The NFL playoff landscape
The first game of Week 16, the antepenultimate week of the regular season, was played, and despite the fact that it was a game with two teams in the provisional postseason picture — one for each conference — the seeding was little changed by the result.
The Tennessee Titans (10-5) beat the San Francisco 49ers (8-7) at home to open the day on Thursday night, taking advantage of a brilliant second half. That means it’s time to go back and see how the standings in each conference stack up, momentarily, with 15 games left in the day’s schedule.
American Conference
With the win over the Niners, the Titans became the second team in the American Conference to reach double digits in wins, following the Kansas City Chiefs (10-4).
The win momentarily moved them up one spot in the AFC standings over the New England Patriots (9-5), who in turn dropped to third place. The rest of the conference remained unchanged.
With the change of position between the Titans and Pats, the Wild Card Round matchups in the AFC will be arranged as follows for now:
The Buffalo Bills (8-6) would visit the Titans, in a repeat of a Week 6 matchup that Tennessee won, 34-31. The Los Angeles Chargers (8-6) would pack coats to make the trip to Foxborough, where they would again face the Pats, to whom they succumbed in Week 8, 27-24. The Indianapolis Colts (8-6) would visit the Cincinnati Bengals (8-6), in the only unprecedented meeting for the first round of the American postseason.
Meanwhile, the Chiefs are awaiting the results of the Wild Card Round to know their opponent in the Divisional Round.
National Conference
Meanwhile, the Niners’ loss does not alter the NFC standings.
The Green Bay Packers (11-3) remain with the best record in the league and the first place in the conference standings.
The Dallas Cowboys (10-4) are in second place as leaders of the NFC East, followed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (10-4) in the NFC South and the Arizona Cardinals (10-4) in the West, all with identical records.
The most important change brought about by the Niners’ stumble in Nashville was that it mathematically qualified Dallas for the postseason, joining Green Bay as the only two teams in the entire NFL with a guaranteed playoff berth.
The best Wild Card in the conference, at the moment, would be the Los Angeles Rams (10-4), who temporarily remain below Arizona by tie-breaker criteria. In this same sector, the 49ers retain the second wild card ticket despite having stumbled in Nashville, but their record now stands at 8-7, within reach of several other teams in the hunt in the National League.
The last ticket for this side of the bracket is currently in the hands of the Minnesota Vikings (7-7).
According to this order, the Wild Card Round games in the National League would be as follows: Vikings would travel to Dallas, Niners would visit Bucs, and the Rams would face the Cards for the third time, after splitting wins in the regular season. The other two games would be played for the first time in the current campaign.
Green Bay would be waiting to see how the Wild Card Round winners qualify for the Divisional Round to find out who would visit them at Lambeau Field.
The eliminated
We remain with five teams eliminated from postseason contention, as we wrapped up the previous day.
Those five teams are the Chicago Bears (4-10) and Detroit Lions (2-11-1) in the NFC, and Houston Texans (3-11), Jacksonville Jaguars (2-12) and New York Jets in the AFC (3-11).
That said, our list of teams already thinking about what 2022 holds, and who will have a free schedule throughout most of January and early February, can grow exponentially in Week 16.
Where we can talk about a place at the top is in the order of selections in the upcoming draft, where the Jags lead the inside lane to pick with the first overall pick for the second year in a row.
