Official NFC Playoff Standings Thread - 5 Weeks To Go

[Joemailman]

Division Winners

1. Atlanta (10-1)
2. San Francisco (8-2-1)
3. Chicago (8-3)
4. N.Y. Giants (7-4)

Wild Card

5. Green Bay (7-4)
6. Seattle (6-5) Better NFC winning pct. than Tampa Bay

Outside Looking In

7. Tampa Bay (6-5) Head to head tiebreaker over Minnesota
8. Minnesota (6-5)
9. Washington (5-6) Better NFC winning pct. than Dallas
10. Dallas (5-6) Better NFC winning pct. than New Orleans
11. New Orleans (5-6)
12. St. Louis (4-6-1)
13. Detroit (4-7) Better NFC winning pct. than Arizona
14. Arizona (4-7)
15. Carolina (3-8) Head to head tiebreaker over Philadelphia
16. Philadelphia (3-8)

Packers currently looking at a road playoff game against the Giants. Still a good chance they avoid that by winning the division though.

[denverYooper]

Seattle could be in deep doo-doo without Browner and Sherman.

Tampa Bay has some tough games coming up: Broncos, Saints, Falcons. Minny has GB 2x, Bears, and Texans. Washington and Dallas play each other.

Packers should get in if they can manage to close out 3-2. I'm guessing they'll go 4-1 and close out at 11-5.

[denverYooper]

From NFL Communications (https://twitter.com/RLiuNFL):

Easiest remaining sched for NFC teams w/in 1 gm of playoffs: ATL (.455), DAL (.455), CHI (.491), WAS (.491), SF (.500)
Toughest remaining sched for NFC teams w/in 1 gm of playoffs: MIN (.664), NYG (.582), NO (.564), TB (.555), SL (.527), GB (.509)

[LegandofthePack15]

Packers currently looking at a road playoff game against the Giants. Still a good chance they avoid that by winning the division though.

Playoffs? Don’t talk about — playoffs? You kidding me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game! Another game.

[ThunderDan]

Playoffs? Don’t talk about — playoffs? You kidding me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game! Another game.

The Packers are 53-28 since ARod took over in 2008.
We are 36-12 since 2010.

One ass stomping doesn't make or break a season. Who can forget our loss to TB 3 years ago?

This might be the reality check the Packers need to be the "hot" team going into the playoffs and on to greater things.

[ThunderDan]

We really should drag up some of those old ARod isn't a winner (and doesn't have It!) threads from 08 and 09.

[sharpe1027]

Playoffs? Don’t talk about — playoffs? You kidding me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game! Another game.

The will probably not win another game unless they sign Vince Young immediately.

[Patler]

This might be the reality check the Packers need to be the "hot" team going into the playoffs and on to greater things.

Could be, but it doesn't feel that way right now!:smile:

[Patler]

Normally, I don't get too concerned about one game, even if it is an embarrassing loss, as this was.

But in this instance, I have a concern spanning two games; the O-line being manhandled by two very good D-lines, but ones that basically rushed just four. Fairly simple, straight-up D-line play the last two weeks, and the Packer O-line was at their mercy.

[Upnorth]

Normally, I don't get too concerned about one game, even if it is an embarrassing loss, as this was.

But in this instance, I have a concern spanning two games; the O-line being manhandled by two very good D-lines, but ones that basically rushed just four. Fairly simple, straight-up D-line play the last two weeks, and the Packer O-line was at their mercy.

What scares me the most about the oline situation is that due to injury to buluga and sherrod the best upgrade to our olines ability to protect Arod will be when Jennings comes back from injury.
When a WR is your olines best bet, look the hell out.

[pbmax]

My concern boils down to this: the Packers are going to have to decide what kind of offense they are going to run. McCarthy said he went spread too early vs. Giants. Rodgers passed up underneath throws and then had receivers fail to run the correct route on blitzes. They sent protection to Lang but he had trouble anyway and that slide hurt Newhouse.

Jennings or no, they have to solve two of these issues to get back in gear. Rodgers cannot wait for teammates to come open late because the line can't hold it together. On the odd occasions it does, he should assume a D lineman fell down on the way to the pocket. He needs to go to first and second reads because there is no time to break of a route or run it across the field. ESPN NFC North blog guy worked out his passer rating by his time in pocket, it was lights out above 2.6 seconds and mediocre under that figure. He needs to lower it.

McCarthy has gone to the called bad plays card too often this season. Whatever he is covering for, it needs to go away. Either run more, don't run more, spread or two TE, he has to call the game that fits what the defense is playing. If there isn't execution, then someone gets subbed out.

The O line needs time to adjust, but it has to begin now. They can't have a tire fire every fourth play. If they can bump the average clean pocket time by 2/10 of a second and Rodgers can bring down his decision making by 2/10 of a second, it will look like a different offense.

But they need to stop hoping these things correct themselves and scheme it. And demand it.

[RashanGary]

PB, yup.

[The Shadow]

It still comes down to Packers - Bears game - does it not?

[woodbuck27]

Playoffs? Don’t talk about — playoffs? You kidding me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game! Another game.

LOL... I still have a private laugh about some of the great Jim E. Mora rants.

LegandofthePack15 you should try more of these ( !'s ).

Playoffs? Don't talk about -- playoffs?!

What a beauty he (Jim E. Mora) was making that explicit statement. An unforgetable NFL reaction to his then Indy COLTS post game media scrum in response to Tim Bragg, a reporter for WRTV, who asked a question about the Colts' chances for making the playoffs, Mora said... in a high-pitched, incredulous tone. You'd have to have good recall on his voice to truly appreciate it.

"What's that? Ah -- Playoffs? Don't talk about -- playoffs?! You kidding me?! Playoffs?! I just hope we can win a game! Another game!"

Here's another Jim E. Mora rant. One just prior to the above response after the same game: I hope you enjoy it:

"Well, I'll start off by saying this: do not blame that game on the defense, OK? I don't care who you play, whether it's a high school team, a junior college team, a college team, much less an NFL team; when you turn the ball over five times -- four interceptions, one for a touchdown, three others in field position to set up touchdowns -- you ain't going to beat anybody I just talked about. Anybody. All right? And that was a disgraceful performance, in my opinion. We threw that game. We gave it away by doing that. We gave 'em the friggin' game. In my opinion, that sucked. Ah. You know? You can't turn the ball over five times like that. Holy crap! I don't know who the hell we think we are when we do something like that! Unbelievable...five turnovers. One of them for -- We've thrown four interceptions for touchdowns this year. That might be an NFL record! Hell, we've still got six games -- five? Five, five. Um. We've still got six games to play, no telling what might happen. That's pitiful! I mean, it's absolutely pitiful to perform like that. Pitiful! If our defense hadn't played halfway decent against a great offensive football team, they might have scored 60! That's it, the name of the game, end of story. It was horrible, horrible five interceptions -- five turnovers. Horrible! And we couldn't cover the kickoffs the first half. Shit, our defense played pretty damn good, considering. That's all I got to say. That's the story of the game right there, the story of the game."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwq7BYOnDrM

What the heck. Now that I'm rollin'. How about this one:

In the 1987 season the New Orlean Saints lost a 24-22 game to the San Francisco 49ers, missing a last-second field goal. After the game Jim E. Mora launched what became known as his "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda" speech. In his postgame press conference, Jim E. Mora angrily said the following:

"They're better than we are; we're not good enough. We shouldn't be thinking about beating these 49ers; we shouldn't be talking about it, 'cause the Saints ain't good enough. And you guys shouldn't write about us being a playoff team and all that bullstuff--that's malarkey. We ain't good enough to beat those guys and it was proven out there today. It's that simple. We're not good enough yet. We've got a long way to go; we've got a lot of work to do; we're close, and close don't mean shit. And you can put that on TV for me. I'm tired of coming close, and we're gonna work our asses off until we ain't close anymore, and it may take some time; we're gonna get it done; we aren't in their--we aren't good enough. They're better than us--black and white, simple, fact! "Could've, would've, should've" is the difference in what I'm talking about! The good teams don't come in and say "Could've." They get it done! All right? It's that simple! I'm tired of saying "Could've, should've, would've." That's why we ain't good enough yet! 'Cause we're saying "Could've" and they ain't! I'm pissed off right now. You bet your ass I am. I'm sick of coulda, woulda, shoulda, coming close, if only."

After the Saints were beaten 19–7 by the Carolina Panthers on October 20, 1996, a loss which put them at 2–6 midway through the season, Jim E. Mora walked out of the postgame press conference in disgust after a profanity-laced tirade. His outburst became famous on sports highlight reels for years to follow, largely because of Mora's use of the phrase "Diddley Poo." On the Saints' performance, Mora said the following:

"Well, what happened was, that second game we got our ass kicked. Errr - the second half, we just got our ass totally kicked. We couldn’t do diddly...poo offensively. We couldn’t make a first down. We couldn’t run the ball; we didn’t try to run the ball. We couldn’t complete a pass - we sucked. The second half, we sucked. We couldn't stop the run. Every time they got the ball, they went down and got points. We got our ass totally kicked in the second half - that's what it boiled down to. It was a horseshit performance in the second half. Horseshit. I’m totally embarrassed and totally ashamed. Coaching...[all]...[unintelligible]...Coaching did a horrible job. The players did a horrible job. We got our ass kicked in that second half. It sucked. It stunk."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Tie0tz7jGDI&feature=endscreen

1993 was Mora's last season of .500 or better in New Orleans. In the Week 16 game against the New York Giants, quarterback Wade Wilson was injured on Monday Night Football and fans were cheering that fact, earning an angry retort:

Jim E. Mora Mad About Fans Cheering Injury

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvMwECIOXYs&feature=endscreen&NR=1

[MadtownPacker]

Tampa Bay has some tough games coming up: Broncos, Saints, Falcons. Minny has GB 2x, Bears, and Texans. Washington and Dallas play each other.

Packers should get in if they can manage to close out 3-2. I'm guessing they'll go 4-1 and close out at 11-5.I was saying this to my primo earlier. I was telling him the bears and Packers will both make the playoffs if they go 3-2. The 6-5 teams have games vs many of the current playoff teams. I just dont see them catching up without some upsets.

[KYPack]

I was saying this to my primo earlier. I was telling him the bears and Packers will both make the playoffs if they go 3-2. The 6-5 teams have games vs many of the current playoff teams. I just dont see them catching up without some upsets.

I'm fine with that logic.

As long as we get a chair to sit on in the play-offs and Seattle don't fuck us up, I'm good with that.

[MadtownPacker]

It still comes down to Packers - Bears game - does it not?
I think the division will come down to the last week. Packers vs vikings and bears vs lions.

[MadtownPacker]

I'm fine with that logic.

As long as we get a chair to sit on in the play-offs and Seattle don't fuck us up, I'm good with that.
Yer yella bellied. Seattle is exactly who I hope they get to play. Thats if there CBs arent too tweaked out to finish the season. Fuck them!

[LegandofthePack15]

LOL... I still have a private laugh about some of the great Jim E. Mora rants.

LegandofthePack15 you should try more of these ( !'s ).

Playoffs? Don't talk about -- playoffs?!

What a beauty he (Jim E. Mora) was making that explicit statement. An unforgetable NFL reaction to his then Indy COLTS post game media scrum in response to Tim Bragg, a reporter for WRTV, who asked a question about the Colts' chances for making the playoffs, Mora said... in a high-pitched, incredulous tone. You'd have to have good recall on his voice to truly appreciate it.

"What's that? Ah -- Playoffs? Don't talk about -- playoffs?! You kidding me?! Playoffs?! I just hope we can win a game! Another game!"

Here's another Jim E. Mora rant. One just prior to the above response after the same game: I hope you enjoy it:

"Well, I'll start off by saying this: do not blame that game on the defense, OK? I don't care who you play, whether it's a high school team, a junior college team, a college team, much less an NFL team; when you turn the ball over five times -- four interceptions, one for a touchdown, three others in field position to set up touchdowns -- you ain't going to beat anybody I just talked about. Anybody. All right? And that was a disgraceful performance, in my opinion. We threw that game. We gave it away by doing that. We gave 'em the friggin' game. In my opinion, that sucked. Ah. You know? You can't turn the ball over five times like that. Holy crap! I don't know who the hell we think we are when we do something like that! Unbelievable...five turnovers. One of them for -- We've thrown four interceptions for touchdowns this year. That might be an NFL record! Hell, we've still got six games -- five? Five, five. Um. We've still got six games to play, no telling what might happen. That's pitiful! I mean, it's absolutely pitiful to perform like that. Pitiful! If our defense hadn't played halfway decent against a great offensive football team, they might have scored 60! That's it, the name of the game, end of story. It was horrible, horrible five interceptions -- five turnovers. Horrible! And we couldn't cover the kickoffs the first half. Shit, our defense played pretty damn good, considering. That's all I got to say. That's the story of the game right there, the story of the game."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwq7BYOnDrM

What the heck. Now that I'm rollin'. How about this one:

In the 1987 season the New Orlean Saints lost a 24-22 game to the San Francisco 49ers, missing a last-second field goal. After the game Jim E. Mora launched what became known as his "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda" speech. In his postgame press conference, Jim E. Mora angrily said the following:

"They're better than we are; we're not good enough. We shouldn't be thinking about beating these 49ers; we shouldn't be talking about it, 'cause the Saints ain't good enough. And you guys shouldn't write about us being a playoff team and all that bullstuff--that's malarkey. We ain't good enough to beat those guys and it was proven out there today. It's that simple. We're not good enough yet. We've got a long way to go; we've got a lot of work to do; we're close, and close don't mean shit. And you can put that on TV for me. I'm tired of coming close, and we're gonna work our asses off until we ain't close anymore, and it may take some time; we're gonna get it done; we aren't in their--we aren't good enough. They're better than us--black and white, simple, fact! "Could've, would've, should've" is the difference in what I'm talking about! The good teams don't come in and say "Could've." They get it done! All right? It's that simple! I'm tired of saying "Could've, should've, would've." That's why we ain't good enough yet! 'Cause we're saying "Could've" and they ain't! I'm pissed off right now. You bet your ass I am. I'm sick of coulda, woulda, shoulda, coming close, if only."

After the Saints were beaten 19–7 by the Carolina Panthers on October 20, 1996, a loss which put them at 2–6 midway through the season, Jim E. Mora walked out of the postgame press conference in disgust after a profanity-laced tirade. His outburst became famous on sports highlight reels for years to follow, largely because of Mora's use of the phrase "Diddley Poo." On the Saints' performance, Mora said the following:

"Well, what happened was, that second game we got our ass kicked. Errr - the second half, we just got our ass totally kicked. We couldn’t do diddly...poo offensively. We couldn’t make a first down. We couldn’t run the ball; we didn’t try to run the ball. We couldn’t complete a pass - we sucked. The second half, we sucked. We couldn't stop the run. Every time they got the ball, they went down and got points. We got our ass totally kicked in the second half - that's what it boiled down to. It was a horseshit performance in the second half. Horseshit. I’m totally embarrassed and totally ashamed. Coaching...[all]...[unintelligible]...Coaching did a horrible job. The players did a horrible job. We got our ass kicked in that second half. It sucked. It stunk."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Tie0tz7jGDI&feature=endscreen

1993 was Mora's last season of .500 or better in New Orleans. In the Week 16 game against the New York Giants, quarterback Wade Wilson was injured on Monday Night Football and fans were cheering that fact, earning an angry retort:

Jim E. Mora Mad About Fans Cheering Injury

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvMwECIOXYs&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Nice post, Woodbuck. I must admit, though, sometimes my head hurt when I tried to read your writings. Maybe its b/c I am not fluent in French-Canadian. :mrgreen:

[woodbuck27]

My concern boils down to this: the Packers are going to have to decide what kind of offense they are going to run. McCarthy said he went spread too early vs. Giants. Rodgers passed up underneath throws and then had receivers fail to run the correct route on blitzes. They sent protection to Lang but he had trouble anyway and that slide hurt Newhouse.

Jennings or no, they have to solve two of these issues to get back in gear. Rodgers cannot wait for teammates to come open late because the line can't hold it together. On the odd occasions it does, he should assume a D lineman fell down on the way to the pocket. He needs to go to first and second reads because there is no time to break of a route or run it across the field. ESPN NFC North blog guy worked out his passer rating by his time in pocket, it was lights out above 2.6 seconds and mediocre under that figure. He needs to lower it.

McCarthy has gone to the called bad plays card too often this season. Whatever he is covering for, it needs to go away. Either run more, don't run more, spread or two TE, he has to call the game that fits what the defense is playing. If there isn't execution, then someone gets subbed out.

The O line needs time to adjust, but it has to begin now. They can't have a tire fire every fourth play. If they can bump the average clean pocket time by 2/10 of a second and Rodgers can bring down his decision making by 2/10 of a second, it will look like a different offense.

But they need to stop hoping these things correct themselves and scheme it. And demand it.

Excellent analysis PB. The last thing we need to see now is magical thinking in process.

ie 'Greg Jennings and all will be well'. That's thinking in the past. NFL teams are all the time adjusting to another teams offense. Ours isn't that complicated to figure out with MM in control.

GO PACKERS !

[woodbuck27]

Nice post, Woodbuck. I must admit, though, sometimes my head hurt when I tried to read your writings. Maybe its b/c I am not fluent in French-Canadian. :mrgreen:

"Maybe its b/c I am not fluent in French-Canadian."

LOL... then ... we've something in common and THANKS. :-)

[Joemailman]

Packers in Dec/Jan under McCarthy:

2006: 4-0
2007: 3-1
2008: 1-3
2009: 4-1
2010: 3-2
2011: 4-1

Note: 2 losses in 2010 were with Rodgers out of lineup.

The #3 seed is still a real possibility, although the OL will need to solidify their play for it to happen.

[Joemailman]

Key games this week:

Atlanta at New Orleans
Seattle at Chicago
Minnesota at Green Bay
San Francisco at St. Louis
Tampa Bay at Denver
Philadelphia at Dallas
New York Giants at Washington

[Pugger]

The Saints' loss last night has really hurt their chances for one of the wild cards.

[woodbuck27]

The Saints' loss last night has really hurt their chances for one of the wild cards.

12-09 Saints v. Giants ‎; 12-16 Buccaneers v. Saints ‎ ; 12-23 Saints v. Cowboys ‎ ; 12-30 Panthers v. Saints

5-7 plus four wins = 9-7.

Not looking good for the Saints playing three teams in the playoff hunt; including (6-5 BUCS) and 5-6 Cowboys playing the Eagles at home this week and with a better NFC winning pct. than New Orleans.

‎

[woodbuck27]

Division Winners

1. Atlanta (10-1)
2. San Francisco (8-2-1)
3. Chicago (8-3)
4. N.Y. Giants (7-4)

Wild Card

5. Green Bay (7-4)
6. Seattle (6-5) Better NFC winning pct. than Tampa Bay

Outside Looking In

7. Tampa Bay (6-5) Head to head tiebreaker over Minnesota
8. Minnesota (6-5)
9. Washington (5-6) Better NFC winning pct. than Dallas
10. Dallas (5-6) Better NFC winning pct. than New Orleans
11. New Orleans (5-6)
12. St. Louis (4-6-1)
13. Detroit (4-7) Better NFC winning pct. than Arizona
14. Arizona (4-7)
15. Carolina (3-8) Head to head tiebreaker over Philadelphia
16. Philadelphia (3-8)

Packers currently looking at a road playoff game against the Giants. Still a good chance they avoid that by winning the division though.

Nice work on this post Joemailman.