Over the last few years, the NFL has done just about everything in its power to develop the 49ers and Cardinals as legitimate rivals. The NFC West has been a fairly weak, and often ridiculed division, so trying to develop some buzz is certainly in the best interest of the league. And I'd argue it has worked thanks to the NFL and the teams. The league has pushed the teams on Monday Night Football and season opening matchups each of the last few years. This year, the teams don't face off in the opener, but do get a MNF game and also the season finale, which could end up flexed onto Sunday Night Football.
However, beyond just scheduling, the two teams have provided exciting and compelling matchups in many of their games. While the Cardinals have been more successful lately, the 49ers have still given them an incredibly tough time, including a sweep of the series last season. This year, with the 49ers as early favorites in the NFC West, this two-game series should prove quite huge in the final determination of division champ.
Given all that, I've been speaking with Andrew over at Revenge of the Birds and we've decided to put together a discussion between our two communities. Who better to discuss this rivalry than the passionate fans on each side. In order to do that, we wanted to have one site hosting it. For this round of the discussion, RotB will be the destination for the discussion. Whatever we do for a future discussion will be held here. In order to keep the discussion focused in one place, I'm going to actually close the comments in this post, and simply direct you to the RotB open thread.
While trash talk is obviously welcome in the discussion, since we're guests over there, let's keep it at least a little bit respectable. You can use the thread to discuss any aspect of the budding rivalry, whether it be the 49ers sweep in 2009, the upcoming games in 2010, the Dockett-Davis Twitter battle, whatever. Have at it.