I have to start by saying I really dislike the Gold Diggers. I'll admit that I rooted for them in Super Bowls in the '80s, and I especially enjoyed the thrashing they gave the Broncos and The Teeth in the Super Bowl following the '89 season. But then I started disliking them, and I honestly don't remember what it was that turned me (after all, the Seahawks were still in the AFC back then), but by '92 or '93, I was actually rooting for the disliked-since-I-knew-what-football-was Cowboys because I thought they were the best hope for somebody to stop the Gold Diggers. And then, once the Seahawks moved (back, technically) to the NFC West, I came to dislike the Gold Diggers as division rivals too. I think I probably still dislike the Raiders and Broncos more on a purely visceral level, but I do find many Gold Diggers fans (especially the ones who troll on the Seahawks-fan site with the silly name on SB Nation that I used to frequent) to be much more annoying than Broncos and Raiders fans.
Trey Lance really looks like a major draft bust, and I love that.
But let's be honest here. Do you really believe the use of all that draft capital on a bust "set their franchise back 12 years"? Do you believe that Lance having cost a lot and sucking as much as he does prevents the Gold Diggers from being among the best teams in the league right now? If so, how is the total failure that the use of lots of draft capital on Lance represents different from, say, the total failure that the trade of so much Seahawks draft capital for a safety, plus compounding that mistake with a giant contract that no safety could justify? Did the Adams trade and contract extension set the Seahawks franchise back 12 years? If the Seahawks can get past the Adams-trade-and-extension debacle and build a competitive team despite a non-contributor taking up 8.15% of this season's cap space, why can't the Gold Diggers get past the Lance-trade-and-draft debacle and build a competitive team (on the base of the team that easily won the division last season) despite a non-contributor taking up 3.92% of this season's cap space?
The Gold Diggers look to me like one of the strongest teams in the NFC, and I still think they're more likely to win the NFC West in the 2023 season than the Seahawks are. I think the Seahawks have a good chance, and I wouldn't be shocked if they were to win the division, but as of right now, I'd still give the Gold Diggers a better chance. Given that the Gold Diggers won the division by a four-win margin last season, that seems like a reasonable position to me.
I'm hoping the Seahawks will win the division this year, and that hope isn't silly like, say, a Cardinals fan hoping the Cards will win the division and the Super Bowl this season, but I think we still have to respect the team that won the division by a giant margin last season. If it had been close like it was in 2019, when it came down to less than a yard on the final drive in the final game of the season separating the two teams, then I might feel differently. But given that the Gold Diggers won the division by four wins last season, I think we really ought to respect them as the reigning division champs who won the division easily.