Week 16 Weirdness and its indeterminate aftermath left a still-unresolved playoff picture heading into Sunday’s Week 17 regular-season finales, with the last two AFC playoff teams and the second first-round bye in the NFC still unknown.
Minnesota, Baltimore, New Orleans, the New York Giants, and Miami all blew Week 16 chances to advance or maintain playoff hopes, putting must-win imperatives on Week 17 action. Baltimore, which had a lock on an AFC berth, self-destructed in Pittsburgh last week when it had three touchdowns called back. Fortunately for the Ravens, Denver and the Dolphins also lost, enabling Baltimore to have one more crack at it this past Sunday at Oakland. The Ravens finally got the win they needed, and they’re in.
Talk about lucky. The New York Jets drew league-leading Indianapolis and division-leading Cincinnati for its last two regular-season games. There’s nothing ordinarily lucky about having to face top-tier teams to finish the season, but the Jets caught a most fortunate break: both the Colts and Bengals had earlier secured playoff spots and thus began resting their regulars, giving the playoff-pumped New Yorkers a far easier path than if they’d been playing those teams at full strength. The above notwithstanding, the Jets looked mighty tough in their dominance of the Bengals Sunday night.
And then there was the late-season swoon by the season-long No. 2 NFC team, Minnesota. Sound familiar? It should. It could have been a nightmarish mirror reflection of Brett Favre’s late-season collapse last year with the Jets, when four straight losses killed New York’s promising playoff run. The Vikings had lost three in a row prior to meeting the Giants in the season finale Sunday. As it turned out, the Vikings won handily, but some late-season mediocrity spawns questions about their overall playoff strength. If Favre is off his game, forget it.
With homefield advantage throughout, the Saints are another team heading south at the wrong time, having lost their final three games. Admittedly, with many of its first stringers out against Carolina, New Orleans limited its fight against the Panthers. Still, they’ve picked a bad time to go cold.
And who would have guessed from last year’s two Super Bowl teams that it would be Pittsburgh failing to repeat as a postseason entrant?
ANGLING FOR THE CORNER: In a true playoff oddity, three games will be played next weekend featuring teams that had just gone head to head to complete the regular season Sunday: Philadelphia, a huge loser to Dallas, again heads back to Texas to face the Cowboys; Green Bay, a dominant winner over the Cardinals, returns to Phoenix for the second straight week to battle Arizona; and the Jets, big winners over the Bengals at the Meadowlands, now get to visit Cincinnati for the rematch…Both my preseason Super Bowl picks, Baltimore and Minnesota, are in the playoffs, but if I were to offer a revised pick based on the just-completed season, I might be swayed to select San Diego vs. either Dallas or Green Bay.
Alan Ross is the author of 32 books, including Away from the Ball: The NFL’s Off-the-Field Heroes. E-mail him at: alanross_sports@yahoo.com
© Sportland 2010
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