The five biggest questions (and answers) for the 2022/23 NFL playoff race:

NFC Wildcard battle - Giants, Commanders, Seahawks & Lions

Who will grab the final two Wild Card berths in the NFC?

Now, for the final question here, let’s establish some ground rules – I’m not going to include teams that are, at least, two games below .500, such as the Packers or any of the NFC South teams, since they would all, most likely, need to go 3-0 and still need some help. Green Bay also has this miracle scenario, where they lose this week at Miami, but win their final two divisional games (including the Lions in Week 18), while Seattle wins no more than one game, along with Washington and Detroit going 0-3. Ties wouldn’t help either. And as long as Washington wins, at least, one of their remaining three contests, none of those other franchises should really come into play, because they’ve beaten the two teams even in contention for this discussion (Packers and Falcons) and their tie would give them a better record than the three teams from the South, who could, at best, finish 8-9 (compared to the Commanders at 8-8-1). The only scenario where any of those teams mentioned become viable in this discussion, other than both Washington and Seattle going win-less the rest of the way, would be a tie between the Panthers and Bucs in week 17, where they both finish at 7-9-1 (or 8-8-1 potentially for the Bucs) and either the Commanders go 0-3 or the Seahawks go 0-2-1.

Enough of the absurdity. Let’s talk about the relevant teams now – the Giants, Commanders, Seahawks and Lions.

With their huge victory at Washington this past Sunday night, the Giants massively boosted their chances of making the playoffs, as Football Outsiders has them with a probability of 89.6% heading into Week 16. Thanks to tieing the Commanders at home two weeks prior, they now hold a 1.5-game lead on both Seattle and Detroit, while even if Washington ends up winning one more game than them the rest of the way, with a tie basically counting as half a win, they’d hold a head-to-head tie-breaker at 1.5-to-0.5. And looking at New York’s remaining schedule, they do have to travel to Minnesota this Saturday (for whatever that’s worth), before they host the dysfunctional Colts and then head to Philadelphia, where the Eagles may be resting several starters, due to having the number one seed wrapped up already.

For Washington, that loss to the Giants obviously makes things a lot harder, as they’re now only half a game up on the two remaining contenders and have a trip to San Francisco on the slate next. However, they get to stay home for the final two weeks – against the Browns and Cowboys, who could once again be resting starters, if they have the fifth-seed secured already. In that case, them using that as a de-facto bye actually makes it even more sense, since they don’t have another week off and risk their players looking rusty, as we’ve seen, at times, in the past. Chase Young supposedly finally being set to come off IR could give them a boost down the stretch.

The Seahawks are the team among these four that clearly have the arrow pointing downward, as they were once 6-3 and have now lost four of their past five contests. The most alarming detail about this stretch has been the fact that they’ve been outgained on the ground in all of those games, by an outrageous average of 139.6(!) yards. They now face a seemingly impossible task, as they travel to Kansas City on Saturday, before staying home for a Jets that, which is still fighting for their playoff lives on the AFC side of the table, and a Rams team, which is already eliminated, but will have nothing to lose and even with backups in the lineup, would certainly love to spoil the party.

And finally, the Lions are the hottest teams of this group, as they’ve flipped their 1-6 start and have now improved all the to 7-7, with a loss on a walk-off field goal by the Bills on Thanksgiving being the only loss during that stretch. They’ve been one of the most balanced and clever-designed offenses in the NFL under OC Ben Johnson, and their defense has been able to create those must-have stops, as they’ve held opponents to scoring on just 34.3% of drives and forced 12 takeaways (compared to only one giveaway outside of the Buffalo game). Detroit is now set to face easily the weakest remaining schedule among these four teams in question, as all three of their opponents (at Panthers, vs. Bears, at Packers) all are, at least, two games below .500 and combine for a winning percentage of just .33.

There are a couple of crazy scenarios, which include multiple ties, but if you read through this carefully, you should get the jist of it. Believe me, some of this nearly broke my brain.

Prediction: 5th seed – Dallas Cowboys (12-5), 6th seed – New York Giants (10-6-1), 7th seed – Detroit Lions (9-8)

Since it would take the Giants going 3-0 the rest of the way, if the Cowboys win just one of their remaining games, I think they’re pretty much locked in for a matchup with whichever flawed team emerges from the NFC South. The Giants should take care of business against the Colts at home and, like I mentioned, could benefit from Philly sitting some of their starters, to secure the sixth seed. And then I believe the Lions, at least, go 2-1, while the Seahawks and Commanders both go 1-2 the rest of the way.

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