551
Latest from the Commodore64. Usual caveats with the numbers and I don't factor in tie-games as a possibility into the calculations. Apologies to the vocal group that doesn't like some of my 3-letter abbreviations.
- PHI, SFF, DET, DAL, MIN could all lose out and still make the playoffs. Other than PHI, the others shouldn't bank on that as a credible strategy.
- ATL, CAR, TBB, CHI, GBP, NYG, and LAR could mathematically sneak in with 6 wins. NOS, WAS, ARI, and SEA need at least 7 to have any kind of chance.
- If TBB wins out to reach 10 wins they're in, which is the lowest "assured" number of any team. C64 says ATL, NOS, and MIN need 11 wins to avoid any chance of being left out. DET, DAL, PHI, SFF, and SEA look like they need 12.
- CAR, CHI, GBP, NYG, WAS, LAR, and ARI do not control their own destiny.
- The "reasonable" win number that has decent chances of making the playoffs is 9, although 8 is waiting in the shadows to takeover the most likely status.
- Computer projections for wins likely to be good enough to take the divisions (i.e. roughly 2nd place + 1W or winning tiebreaker) are: NFC East 13 wins, North 10 wins, South 8-9 wins, West 10-11 wins.
- Looks like the Eagles clinch a spot this week with a win and a Rams loss. I penciled it out since that seemed weird that a Rams loss would matter as PHI beat them earlier and it looks like without the Rams losing, the possibilitiy would remain of a multi-team tie for all the wildcard spots occuring with the Rams winning the multi-team tiebreaker before h2h with the Eagles became relevant. At least that's the answer I'm going with because my head now hurts after trying to pencil it out.
- Panthers and Cardinals eliminated from contention with losses.
- My subjective analysis says get to 10 wins to be safe with 8 wins having at least moderate hope. Using that criteria, I have PHI (duh), SFF, DET, and DAL being "realistically in" as they could play Chargers football and still get there, and I have CAR, ARI, CHI, WAS, NYG as being "realistically out" as even 8 wins is either impossible for some or a tall order for the rest.
- For the teams in the middle of the fight, as in not on my realistically in or out lists above, there are four intra-conference games this week (SEA v DAL, DET v NOS, CAR v TBB, SFF v PHI), and the following outcomes would be the most beneficial to the non-combatant contenders as shown: Everyone better off with a DAL win over SEA; Everyone better off with a CAR win over TBB; LAR & SEA better off with a NOS win over DET, everyone else better off with a DET win; Computer says ATL better off with a SFF win over PHI and everyone else better off with a PHI win. I wasn't going to argue with the C64 on why that is for ATL.