Matt Williamson Ranks West by Position

Pete from Bremerton, Wash., is a San Francisco 49ers fan living in Seattle Seahawks country. He has tired of locals assuming Seattle has built the strongest roster in the NFC West, and so he asked through the mailbag how I would rank these division rivals by position.

We're going to expand this exercise to cover the entire division with a big assist from ESPN scout Matt Williamson.

This has the potential to become a week-long discussion on the blog. I'm going to follow up with Matt on the phone Tuesday. First, though, I've published his rankings in a chart that should get the discussion moving quickly.

My rankings would line up with Matt's just about across the board. My initial thought was to rank Arizona's defensive line higher and Seattle's lower. I also might have ranked the 49ers' cornerbacks higher. However, we're talking about small degrees of difference in some cases, so a ranking disparity of three spots can be misleading.

Matt and I will pick up the discussion Tuesday. I'll also run through some of the comments left beneath this item. This is a conversation I look forward to continuing.

Note: The rankings are for the 2013 season based on existing personnel. We were not projecting for the longer-term future.