Mike Celizic

You know that old line about the one-eyed man being king in the kingdom of the blind? Make that guy badly nearsighted and give him a cataract, put him in the NFC West, and he’d be the Seattle Seahawks.

And he wouldn’t be king. He’d be emperor.

There is no worse division in the NFL than the NFC West and no worse team than the San Francisco 49ers. Throw the records out the window on this one, forget that the Jets and Rams have just one win and the Dolphins have no wins while the 49ers won the first two games of the season. The Jets and Dolphins, by virtue of their membership in the AFC, are automatically better than the NFC bottom-feeders. And the Rams, who lost to San Francisco, will get their revenge when they meet again next week.

After getting shut out by a mediocre Seattle team that can’t win when they leave the cacophonous confines of their home field, the Rams have not scored more than 20 points in a game since their first game of the season. They haven’t thrown for 200 yards — a total that Tom Brady often reaches before the opening coin toss — once since sometime last year. They are dead last in yards gained in the NFL, and not by a little, but a lot. Going into their game against the Seahawks, they were averaging 224 yards a game — 44 fewer than the Bills. After rolling up 173 yards against Seattle, that average is going down.

Monday Night Football has a long and proud history. It’s true that since moving from ABC to ESPN and being replaced by NBC’s Sunday Night Football as the marquee game of the week, it hasn’t had the top matchups it used to have. But Monday night was ridiculous by any standards. If there’s ever been a worse game in the storied history of the MNF franchise, no one who watched Seahawks-49ers wanted to remember it.

It was so bad that the first few times San Francisco had the ball, I thought I was having a flashback to a Notre Dame game. By the second quarter, I realized that wasn’t being fair to Charlie Weis’ woebegone warriors; the 49ers have to pick it up a lot to be worthy of being compared to the Irish.

The NFC West is beyond bad. Every other division in the league has at least 15 wins among four teams. But the NFC West has just 12 wins in 36 games.

That’s 20 percent fewer victories than any other division in football.

NFL Sunday games roundup Lessons from Week 17 Patriots' pursuit of perfection isn't only great playoff storyline

The Seahawks will win the division, and, by virtue of beating San Francisco, is now 5-4 and the only team in the division with a winning record. The Cards are next at 4-5, followed by the 49ers at 2-7 and the Rams at 1-8.

How the mighty have fallen. The 49ers have five Lombardi Trophies mocking this year’s imitation of the team. The Rams have one trophy and until recently were one of the powers in the conference. Seattle is two years removed from the Super Bowl.  The Cardinals have always been bad.

Slide show   Week in Sports Pictures Flying on the hardwood, racing on the rink, getting physical on the gridiron, and much more. more photos

And all of them stink, the only difference being one of degree. Seattle just needs a shower and a dab of cologne; the 49ers need to be boiled in lye, soaked in bleach, and keelhauled through a vat of Old Spice before they can visit even a pig sty without gagging the residents.

It boggles the mind how a team and an entire division can be this bad in a league that does everything corporately possible to make every team competitive. The salary cap makes sure nobody wins by outspending the competition. Free agency makes decent veterans available to all. The draft rewards incompetence with the first shot in the annual collegiate meat market.

And it would be nice to be able to lay the blame for the 49ers awfulness on the former No. 1 pick, Alex Smith, who isn’t playing well enough to be confused with Akili Smith. He’s terrible, to be sure, but the 49ers also can’t run the ball, they can’t protect the quarterback, and on defense they’re merely okay. They’ve managed to screw up every aspect of the game.

MORE FROM NFL

NFL Section Front

Pats-Colts is greatest NFL rivalry of 2000s   PFT: Brady recalls when he met Peyton   Slideshow: Peyton vs. Brady through the years   Video: Harrison on how Pats can beat Colts   Video: Dungy on how Colts can beat Patriots PFT: Lewis tells Ochocinco to hold the mustard T.O. misses practice because of hip injury Singletary wants to beat Bears, not reminisce PFT: Bears’ Harris won’t be suspended for punch Davis' comments puts 49ers on defensive NFL Section Front   Add NFL headlines to your news reader: