

Jason Smith NFL.com

Seahawks are completely loaded; Niners will fall back to the pack

What else does Seattle need? Now they're loaded everywhere. Percy Harvin and Cliff Avril were their two missing pieces. These are marquee players in their primes who will help them be even more explosive than they were a season ago.

Anquan Boldin and Steven Jackson are two veterans on the decline who have a little bit left in the tank, but they're not the difference-makers Harvin and Avril are. Especially Jackson -- is he going to be an upgrade over Michael Turner or is he going to be about the same? He's not a red-zone threat, and his production has been slowly decreasing the past three seasons. And Matt Ryan could see a Matthew Stafford-like bounce back to Earth this season after a big breakthrough in 2012.

For San Francisco, there's a bigger worry than its free agency moves. Mentally, it's a lot to get to the NFC Championship Game and lose, then get to the Super Bowl and lose the next season. I can't see San Francisco maintaining that mental edge that's needed over the course of the offseason, 16 more games and the playoffs to make it out of the NFC again. The Niners will keep playing the Super Bowl in their heads over and over, thinking, "When we get back this year, we're going to win it." Teams who do that look at their record in December and see 7-7.