The NFL playoff picture remains fluid as we get set for the final week of the season on Sunday (there are no Thursday or Monday games for this week, it’s a full 16-game Sunday). The following remains up in the air…
There’s a theory floating around NFL fandom and the media that says homefield advantage in the playoffs no longer matters—or at the very least is no more than an incidental edge. We can give our main thanks to Eli Manning for this theory, and to a lesser extent to Aaron Rodgers. Over the last five years, Eli’s Giants and Aaron’s Pack have won a combined three Super Bowls coming out of the first round, with a road record of 8-0. Conversely, those same quarterbacks have each seen their team lose in the second round as #1 seeds (2008 Giants, 2011 Packers). So is the theory true? Is getting to the dance all that matters, or is there still something to be said for favorable seeding?
The AFC North I was expecting to see all year long showed up in a big way on Sunday. This division has been better than I expected—I thought 9-7 would win it, and there wouldn’t be any wild-card teams. As it stands, it will likely be double-digit wins to take first place and in all likelihood the final wild-card spot comes from this division. But Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati all managed to come up small in big situations.
Baltimore is an ugly 9-2. They have two narrow escapes against Cleveland. They beat Kansas City without scoring a touchdown. They barely escaped Dallas at home. Their win over Pittsburgh came without Ben Roethlisberger and still required a special teams touchdown. And now this escape in San Diego. John Harbaugh’s team has nothing to suggest its Super Bowl-caliber, yet they are the #2 seed based on current standings and with most of their key games of December at home,
TheSportsNotebook’s exit polling suggests they will hold on to that status. Here’s how I’d see the AFC playoffs shaking out. Please note these are not what currently holds, but as the title of the article suggests, they are projections…