Turbin: Why the NFC West is the Seahawks’ to lose

After the Seattle Seahawks’ preseason win over the Minnesota Vikings, one of their newest players shared his expectations for the team this year.

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“I think we have a really good shot at winning the Super Bowl this year,” linebacker Devin Bush said in his press conference. ” … The division’s wide open. I feel like we’re the powerhouse in this division. It’s ours to lose.”

The Seahawks did make the playoffs last year, but they didn’t win the NFC West. In fact, they lost both regular season games to the NFC West-champion San Francisco 49ers as well as a playoff game against their division rival.

During Friday’s Bump and Stacy on Seattle Sports, former Seahawks running back and current radio analyst Robert Turbin shared his thoughts on Bush’s comments, as well as the Hawks’ chances if winning the division.

“As far as Devin Bush is concerned, you just got here, bro, OK? Not in a negative way. You’ve been in the AFC, you don’t even know what’s going on over here,” Turbin said. “I would be easy about your choice of words there. That would be my advice for him. But I love the confidence and everything like that. But you always want to be careful about putting things like that out there too early … I like the confidence, but just be easy about your choice of words there is what I would say.”

All that being said, Turbin doesn’t disagree with Bush’s sentiment.

“I think that the division is Seattle’s to lose,” Turbin said. “I do think that Seattle has an advantage over the 49ers.”

Why do the Seahawks have a preseason edge over the 49ers in Turbin’s eyes? Because of what’s going on with two key players.

“With (quarterback) Brock Purdy just getting back (from his injury), I think that we can’t ignore the significance of how important the offseason is for a young player. We’re talking about a quarterback going into his second year, who is just now starting to kind of reengage with his team and his teammates,” Turbin said. ” … The 49ers are dealing with that starting quarterback coming back late in the game, they’re dealing with a holdout with one of the best defensive players in the entire NFL (in edge rusher and reigning Defensive Player of the Year Nick Bosa).”

Turbin stressed he doesn’t think the 49ers “will be bad” in 2023, though.

“I just think that they’re going to have a slow start, a slower start, than normal,” he said. “And I think that’ll impact them at the end of the season, which I think gives Seattle a little bit of a slight advantage. Like Seattle, this entire offseason has pretty gone pretty status quo for them.”

“And like I said, it’s not going to impact them drastically where the 49ers all of a sudden fall off and they’re not in the playoffs — they’ll be in the playoffs and they’ll still be the 49ers and they’ll still be competitive. But I just think yhose things give Seattle, a slight advantage ahead of them as far as being in the NFC West,” Turbin later added.

Listen to the full conversation with Turbin at this link or in the player at the top of this story. 

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