As of Sunday Night going into Monday Night's game (Dallas @ Chicago), 8 Dec 2013, the NFC Playoff seeds are as follows:
#1 Seattle (11-2), #2 New Orleans (10-3), #3 Philly (8-5), #4 Detroit (7-6)
Wildcards: #5 Carolina (9-4), #6 San Fransisco (9-4) [Note that Carolina gets the five hole by virtue of (edit) head to head win]
So now let's look at the four teams still in the hunt: These are Dallas (NFCE, 7-5), Chicago (NFCN, 6-6), Green Bay (NFCN, 6-6-1), and Arizona (NFCW, 8-5)
Let's start with the Wildcards: San Fran and Carolina set the absolute floor for any team to be in wildcard contention. If you can not get to a nine wins or more, don't apply. What's more, if you can't beat the tie breaks with San Fran or Carolina, don't apply. Futhermore some of these teams may win their divisions before qualifying for a wildcard spot. The Division Crown would take precedence removing the team from wildcard contention. Furthermore, both San Fran and Carolina have very winnable games, and both have at least a one game lead over the pack and often more. If San Fran, Carolina, and New Orleans all qualify for playoff berths (Seattle has already qualified), then there can be no future wildcard spots. It is worth noting that this could happen as soon as week 15 and is likely by week 16 as I will explain below.
If both Carolina and San Fran win next week's game (and they should since Carolina plays the Jets and San Fran plays Tampa Bay), this pushes the minimum wildcard to 10. This would automatically eliminate Green Bay (max record of 9-6-1) and Chicago (which can have a max of 6 conference wins but San Fran and Carolina would both have 7). If Detroit tied, Detroit would win the NFCN. That leaves Philly, Dallas, and Arizona. Thus in Week 15 San Fran would clinch if all three of these teams lost (since San Fran at 10-6) would beat the tiebreaks with a 10-6 Philly, Dallas, or Arizona. This is NOT true of Carolina since Arizona beat Carolina. In week 16, San Fran would clinch a wild card assuming they won in that week and week 15. Carolina would need help from Seattle (beating Arizona) in addition to winning against not just the Jets but a rematch with Carolina.
So let's look at wildcard hopes starting with Arizona. First and formost, Arizona *can't* get any more games behind San Fransisco or (more importantly) Carolina. Arizona needs to be able to tie Carolina to qualify most likely (and thus get the nod based on head to head). That means they must continue to win, and have to hope for Carolina (best hope) or San Fran to stumble. Unfortunately for the Cards, their remaining three games are BRUTAL. @Tenn, @Sea, and San Fran. Arizona almost certainly loses the last two but should win the first. Assuming that Carolina and San Fran also win in week 15, that means that Arizona will be fighting for it's playoff life in week 16 against the Seahawks. Unfortunately for Arizona, Seattle will be fighting for it's Division Title life against 'Zona (win or lose vs the Giants in week 15) and it's a game Seattle also simply must have. Since Arizona is out of the division race, it's wildcard or nothing for the Cards.
Now let's look at the Packers at 6-6-1. For the Packers to get the wildcard, they have to hope that they win out (possible esp if Aaron Rogers comes back) and for either Carolina or San Fran to lose out (not gonna happen). The Packers best hope for the post season lies with the NFCN Division Crown.
The game on Monday between Dallas and Chicago is huge. If Chicago loses on 9 December, they drop to 6-7 and lose the tiebreaks to both San Fran and Carolina. That would mean they are out of the wildcard race and have to hope to win the NFCN Crown. If Chicago wins, they'd improve to 10-6, but would still be eliminated from wildcard contention with both a Carolina and San Fran win. Again the NFCN route looks easier. That brings us to Dallas. If Dallas loses, they drop to 7-6, but that would only put them a game out of Philly and they play Philly the last game of the season. This would effectively remove them from wildcard contention since in order to make the wildcard, they'd have to win the NFCE Crown.
By contrast, if Dallas wins, they'd improve to 8-5 with a 7-2 conference record with three conference games remaining. In such a case Dallas (Philly too) would have to lose the NFCE Crown but win (or tie and get the tiebreak) against San Fran, and Carolina in order to get the wildcard. As I explained above, (and this applies to Philly too), even one loss (let alone two) probably eliminates them from wildcard contention.
I should mention that the Detriot Lions could still hypothetically be a Wildcard but that's very unlikely. Essentially they'd have to not win the NFCN but still have tie breaks other nine-win candidates. Since Arizona has beaten Detroit, it's worth noting that even one Arizona win (or really any Detroit loss) probably eliminates Detroit from wild card consideration.
That brings us to the Division Crowns.
The NFCW Crown will bring with it no worse than the #2 seed. Currently Seattle has magic number of two (vs San Fran) to clinch this division. If Seattle does it solo, the NFCW will have the #1 seed (any two wins). San Fransisco can win the Division Crown if it can tie or catch Seattle. That's because this would require Seattle to lose at least 2 out of three remaining games, one of which would have to be a division game giving San Fran the tie-breaker). This is unlikely.
The NFCS Crown will be no worse than the #3 seed (hypothetically the NFCE Champion could have 11 wins and the NFCS Champion could have 10), but likely will have the #2 seed. The #1 seed is mathamatically possible but any loss by New Orleans coupled by any Seattle win would remove that possibility. Currently New Orleans leads the NFCS by one game and head to head win vs Carolina with three games to go. Basically New Orleans needs to win two of it's next three OR win the rematch at Carolina (assuming them of the head to head tie break) to clinch the division.
The NFCE Crown will be either the #3 or #4 seed depending how matches between them and the NFCN (that play each other the next three weeks) go. The Crown will go to Philly or Dallas. Dallas has a perfect Division record currently at 4-0 including a prior win @philly. That gives Dallas the inside track. The best possible NFCE Winner will be 11-5 but likely will be more like 10-6 or even 9-7. Contrary to what it looked like earlier this season, we are assured of at least an 8-8 NFCE Division winner. It's highly likely that the winner of Philly@Dallas wins the NFCE and the loser goes home.
The NFCS has become a real dog fight thanks to an inability of the Detroit Lions to put the Division away while it's rivals were rediscovering the joys of backup QBs. Detriot currently leads the division at 7-6 with Chicago at 6-6 hot on it's heels (although Detroit has a 2-0 tiebreaker on Chicago). The Green Bay Packers are not out of it at 6-6-1. Culter and Aaron Rodgers are supposedly soon to be back. My personal take is "The team that gets to 9 wins first wins this division." Like the NFCE, most likely it's the division title or nothing for playoffs in this division.
I hope everyone found this useful.
