A reach into the NFC West mailbag on this Memorial Day weekend brings us back to the No. 1 topic around here for the past week: receiver Michael Crabtree's recently torn Achilles' tendon and its impact on the San Francisco 49ers' offense. "One thing I noticed when watching Colin Kaepernick last year was that he seemed to either throw to Crabtree, throw to Vernon Davis or run," Jakob from San Francisco writes. "Could you expand your analysis to see if I'm right?

Defending a running back from criticism has been as simple as blaming defenses for "stacking the box" against him. It's usually not that simple. The subject came up here most recently after we considered why the St. Louis Rams had so few "explosive" running plays last season. '12 Rushing vs. Loaded Box, 1st/2nd down Perhaps defenses weren't respecting the Rams' passing game, allowing them to load up against the run. The offensive line could share in the blame.

Fifth-round tight end Luke Willson was one of the more impressive players in rookie camp with the Seattle Seahawks recently. It's looking like the team will need him. 2012 Seahawks TE Use, 1st/2nd Downs Anthony McCoy, who started five games and played 45.5 percent of the offensive snaps in 2012 as the second tight end in Seattle's two-tight sets, suffered a torn Achilles' tendon, according to Mike Garafolo of USA Today. This is not a crushing injury for the Seahawks, but it affects depth.