Everyone,
As promised, here is your weekly and complete (at least as much as I am able) NFC playoff picture. As always go by divisions and analyze each division and each team. This week I'll add in which seeds teams currently "control their own destiny" in (if any).
As an aside before I start, it's too bad Miami couldn't have given as a solid against the Giants on MNF, but as you'll see that's only a very minor problem (at worst) for Seattle and nothing that two wins (of any kind) can't fix. Without further ado, let's start:
NFC South
Carolina (z) 13-0 (9-0 conf) Remaining opponents: @NY Giants, @Atlanta, Tampa
Tampa 6-7 (5-4 conf) Remaining opponents: @Rams, Chicago, @Carolina
Atlanta 6-7 (4-6 conf) Remaining opponents: @Jax, Carolina, New Orleans
New Orleans 5-8 (4-6 conf): Detroit, Jax, @Atlanta
As always, * indicates Home Field Advantage clinched, z indicates a first week bye is clinched, y indicates a division is clinched, and x means any playoff spot is clinched. Sometimes you'll see a number by a letter. That indicates a specific seed has been clinched. Finally an e indicates this team has been eliminated from the playoffs.
Cinching Scenarios Carolina has already clinched the division and a first week bye. Their magic number for home field advantage is 2 (vs Arizona). Obviously this means Carolina controls it's own destiny for HFA. Thus
Carolina clinches home field advantage with:
A win and Arizona loss or tie [or a tie and an Arizona loss]
There are no other clinching scenarios in the NFC South.
Elimination Scenarios All teams in the NFC South are currently alive (some barely). None of them, however control their destiny for any playoff spot (save Carolina of course). The following elimination week 15 elimination scenarios apply:
Tampa is eliminated with:
A loss AND A Seattle + Minny win The rational here is clear. Right now in order to make the playoffs, Tampa has to get in a tie with one or more 9-7 teams, and their superior conference record would be a powerful tiebreak. Unfortunately for Tampa, the best they can do is 9-7 and if they lose that drops to 8-8 at best. A Seattle+Minny win would raise the wildcard floor to 9-7 and out of reach. This would eliminate Tampa. Tampa is the hardest team to eliminate outright in the NFC South
Atlanta is eliminated with:
A loss OR A Seattle+Minny win. The only shot Atlanta has at the playoffs is to win out and hope a 9-7 record is good enough for a wildcard spot outright. Atlanta loses all ties any other potential 9-7 team (notably Minny, Seattle, and Tampa). If both Seattle and Minny win, it insures that at least two teams will have at least 9-7 records for two wildcard spots and since Atlanta doesn't win any tiebreaks, they are eliminated. Obviously if Atlanta loses, the best they can do is 8-8 which eliminates them outright since they don't win tiebreaks.
New Orleans is eliminated with:
A Loss OR Minny win(edit) + Seattle win New Orleans only hope is to win an 8-8 three way tiebreak with Chicago and Minny. For this to happen Minny has to lose out and Chicago has to win out and Minny plays Chicago this week. Thus if Minny wins, New Orleans is out. Also if New Orleans loses, they can't reach the needed record to get a wild card even right now and so would be out. (edit) There are some three way 8-8 tiebreaks that keep N.O. alive and those require an 8-8 Seattle so a Seattle win (or tie) is required as well.
The upshot of all this is that once Minny and Seattle win any game in the future, it will eliminate the entire NFC South except maybe Tampa.
Who to root for: I recommend that Seattle fans root for St Louis (who plays Tampa) to give Tampa a necessary loss [game is this Thursday], and root for Carolina to get HFA. This not only would hand the NY Giants a loss (which would be very helpful as we're about to see), but also would require Arizona to lose (necessary to keep Seattle's slender division hopes alive). As for Atlanta, go ahead and root for Jax and Gus Bradly, but it doesn't much matter as long as we win.
Now we'll move onto a suddenly interesting if still putrid NFC East.
NFC East
Washington 6-7 (6-4 conf): Remaining Games: Bills, @Philly, @Dallas
Philly 6-7 (3-6 conf) Remaining Games: Arizona, Washington, @NY Giants
NY Giants 6-7 (4-5 conf) Remaining Games: Carolina, @Minny, Philly
Dallas 4-9 (3-8 conf) Remaining Games: NY Jets, @Bills, Washington
Clinching Scenarios: None. However, Washington and Philly both control their own destiny for the NFC East crown. If either of these teams reaches 9 wins, they win the division. If the Eagles do this, they also eliminate the Giants from any wildcard consideration. It is worth noting that no team in the division can reach more than 9 wins, and only one team can reach 9 wins and NOT win the division outright (the NY Giants), and that can only happen if Washington wins the division. This leads to some very complex clinching scenarios in the NFC North and NFC West.
Elimination Scenarios: The Cowboys are already eliminated from wildcard consideration. A Seattle + Minny win eliminates Washington and Philly from any wildcard consideration (because they play each other and the surviving team that reaches 9 wins wins the division). Either a Giants loss OR a Washington loss eliminates the entire NFC East from wildcard consideration along with a Minny and Seattle win, eliminates the entire NFC East from wildcard consideration. Why? If the Giants lose, the only teams that can reach 9 wins would be either Philly or Washington but since they play each other, only one of them could do so. That would win the division outright and leave the survivors all at 8-8 or less and out of the wild card hunt. Likewise if Washington loses, then only the Giants would be able to reach 9 wins because they play Philly and would have to inflict a loss on Philly to get there, and that would give the Giants the division. Either way the rest of the division would be at 8-8 or less and out of the wild card chase. This may seem somewhat arcane, but this fact is crucial for understanding the NFC North and NFC West clinching pictures.
Now for the one, easy elimination scenario:
Dallas is eliminated with:
A Loss OR Washington+Philly win OR Philly+Giants win Dallas is already out of any wildcard consideration. Dallas' only shot is to sneak in and win the NFC East likely with tiebreaks. However, the Giants, Eagles, and Washington all have two game leads on the Giants. Dallas' best shot would be to win out and have Washington lose at least one other game, while the Giants and Philly would need to lose at least two. Because Washington and Philly and Philly and Giants all play each other, this is a tall order and extremely fragile. A Dallas loss clearly puts the division out of reach (eliminating Dallas) since someone will win (or at least tie) the other divisional games, and Dallas' best possible record (6-10) wouldn't be enough in such a case. Even if Dallas wins out, if Philly and either the Giants or Washington have 7 wins by the end of week 15, it's all over for Dallas since at least one NFC East team would have more than 7 wins and 7-9 is the absolute best Dallas can do.
Who to root for: We want Dallas to win for Seattle's (admittedly slender) tiebreaker SoV scenarios with Arizona and Dallas is no threat to any of Seattle's playoff aspirations regardless. Outside of that, as Seattle fans it's my considered opinion that we want to root AGAINST Washington and the NY Giants. If either of these teams loses, then the entire NFC East will completely drop out of the wild card playoff picture and off Seattle's playoff radar.
Now let's more on to a division that's very much linked with the playoff picture of our own, the NFC North:
NFC North
Green Bay 9-4 (7-3 conf) Remaining Opponents: @Oakland, @Arizona, Minny
Minny 8-5 (5-4 conf) Remaining Games: Chicago, NY Giants, @Green Bay
Chicago 5-8 (2-7 conf) Remaining Games: @Minny, @Tampa, Detroit
Detroit (e) 4-9 (3-6 conf) Remaining Games: @New Orleans, San Fran ,@Chicago
Clinching Scenarios Both Green Bay and Minny control their own destiny for the NFC North title. That's because they play each other in week 17 and if Minny ties Green Bay and wins that final game, Minny wins the tiebreak (better divisional record). Whoever doesn't win the NFC North also controls their own destiny for one of the two wildcard spots. Currently only Tampa Bay could conceivably win a tiebreak with Green Bay and prevent them from having at least a wild card. Also because most of the NFC (9 out of 16 teams, can't have a winning record no matter what and Minny already has 8 wins, Minny [and Seattle but we'll get to that later] is very close to clinching at least a wildcard spot outright as well. It's very important to note that to clinch, potential wildcard teams have to avoid three-way tiebreaks with any potential teams coming from the NFC East. That's why it's so important for any NFC East team that reaches the 9 win (or even 8 win) level to auto-win that division. With all of that understood, here are the NFC North clinching scenarios:
Green Bay clinches a playoff spot with:
A win OR A Tampa loss A win puts Green Bay at 10 wins which is rarefied air in the NFC. Only five teams can reach 10 wins or more in the NFC (Carolina, Arizona, Minny, Seattle, and of course Green Bay) and given there are six playoff spots and two wildcards (and at 10 wins, if GB doesn't take the North, then Minny will), this assures Green Bay of at least a wildcard berth. Tampa is the only 6-7 team that can beat Green Bay in a tiebreak scenario at 9 wins, so if Tampa loses, the Packers are in no matter what (even with potential three way 9 win tiebreaks with an NFC East team usually the Giants).
Minny clinches a playoff spot with:
A win AND Tampa Loss AND {NY Giants Loss OR Washington Loss} To make the playoffs, Minny has to avoid three way tiebreaks unless Atlanta is one of those teams. If Minny wins, this puts a loss on Chicago eliminating them (see below), but also helps raise the wildcard level. As explained earlier, a Giants OR Washington loss would make it impossible for any NFC East team to reach the 9 win level without winning their division outright. This combination would insure that the only teams that Minny has to worry about tying are Green Bay or Seattle. Minny WANTS to tie with Green Bay providing Minny does so by winning the final game (@Green Bay), and while Minny would lose a tiebreak with Seattle, that would merely determine seeding if there isn't a third nine win team in the mix.
No other NFC North teams can clinch.
Elimination Scenarios: Detroit has already been eliminated from the playoffs, and Chicago has been eliminated from the NFC North crown. Chicago has one and only one shot to make the playoffs and a wildcard given that they already have 8 losses and lose the head to head tiebreak with a Seattle team that already has 8 wins. Chicago has to win out, and have Minny lose out and win the 8-8 tiebreak probably for the last wildcard. Essentially Chicago is hoping for an NFC North train wreck. This leads to the one elimination scenario for the NFC North:
Green Bay is eliminated from a first week bye with:
A loss (or tie) and Arizona win See Clinching Scenario for Arizona in NFC West. Essentially this makes it impossible for Green Bay to catch Arizona while clinching the division for Arizona.
Chicago is eliminated with:
A loss or tie It really is that simple. If Chicago loses then Minny wins (or at least ties) and that puts Chicago underneath the current 8-8 wildcard floor. Given that Chicago is already eliminated from NFC North contention, that would be it for the Bears.
Who to root for: It may seem strange but right now both Green Bay and Minny are Seattle's natural playoff allies. The Green Bay game doesn't matter to Seattle pretty much at all, but root for Minny since that will (along with a Seattle win) raise the wildcard floor making it harder for other teams to catch up AND it eliminates at least one team outright (Chicago).
Now on to the division we know best, our own, the NFC West:
NFC West
Arizona (x) 11-2 (8-1 conf) Remaining Games: @Philly, Green Bay, Seattle
Seattle 8-5 (6-4 conf) Remaining Games: Cleveland, St Louis, @Arizona
St Louis 5-8 (4-5 conf) Remaining Games: Tampa, @Seattle, @San Fran
San Fran (e) 4-9 (3-7 conf) Remaining Games: Cincy, @Detroit, St Louis
In a lot of ways, the NFC West is the easiest division to read and not just because we are familiar with it. Arizona is clearly in the driver's seat to take the division and both Arizona and Seattle are almost certainly playoff bound (Arizona has clinched in fact). With 11 wins, Arizona doesn't care about the NFC East at all. However, with the outside possibility of a 9 win NFC East team not winning the division, Seattle still does. San Fran has been eliminated and can't even be spoilers, and St Louis is only barely alive on essentially one very slender and unlikely playoff reed (because they beat Seattle in the first game of the season). In fact St Louis could have been eliminated last week but managed to stave if off by beating the Lions.
Clinching Scenarios: Arizona controls it's own destiny for the #2 seed (and obviously NFC West crown) and first week bye. It still has a (remote) chance at home field (see Carolina). Seattle controls it's own destiny for a playoff spot with a magic number of two (vs Tampa and a possible 9-7 NY Giants team). Any two wins and Seattle is in. Seattle does not (quite) control it's own destiny for the #5 seed because Seattle loses any tiebreak with Green Bay.
I want to speak about SoV. If Arizona and Seattle wind up tied, there is one and only one way that can happen. That would be for Seattle to win out (likely IMHO) and for Arizona to lose out (very unlikely IMHO). If that happens, it turns out that Seattle and Arizona are shockingly even, and you have to go to the fifth tiebreak or the "Strength of Victory" tiebreak. Because Seattle and Arizona play most of the same opponents, it turns out in this scenario (where both teams are 11-5) that the only two teams that contribute to different SoV totals are wins over Cincy and New Orleans for Arizona and Pittsburgh and Dallas for Seattle. Cincy currently has a record of 10-3 and New Orleans currently has a record of 5-8. That's +15 wins for Arizona. Pittsburgh currently has a record of 8-5 and Dallas currently has a record of 4-9. That's a total of +12 wins for Seattle. That gives Arizona a +3 advantage in the projected SoV tiebreak right now. Even if both Cincy and New Orleans were to win and Dallas and Pitt were to lose, that would only shift the total to +7 with two weeks remaining.Since the total could shift by as much as 8 in the final two weeks, Arizona can't clinch by SoV alone. It is also worth noting that the next tiebreak after SoV is Strength of Schedule (or SoS) and since Seattle played Carolina and Arizona did not, Seattle would win that tiebreak easily. Edit: What I said was correct, but if CIN and NO both win and PIT and DAL both lose, then CIN+NO would have 17 total wins and PIT+DAL would only have 12 with only four possible wins to go.
*whew* Without further ado, here are the NFC West Clinching Scenarios:
Arizona clinches a first week bye with:
A win AND A Green Bay loss This is simple enough to see. A win puts Arizona out of reach of Seattle. and a Green Bay loss puts Arizona out of reach of any NFC North Champion as well. This is enough to assure at least the #2 seed.
Arizona clinches the NFC West with:
A Win or tie OR A Seattle loss (or tie) Again this is easy enough to see.It's tempting to jump the gun and claim that Arizona can clinch the tiebreak with Seattle and clinch that way, but as I just showed above, that simply isn't true, yet.
[EDIT]
OR
A {Cincy win + New Orleans win} AND {PIT loss + Dallas loss} This would give Arizona 17 wins on the relevant SoV vs Seattle's 12 wins with only 4 more possible wins for Seattle. This would clinch SoV for Arizona.
[/EDIT]
Seattle clinches a playoff berth with:
A win AND A Tampa Loss AND A {Giants OR Washington loss} As you can see, this scenario is almost exactly the same as Minny's scenario for clinching and exactly the same rational applies. Seattle has to avoid three way ties with anyone other than Atlanta and Minny. That means Seattle needs to insure that any team out of the NFC East that rises to a 9 win level wins the division outright, and the possibility of a Tampa tie needs to be avoided.
There are no other NFC West Clinching Scenarios
Elimination Scenarios: San Fran is already eliminated from the playoffs. St Louis is barely hanging on because if St Louis can win out and Seattle loses out, St Louis would win the head to head tiebreak with Seattle with both clubs at 8-8. This is basically the only playoff chance St Louis has left.
Arizona is eliminated from home field advantage with:
A loss + Carolina win (or tie) [or tie and Carolina win] See Carolina clinching scenario
Seattle is eliminated from the NFC West Divisional Race with:
A loss (or tie) OR An Arizona win (or tie) See Arizona clinching scenario above
St Louis is eliminated with:
A loss OR A Seattle win + Minny win (edit) On further review, the entire wildcard floor has to be raised to 9 mins or better to fully eliminate the Rams. That means that Minny has to win (or tie) as well.
Who to root for: I hope it's obvious that we want Seattle to show Johnny Football and his Cleveland Browns a loss at Century Link. As strange as it might sound we also want to root for the Rams this Thursday. Yeah I know......it's the Rams. You should root for them anyway. Why? A Rams win would equal a Tampa loss and Seattle can't control what Tampa does, but Seattle completely controls the Ram's fate. If necessary Seattle can take care of the business in the Rams in week 16 assuming they aren't already eliminated by then (and they should be). I think it's also clear we want to root for the Eagles. The division may be a long shot at this point but IMHO we should root for it until it's simply not in the Cards (pun intended). As for San Fran, we want to root for San Fran. Yes I know. Root for the Niners. That's almost sacrilege around here. That's because San Fran is facing Cincy and we want Cincy to lose (see my point above about SoV tiebreaks).
*whew* I hope that was helpful everyone.
As promised, here is your weekly and complete (at least as much as I am able) NFC playoff picture. As always go by divisions and analyze each division and each team. This week I'll add in which seeds teams currently "control their own destiny" in (if any).
As an aside before I start, it's too bad Miami couldn't have given as a solid against the Giants on MNF, but as you'll see that's only a very minor problem (at worst) for Seattle and nothing that two wins (of any kind) can't fix. Without further ado, let's start:
NFC South
Carolina (z) 13-0 (9-0 conf) Remaining opponents: @NY Giants, @Atlanta, Tampa
Tampa 6-7 (5-4 conf) Remaining opponents: @Rams, Chicago, @Carolina
Atlanta 6-7 (4-6 conf) Remaining opponents: @Jax, Carolina, New Orleans
New Orleans 5-8 (4-6 conf): Detroit, Jax, @Atlanta
As always, * indicates Home Field Advantage clinched, z indicates a first week bye is clinched, y indicates a division is clinched, and x means any playoff spot is clinched. Sometimes you'll see a number by a letter. That indicates a specific seed has been clinched. Finally an e indicates this team has been eliminated from the playoffs.
Cinching Scenarios Carolina has already clinched the division and a first week bye. Their magic number for home field advantage is 2 (vs Arizona). Obviously this means Carolina controls it's own destiny for HFA. Thus
Carolina clinches home field advantage with:
A win and Arizona loss or tie [or a tie and an Arizona loss]
There are no other clinching scenarios in the NFC South.
Elimination Scenarios All teams in the NFC South are currently alive (some barely). None of them, however control their destiny for any playoff spot (save Carolina of course). The following elimination week 15 elimination scenarios apply:
Tampa is eliminated with:
A loss AND A Seattle + Minny win The rational here is clear. Right now in order to make the playoffs, Tampa has to get in a tie with one or more 9-7 teams, and their superior conference record would be a powerful tiebreak. Unfortunately for Tampa, the best they can do is 9-7 and if they lose that drops to 8-8 at best. A Seattle+Minny win would raise the wildcard floor to 9-7 and out of reach. This would eliminate Tampa. Tampa is the hardest team to eliminate outright in the NFC South
Atlanta is eliminated with:
A loss OR A Seattle+Minny win. The only shot Atlanta has at the playoffs is to win out and hope a 9-7 record is good enough for a wildcard spot outright. Atlanta loses all ties any other potential 9-7 team (notably Minny, Seattle, and Tampa). If both Seattle and Minny win, it insures that at least two teams will have at least 9-7 records for two wildcard spots and since Atlanta doesn't win any tiebreaks, they are eliminated. Obviously if Atlanta loses, the best they can do is 8-8 which eliminates them outright since they don't win tiebreaks.
New Orleans is eliminated with:
A Loss OR Minny win(edit) + Seattle win New Orleans only hope is to win an 8-8 three way tiebreak with Chicago and Minny. For this to happen Minny has to lose out and Chicago has to win out and Minny plays Chicago this week. Thus if Minny wins, New Orleans is out. Also if New Orleans loses, they can't reach the needed record to get a wild card even right now and so would be out. (edit) There are some three way 8-8 tiebreaks that keep N.O. alive and those require an 8-8 Seattle so a Seattle win (or tie) is required as well.
The upshot of all this is that once Minny and Seattle win any game in the future, it will eliminate the entire NFC South except maybe Tampa.
Who to root for: I recommend that Seattle fans root for St Louis (who plays Tampa) to give Tampa a necessary loss [game is this Thursday], and root for Carolina to get HFA. This not only would hand the NY Giants a loss (which would be very helpful as we're about to see), but also would require Arizona to lose (necessary to keep Seattle's slender division hopes alive). As for Atlanta, go ahead and root for Jax and Gus Bradly, but it doesn't much matter as long as we win.
Now we'll move onto a suddenly interesting if still putrid NFC East.
NFC East
Washington 6-7 (6-4 conf): Remaining Games: Bills, @Philly, @Dallas
Philly 6-7 (3-6 conf) Remaining Games: Arizona, Washington, @NY Giants
NY Giants 6-7 (4-5 conf) Remaining Games: Carolina, @Minny, Philly
Dallas 4-9 (3-8 conf) Remaining Games: NY Jets, @Bills, Washington
Clinching Scenarios: None. However, Washington and Philly both control their own destiny for the NFC East crown. If either of these teams reaches 9 wins, they win the division. If the Eagles do this, they also eliminate the Giants from any wildcard consideration. It is worth noting that no team in the division can reach more than 9 wins, and only one team can reach 9 wins and NOT win the division outright (the NY Giants), and that can only happen if Washington wins the division. This leads to some very complex clinching scenarios in the NFC North and NFC West.
Elimination Scenarios: The Cowboys are already eliminated from wildcard consideration. A Seattle + Minny win eliminates Washington and Philly from any wildcard consideration (because they play each other and the surviving team that reaches 9 wins wins the division). Either a Giants loss OR a Washington loss eliminates the entire NFC East from wildcard consideration along with a Minny and Seattle win, eliminates the entire NFC East from wildcard consideration. Why? If the Giants lose, the only teams that can reach 9 wins would be either Philly or Washington but since they play each other, only one of them could do so. That would win the division outright and leave the survivors all at 8-8 or less and out of the wild card hunt. Likewise if Washington loses, then only the Giants would be able to reach 9 wins because they play Philly and would have to inflict a loss on Philly to get there, and that would give the Giants the division. Either way the rest of the division would be at 8-8 or less and out of the wild card chase. This may seem somewhat arcane, but this fact is crucial for understanding the NFC North and NFC West clinching pictures.
Now for the one, easy elimination scenario:
Dallas is eliminated with:
A Loss OR Washington+Philly win OR Philly+Giants win Dallas is already out of any wildcard consideration. Dallas' only shot is to sneak in and win the NFC East likely with tiebreaks. However, the Giants, Eagles, and Washington all have two game leads on the Giants. Dallas' best shot would be to win out and have Washington lose at least one other game, while the Giants and Philly would need to lose at least two. Because Washington and Philly and Philly and Giants all play each other, this is a tall order and extremely fragile. A Dallas loss clearly puts the division out of reach (eliminating Dallas) since someone will win (or at least tie) the other divisional games, and Dallas' best possible record (6-10) wouldn't be enough in such a case. Even if Dallas wins out, if Philly and either the Giants or Washington have 7 wins by the end of week 15, it's all over for Dallas since at least one NFC East team would have more than 7 wins and 7-9 is the absolute best Dallas can do.
Who to root for: We want Dallas to win for Seattle's (admittedly slender) tiebreaker SoV scenarios with Arizona and Dallas is no threat to any of Seattle's playoff aspirations regardless. Outside of that, as Seattle fans it's my considered opinion that we want to root AGAINST Washington and the NY Giants. If either of these teams loses, then the entire NFC East will completely drop out of the wild card playoff picture and off Seattle's playoff radar.
Now let's more on to a division that's very much linked with the playoff picture of our own, the NFC North:
NFC North
Green Bay 9-4 (7-3 conf) Remaining Opponents: @Oakland, @Arizona, Minny
Minny 8-5 (5-4 conf) Remaining Games: Chicago, NY Giants, @Green Bay
Chicago 5-8 (2-7 conf) Remaining Games: @Minny, @Tampa, Detroit
Detroit (e) 4-9 (3-6 conf) Remaining Games: @New Orleans, San Fran ,@Chicago
Clinching Scenarios Both Green Bay and Minny control their own destiny for the NFC North title. That's because they play each other in week 17 and if Minny ties Green Bay and wins that final game, Minny wins the tiebreak (better divisional record). Whoever doesn't win the NFC North also controls their own destiny for one of the two wildcard spots. Currently only Tampa Bay could conceivably win a tiebreak with Green Bay and prevent them from having at least a wild card. Also because most of the NFC (9 out of 16 teams, can't have a winning record no matter what and Minny already has 8 wins, Minny [and Seattle but we'll get to that later] is very close to clinching at least a wildcard spot outright as well. It's very important to note that to clinch, potential wildcard teams have to avoid three-way tiebreaks with any potential teams coming from the NFC East. That's why it's so important for any NFC East team that reaches the 9 win (or even 8 win) level to auto-win that division. With all of that understood, here are the NFC North clinching scenarios:
Green Bay clinches a playoff spot with:
A win OR A Tampa loss A win puts Green Bay at 10 wins which is rarefied air in the NFC. Only five teams can reach 10 wins or more in the NFC (Carolina, Arizona, Minny, Seattle, and of course Green Bay) and given there are six playoff spots and two wildcards (and at 10 wins, if GB doesn't take the North, then Minny will), this assures Green Bay of at least a wildcard berth. Tampa is the only 6-7 team that can beat Green Bay in a tiebreak scenario at 9 wins, so if Tampa loses, the Packers are in no matter what (even with potential three way 9 win tiebreaks with an NFC East team usually the Giants).
Minny clinches a playoff spot with:
A win AND Tampa Loss AND {NY Giants Loss OR Washington Loss} To make the playoffs, Minny has to avoid three way tiebreaks unless Atlanta is one of those teams. If Minny wins, this puts a loss on Chicago eliminating them (see below), but also helps raise the wildcard level. As explained earlier, a Giants OR Washington loss would make it impossible for any NFC East team to reach the 9 win level without winning their division outright. This combination would insure that the only teams that Minny has to worry about tying are Green Bay or Seattle. Minny WANTS to tie with Green Bay providing Minny does so by winning the final game (@Green Bay), and while Minny would lose a tiebreak with Seattle, that would merely determine seeding if there isn't a third nine win team in the mix.
No other NFC North teams can clinch.
Elimination Scenarios: Detroit has already been eliminated from the playoffs, and Chicago has been eliminated from the NFC North crown. Chicago has one and only one shot to make the playoffs and a wildcard given that they already have 8 losses and lose the head to head tiebreak with a Seattle team that already has 8 wins. Chicago has to win out, and have Minny lose out and win the 8-8 tiebreak probably for the last wildcard. Essentially Chicago is hoping for an NFC North train wreck. This leads to the one elimination scenario for the NFC North:
Green Bay is eliminated from a first week bye with:
A loss (or tie) and Arizona win See Clinching Scenario for Arizona in NFC West. Essentially this makes it impossible for Green Bay to catch Arizona while clinching the division for Arizona.
Chicago is eliminated with:
A loss or tie It really is that simple. If Chicago loses then Minny wins (or at least ties) and that puts Chicago underneath the current 8-8 wildcard floor. Given that Chicago is already eliminated from NFC North contention, that would be it for the Bears.
Who to root for: It may seem strange but right now both Green Bay and Minny are Seattle's natural playoff allies. The Green Bay game doesn't matter to Seattle pretty much at all, but root for Minny since that will (along with a Seattle win) raise the wildcard floor making it harder for other teams to catch up AND it eliminates at least one team outright (Chicago).
Now on to the division we know best, our own, the NFC West:
NFC West
Arizona (x) 11-2 (8-1 conf) Remaining Games: @Philly, Green Bay, Seattle
Seattle 8-5 (6-4 conf) Remaining Games: Cleveland, St Louis, @Arizona
St Louis 5-8 (4-5 conf) Remaining Games: Tampa, @Seattle, @San Fran
San Fran (e) 4-9 (3-7 conf) Remaining Games: Cincy, @Detroit, St Louis
In a lot of ways, the NFC West is the easiest division to read and not just because we are familiar with it. Arizona is clearly in the driver's seat to take the division and both Arizona and Seattle are almost certainly playoff bound (Arizona has clinched in fact). With 11 wins, Arizona doesn't care about the NFC East at all. However, with the outside possibility of a 9 win NFC East team not winning the division, Seattle still does. San Fran has been eliminated and can't even be spoilers, and St Louis is only barely alive on essentially one very slender and unlikely playoff reed (because they beat Seattle in the first game of the season). In fact St Louis could have been eliminated last week but managed to stave if off by beating the Lions.
Clinching Scenarios: Arizona controls it's own destiny for the #2 seed (and obviously NFC West crown) and first week bye. It still has a (remote) chance at home field (see Carolina). Seattle controls it's own destiny for a playoff spot with a magic number of two (vs Tampa and a possible 9-7 NY Giants team). Any two wins and Seattle is in. Seattle does not (quite) control it's own destiny for the #5 seed because Seattle loses any tiebreak with Green Bay.
I want to speak about SoV. If Arizona and Seattle wind up tied, there is one and only one way that can happen. That would be for Seattle to win out (likely IMHO) and for Arizona to lose out (very unlikely IMHO). If that happens, it turns out that Seattle and Arizona are shockingly even, and you have to go to the fifth tiebreak or the "Strength of Victory" tiebreak. Because Seattle and Arizona play most of the same opponents, it turns out in this scenario (where both teams are 11-5) that the only two teams that contribute to different SoV totals are wins over Cincy and New Orleans for Arizona and Pittsburgh and Dallas for Seattle. Cincy currently has a record of 10-3 and New Orleans currently has a record of 5-8. That's +15 wins for Arizona. Pittsburgh currently has a record of 8-5 and Dallas currently has a record of 4-9. That's a total of +12 wins for Seattle. That gives Arizona a +3 advantage in the projected SoV tiebreak right now. Even if both Cincy and New Orleans were to win and Dallas and Pitt were to lose, that would only shift the total to +7 with two weeks remaining.
*whew* Without further ado, here are the NFC West Clinching Scenarios:
Arizona clinches a first week bye with:
A win AND A Green Bay loss This is simple enough to see. A win puts Arizona out of reach of Seattle. and a Green Bay loss puts Arizona out of reach of any NFC North Champion as well. This is enough to assure at least the #2 seed.
Arizona clinches the NFC West with:
A Win or tie OR A Seattle loss (or tie) Again this is easy enough to see.
[EDIT]
OR
A {Cincy win + New Orleans win} AND {PIT loss + Dallas loss} This would give Arizona 17 wins on the relevant SoV vs Seattle's 12 wins with only 4 more possible wins for Seattle. This would clinch SoV for Arizona.
[/EDIT]
Seattle clinches a playoff berth with:
A win AND A Tampa Loss AND A {Giants OR Washington loss} As you can see, this scenario is almost exactly the same as Minny's scenario for clinching and exactly the same rational applies. Seattle has to avoid three way ties with anyone other than Atlanta and Minny. That means Seattle needs to insure that any team out of the NFC East that rises to a 9 win level wins the division outright, and the possibility of a Tampa tie needs to be avoided.
There are no other NFC West Clinching Scenarios
Elimination Scenarios: San Fran is already eliminated from the playoffs. St Louis is barely hanging on because if St Louis can win out and Seattle loses out, St Louis would win the head to head tiebreak with Seattle with both clubs at 8-8. This is basically the only playoff chance St Louis has left.
Arizona is eliminated from home field advantage with:
A loss + Carolina win (or tie) [or tie and Carolina win] See Carolina clinching scenario
Seattle is eliminated from the NFC West Divisional Race with:
A loss (or tie) OR An Arizona win (or tie) See Arizona clinching scenario above
St Louis is eliminated with:
A loss OR A Seattle win + Minny win (edit) On further review, the entire wildcard floor has to be raised to 9 mins or better to fully eliminate the Rams. That means that Minny has to win (or tie) as well.
Who to root for: I hope it's obvious that we want Seattle to show Johnny Football and his Cleveland Browns a loss at Century Link. As strange as it might sound we also want to root for the Rams this Thursday. Yeah I know......it's the Rams. You should root for them anyway. Why? A Rams win would equal a Tampa loss and Seattle can't control what Tampa does, but Seattle completely controls the Ram's fate. If necessary Seattle can take care of the business in the Rams in week 16 assuming they aren't already eliminated by then (and they should be). I think it's also clear we want to root for the Eagles. The division may be a long shot at this point but IMHO we should root for it until it's simply not in the Cards (pun intended). As for San Fran, we want to root for San Fran. Yes I know. Root for the Niners. That's almost sacrilege around here. That's because San Fran is facing Cincy and we want Cincy to lose (see my point above about SoV tiebreaks).
*whew* I hope that was helpful everyone.
