuries, are the mystery team. But they are also, without question, still the team to beat.

"Anytime you win it four years in a row, that's great, but somebody's going to try to knock you down. We can't allow that to happen," Seahawks linebacker Julian Peterson said. "We won the division the last four years. At least the two years I've been here they [national media] said the Niners are going to take the division and then one year it was Arizona. It's always going to come up."

The Seahawks have learned to live with it and keep racking up division titles and playoff appearances.

San Francisco's five turnovers and inability to get its defense off the field last week showed that the 49ers might not yet be ready to topple the Seahawks. The Rams also struggled last week in their 38-3 loss at Philadelphia, failing to convert a third down in 11 chances and gaining only 166 total yards.

The one NFC West team that won last week, the Arizona Cardinals, did so 23-13 over the 49ers, giving the Seahawks a chance to see both division foes on film for the first time this season.

"I just saw the Cardinals' defense being very physical," Peterson said. "To me they were more physical than the 49ers were, and that's what really determined the whole game. They were just going out there, hitting them, pursuing to the ball real well and creating turnovers."

Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren gave a safe answer about what he saw from his division foes.

"They're improved; I think they are," Holmgren said. "I think our division has been a little bit maligned in the past, and I think both those situations [San Francisco and Arizona], you have teams on the rise. We always battle and I think it's entertaining, good football. I saw them on film, and they both look pretty active to me. I look more at defensive film than offensive film, but their defenses are movement defenses. They're speed defenses. They do a lot of things. They're hard to prepare for. And I'll throw the Rams in there, too. They play defense that way against us."

Peterson clearly still loves to play his former teammates from San Francisco.

"All day, man," Peterson said. "Plus I still know a lot of guys on the team, so it's a fun game for me. I always like to let them know Julian's still playing the same way, and if you don't know, here I am, right here."

Short-handed and injury-riddled, the Seahawks know today's game figures to be more of a challenge to win than in the past, when they've often dominated division opponents at home. That's where the Qwest Field crowd comes in.

"When I was in San Fran ... I had to jump up and down, wave my arms, look at the crowd, point at one of the individuals like, 'C'mon, get 'em up!' " Peterson said "Where here, all I've got to do is barely wave my finger and the whole stadium is going to erupt."

Note

• The Seahawks signed receiver Michael Bumpus to the 53-man active roster Saturday in time for him to be eligible to play in today's game against San Francisco. Seattle waived receiver Samie Parker to make room for Bumpus, a rookie from Washington State. Parker was one of two players the Seahawks signed this week to play receiver, but he had no experience with Seattle's offense or its terminology.

Times staff reporter Danny O'Neil contributed to this article.