I think being confined in that division with San Francisco gave them all football AIDS. Under the old alignment, IIRC, teams played different schedules and there was more flexibility. Now two teams in the same division play exactly the same teams for 12 games, with two more games against each other. Their schedules vary by only two games. Plus the West used to consist of SF, LA/StL, NO, Atl & then Carolina. They had teams from coast to coast and were less confined. All jammed up together on the West Coast and Mississippi, they end up sharing needles and condoms more, and catch each others' suck.

And please don't join the chorus of whiners demanding a revamping of the playoff format to exclude the Western division champion or else realigning the conference. Two years ago this division produced the NFC champion. There is no guarantee that they will all suck next year. That is a superior kind of parity - not every team in the league finishing between 7-9 and 9-7, but that one year a team can go from 4-12 to 11-5 and go to a Super Bowl. Sometimes, however, you'll end up with some statistical clustering.

Also, there are other factors in a division's apparent weakness. For instance, they play against the NFC South this year, which is apparently one of the stronger divisions in the NFC. Are their records so bad because they have to play three games against teams still in the playoff hunt? Or are the records of the NFC South inflated by getting four games against the West? Given that both of Carolina's wins came against the West, I would probably pick the latter, but you never can tell. For the record, the score in that match-up is 3 wins for the West, against 12 for the South, with one remaining game. By contrast, the North vs East match-up is tied at 7 wins apiece, the AFC South V West match-up is 6-7 South, and the AFC East v North contest is 9-7. No other match-up of divisions is so one-sided. Their records against the NFC North & East & AFC are fairly similar, so the disparity in records of the two divisions almost certainly comes from playing one another. So before people start whining that St. Louis or Seattle is going to the playoffs at 7-9 or 8-8, while Tampa Bay will need some help to make the playoffs with a 10-6 record because the former is in a weak division and the latter in a strong, remember that Tampa Bay gets four games against those pansy Western teams, and St. Louis and Seattle had to play defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans, and current top-ranked Atlanta, and Seattle had to face New York and Chicago as well, while Tampa Bay is enjoying the fruits of a last-place finish last year, and getting to play Washington & Detroit for their only games against the East & North. You can't iron out all the random flukes that screw up a schedule.