There are solely 5 critical Super Bowl contenders left on this season — six in case you depend the Minnesota Vikings, although you actually shouldn’t.
The Buffalo Bills (9-3), Cincinnati Bengals (8-4), Dallas Cowboys (9-3), Philadelphia Eagles (11-1) and Kansas City (9-3) are the N.F.L.’s greatest groups by any significant measure. All 5 are solid-to-spectacular on each offense and protection, and, crucially, all are wholesome sufficient to play nicely down the stretch.
Beyond the Fab Five, nevertheless, the playoff area is overcrowded with battered or underqualified candidates. And the Vikings.
The San Francisco 49ers (8-4) would rank among the many critical contenders if not for Jimmy Garoppolo breaking his foot final week, an harm that ended his common season. With a protection that enables a league-low 283.9 yards per recreation and an offense constructed round speeding and micro-passing, the 49ers function on quarterback autopilot. Unfortunately, until Garoppolo can return within the playoffs, the rookie backup Brock Purdy — the workforce’s third starter this season — might be tasked with touchdown the workforce throughout a thunderstorm.
Purdy poked simply sufficient buttons for the 49ers to beat the Dolphins (8-4) final week, revealing Miami’s offense as a precision-tuned sports activities automotive able to exceeding 200 miles per hour and of bursting into flames if a mud mote will get below the hood.
The Baltimore Ravens (8-4) had been additionally on oddsmakers’ Super Bowl shortlist earlier than Lamar Jackson’s Week 13 knee harm. Jackson is simply anticipated to overlook just a few weeks, however the Ravens are additionally probability-defying catastrophe artists who’ve misplaced three video games this season during which they entered the fourth quarter forward by two scores. If the Ravens have to convert a fourth-and-inches sneak to stave off an opponent’s late-game rally within the playoffs, their huddle will in all probability be struck by lightning.
The Seattle Seahawks (7-5) have been a nice shock however lack the sheer expertise required to outlive the playoff gantlet. The Seahawks might be compelled to accept the “We Won the Russell Wilson Trade” trophy, which comes bundled with a 2023 first-round decide: not a nasty comfort prize.
The A.F.C. South is like a kind of faculty basketball conferences stuffed with tiny divinity colleges, and the Tennessee Titans (7-5) are its perennial champions who earn an automated match bid solely to get walloped by Duke. The Eagles beat the Titans, 35-10, final week, underscoring the distinction between true contenders and groups constructed to defeat the Houston Texans.
The N.F.C. South is filled with mismanaged and financially hamstrung groups, permitting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (6-6) to remain atop the standings with tight protection and residual glints of Tom Brady sorcery. The Buccaneers will clinch the division until the Atlanta Falcons (5-8) take pleasure in a surge. In different phrases, the Buccaneers have clinched the division.
The New England Patriots (6-6) stay within the playoff image out of a way of custom, regardless of an offense cribbed from the 1968 version of “Junior Varsity Strategies for Sluggish Lads.” Many opponents nonetheless give up on sight to the Patriots as a consequence of 20 years of Pavlovian conditioning, which is all that must be stated concerning the Jets (7-5).
The Los Angeles Chargers (6-6), coming off a loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, are higher at producing Justin Herbert viral-video highlights than victories.
The playoff chase has grown so dreary that when the Giants (7-4-1) and Washington Commanders (7-5-1) confronted off in what amounted to a winner-takes-all duel for a wild-card berth, neither workforce received. Nothing indicators mutual unworthiness fairly like a 20-20 tie.
Finally, there are the baffling Vikings (10-2), who can clinch the N.F.C. North with a win over the Detroit Lions on Sunday. The Vikings offense ranks nineteenth within the N.F.L. in yards per recreation (335.8), and the protection provides up the league’s second-most yards per recreation (398.7) — not precisely the statistical profile of a Super Bowl front-runner. The Vikings are the anti-Ravens, typically successful on last-second fumbles, a number of goal-line stands, fortuitous replay evaluations or meteor showers.
The Cowboys and Eagles beat the Vikings by a mixed 64-10 rating of their conferences, illustrating how far the Vikings’ luck ought to carry the workforce within the postseason.
With 5 official powerhouses jockeying for 14 playoff spots, the N.F.L. could have a tough time manufacturing drama over the remainder of the regular-season schedule. Outside of a handful of marquee matchups, compelling matchups are in brief provide, whereas probably blowouts and all-but-meaningless contests might be considerable.
A primary-round bye within the N.F.C. could also be on the road when the Eagles go to the Cowboys on Christmas Eve. The Bengals host the Bills and Ravens in Weeks 17 and 18, matchups that can finalize the A.F.C. seeding.
Otherwise, the late-season broth is moderately skinny:
The Chargers host the Dolphins on Sunday night time in a recreation extra more likely to generate tiresome Justin Herbert vs. Tua Tagovailoa talk-show arguments than playoff readability.
The Giants and Commanders sq. off once more in Week 15. While most video games with playoff implications are “flexed” into prime time TV home windows, the networks could flex this rematch to Wednesday at 4 a.m., pre-empting the soybean report.
The Seahawks host the 49ers on Thursday night time in Week 15: As all specialists predicted within the preseason, the N.F.C. West will come all the way down to a duel between Brock Purdy and Geno Smith.
There are additionally loads of video games involving groups which can be nonetheless alive, no less than mathematically, together with the Lions, Green Bay Packers, Las Vegas Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers. The Indianapolis Colts (4-8-1) fired their head coach a month in the past and misplaced, 54-19, to the Cowboys on Sunday night time, but the Times’s Playoff Predictor provides the workforce a 1 to 2 p.c probability of reaching the postseason. Their Week 15 assembly with the Vikings, lopsided and uninteresting as it seems to be on paper, could nicely have “playoff implications” for each groups.
The N.F.L. expanded the playoffs to 14 groups in 2020 exactly in order that followers of four-win groups might dream of wild-card berths in mid-December and that Giants-Commanders ties could be consequential. The high 5 contenders are simply a lot stronger (and more healthy) than the sector this 12 months that it makes the ultimate 5 weeks of the season really feel perfunctory.
Could we please simply skip forward to the Eagles-Cowboys and Bengals-or-Bills-or-Kansas City convention championship video games?
No, that might not be truthful to the still-determined 49ers, snakebit Ravens, stunning Seahawks, entertaining Dolphins, Brady-led Buccaneers, hungry-for-affirmation Jets and Giants or some other playoff hopefuls.
As for the Vikings, they need to take pleasure in each second of this charmed common season whereas it lasts.
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