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I've been saying that I don't pay a lot of attention to playoff scenarios until after the Thanksgiving weekend games. Well, here we are.

If the season were to end today, the NFC playoff seeding would look like this: 1-Saints 10-2, 2-Seahawks 10-2, 3-Packers 9-3, 4-Cowboys 6-6, 5-Niners 10-2, 6-Vikings 8-4.

To get the #1 seed and HFA through the playoffs, we essentially need to win our last four remaining games (at Rams, at Panthers, vs. Cards, vs. Niners) while the Saints need to lose at least one of their remaining games (vs. Niners, vs. Colts, at Titans, at Panthers). The Saints own the first tiebreaker by virtue of their win against us back in September.

With our win vs. the Vikings last night and the Niners loss to the Ravens, we have the luxury of being able to lose a game and still insure us of still playing a division deciding game against the Niners in Week 17, so we all need to become 49'ers fans next Sunday if we hope to get HFA. If the Niners lose, it gives us an even greater advantage for the division title and a first round bye, so it's sort of a win-win. A tie would be the best of both worlds.

If we were to lose a game and the Packers were to win out and tie us for the #2 seed, the first relevant tiebreaker will be best winning percentage vs. common opponents. Our common opponents with Green Bay are the Vikings, Eagles, Niners, and Panthers. We are currently 3-0 with games against the Panthers and Niners remaining. Green Bay is 2-2 with a game vs. the Vikings. That places more importance on our game vs. the Panthers in two weeks.

Versus the Vikings, we have essentially a 3 game lead with 4 to play over them as if we were to tie with them for a playoff seed, our win last night earned us the first tiebreaker.

If we were to lose our Week 17 game to the Niners and tie for the division championship, the first tiebreaker to break a tie within a division is W/L percentage within the division. Currently our record stands at 3-0 with games against the Rams, Cards, and Niners left to play. The Niners have a 3-1 record with games against the Rams and the finale with us. The third tiebreaker is common opponents, and the only loss both teams have against a common opponent is the Ravens. All remaining games on both teams schedules feature common opponents.

So a lot could happen, but at least we know who to root for from one weekend to the next. Bottom line is that we're in a very good position for at least a first round bye providing we can win the division. If not, say hello to a #5 seed.

Pretty complicated.

According to PFT, the Seahawks can clinch a playoff spot with a win or tie this week.
After that, it becomes more complicated again with possible combinations of playoff slotting.

One possibility that I hadn't thought of until now. If we win the rest of our games up to Week 17, and if the Niners lose to the Saints but win the rest of their games ahead of our Week 17 meeting, we could already have the division wrapped up even if we lose to the 49'ers.

The reason is that we would have split our season series, tied with the same division and conference records, and had the same record vs. common opponents. That would take the tiebreaker down to strength of victory.

The only two games in which we did not have an opponent in common with the Niners are the Vikings and Eagles for us, and the Packers and Redskins for the Niners. If the Vikings and Eagles combined winning percentage is better than the Packers and Redskins, then under the above scenario, we would get the division title.

So...if the Niners are losing to the Saints Sunday, we should be rooting for the Vikings and Eagles to win and the Packers and Skins to lose.

The 49ers need to beat the Saints, while we take care of business in LA -- Once we're in the #1 Conference position, we can worry about all the other scenarios as they arise, including week #17 against the 49ers. Imagine playing for #1 or #5/6 on the last day of the season. That's what it's all about.

For some reason I thought we played the Packers. If we beat the Rams, Panthers and Cardinals should be fairly easy wins as long as we don't lay an egg with only the 49ers being tough. The Rams concern me because they have nothing to lose, nothing to gain and they just want to play spoilers at this point with a bunch of talent.

jshawaii22 wrote:The 49ers need to beat the Saints, while we take care of business in LA -- Once we're in the #1 Conference position, we can worry about all the other scenarios as they arise, including week #17 against the 49ers. Imagine playing for #1 or #5/6 on the last day of the season. That's what it's all about.

Like I said before, the best of both worlds regarding the Niners-Saints would be for the two teams to tie, which would effectively be the same thing as both teams losing. But barring that improbability, I agree that we should be rooting for the Niners to take down the Saints. New Orleans' remaining schedule doesn't look all that imposing, with the only game against a team with a winning record being the Titans at 7-5.

The other thing I was looking at was the possibility that our game with the Niners could get flexed into Prime Time. They have intentionally left Week 17 open and will flex the game with the most impact on the playoffs. The Week 17 lineup has a whole bunch of uninspiring duds, the best being the Titans vs. Texans and Ravens vs. Steelers.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/09/03/nfl-s ... e-rankings

I'm not sure how the rules regarding networks being able to protect games goes along with the other flex procedures and if they apply in Week 17, but at least on paper and as it stands now, our matchup with the Niners would be by far the most attractive game in that lineup.

A Saints - Niners tie would be cool

Obviously we are in a nice position. For me the ideal situation would be for us to have the division and at least the #2 seed wrapped up before week 17. The difference between the 5 seed and the 2 seed is much greater than the difference between the 1 and 2, so for me I'm rooting for the Saints in a close one (obviously a tie would be best but extremely unlikely). Another thing to think about would be who the Wild Card teams will be. If ever there was a year that a 3-6 seed could upset a 1 or 2 seed it is this year. If we are a #2 the Niners, Pack, or Vikings could go into Who Dat Nation and win (they could also come into the CLINK and win), which would put us in a position to host the NFCCG. The main thing we should be rooting for is a first round bye!

mykc14 wrote:Obviously we are in a nice position. For me the ideal situation would be for us to have the division and at least the #2 seed wrapped up before week 17. The difference between the 5 seed and the 2 seed is much greater than the difference between the 1 and 2, so for me I'm rooting for the Saints in a close one (obviously a tie would be best but extremely unlikely). Another thing to think about would be who the Wild Card teams will be. If ever there was a year that a 3-6 seed could upset a 1 or 2 seed it is this year. If we are a #2 the Niners, Pack, or Vikings could go into Who Dat Nation and win (they could also come into the CLINK and win), which would put us in a position to host the NFCCG. The main thing we should be rooting for is a first round bye!

There's a school of thought that says that you worry about winning your division first and let playoff seeding take care of itself. If we were to lose a game or two before Week 17, we might have second thoughts about rooting for the Saints. It all depends on your POV.

No matter how you look at it, it's a fun time of the year as there's a legitimate interest in a lot of games that could impact our destiny. It would be nice if the Packers would lose again so as to help us with achieving that first round bye, and we want to root for the Vikings and Eagles to win and Redskins to lose to help with our strength of victory tiebreaker should it come down to that.

Aseahawkfan wrote:For some reason I thought we played the Packers. If we beat the Rams, Panthers and Cardinals should be fairly easy wins as long as we don't lay an egg with only the 49ers being tough. The Rams concern me because they have nothing to lose, nothing to gain and they just want to play spoilers at this point with a bunch of talent.

Rams are only 1 game out of the playoffs, thanks to our win over Minny so i wouldn't exactly say they have 'nothing to lose'. I caught some of the game against AZ that the Rams demolished them and if they play like that, this will be anything but a gimme. They played like the SB team of a year ago. We better play like its for the playoffs.

Aseahawkfan wrote:For some reason I thought we played the Packers. If we beat the Rams, Panthers and Cardinals should be fairly easy wins as long as we don't lay an egg with only the 49ers being tough. The Rams concern me because they have nothing to lose, nothing to gain and they just want to play spoilers at this point with a bunch of talent.

jshawaii22 wrote:Rams are only 1 game out of the playoffs, thanks to our win over Minny so i wouldn't exactly say they have 'nothing to lose'. I caught some of the game against AZ that the Rams demolished them and if they play like that, this will be anything but a gimme. They played like the SB team of a year ago. We better play like its for the playoffs.

Yea, that idiot Ramblow was too stupid to realize that had the Vikings beat us last Monday that it could have been the nail in their coffin. They still have to go 3-1 down the stretch to have a legitimate shot at a wild card.

Tonight's game, although not exactly a marquee matchup, has playoff implications for both teams as well as job security issues for their head coaches.

I think the job security issue for Garrett has already been decided.

jshawaii22 wrote:Rams are only 1 game out of the playoffs, thanks to our win over Minny so i wouldn't exactly say they have 'nothing to lose'. I caught some of the game against AZ that the Rams demolished them and if they play like that, this will be anything but a gimme. They played like the SB team of a year ago. We better play like its for the playoffs.

Let's hope the stress of a must win sinks them against us then. I'd be fine with it.

c_hawkbob wrote:I think the job security issue for Garrett has already been decided.

After the Cowboys got their arses kicked last night, the second in 7 days and have now lost 4 of their last 5 games, Garrett is squarely on the hot seat. If they don't make the playoffs, he'll be one of the first to go.

Along with the Browns, the Cowboys are one of the biggest under achievers of the 2019 season.

No team especially Sea are about to do any clinching in our house

How bout them Ducks, hawks will be playing roll of Utes tomm

“Shut up.” Directly from my 6-year-old, no I wasn’t even going to write that but it’s too classic!

Btw you’re from Missouri so “our house” is still in St. Louis☺️ Why don’t you go on some Rando ram for him and quit harassing first place team? Hope you enjoyed your window, it will be over tomorrow

Rambo2014 wrote:No team especially Sea are about to do any clinching in our house

How bout them Ducks, hawks will be playing roll of Utes tomm

Spell check is your friend.

Damn, the NFL is fun this year. 49er's vs Saints was a great game of football.
We just win today and we are Masters of our own destiny! NFC Conference #1 is on the line in LA.

I see no way the hawks are going to beat either the Niners or the Saints in any playoff game.

Rams will overtake any as hawks lay a big stinker tonite

rams 42
Sea 6

jshawaii22 wrote:Damn, the NFL is fun this year. 49er's vs Saints was a great game of football.
We just win today and we are Masters of our own destiny! NFC Conference #1 is on the line in LA.

I'm just hoping that the Niners beating the Saints today wasn't a case of "be careful of what you wish for, you might get it!" The Niners winning today keeps the pressure on us. We need to win out as if we don't, we could sink all the way to a 5 seed.

Looking ahead, our competition in the next two games looks to be having their problems. Carolina looks like they're imploding after Rivera got fired and Cam's future being uncertain. They got beat by one of the worst teams in the league by 3 TD's. The Cards are down by 2 scores to the Steelers in the 4th, and if that holds, it will be their 6th loss in a row. I'm not suggesting that those games are going to be gimmes, but it does bode well for us that it coincides with our playing at our peak.

ROTFLMAO

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

told ya

Go f yourself Ramblow

I hate to admit it but Rambo was correct. The Rams laid a big stinker on the Seahawks tonight.

Hawks only good dimension tonight was the punting. Everything else looked very uninspired. They looked flat to me and the Rams looked like the pre SB team of last year.

Well I think it was River's fault, he thought we would win by 2 TD's.

Seriously, the Rams are too late, we win the next two easy, then it comes down to the last game. No predictions. That will decide everything for us.

obiken wrote:Well I think it was River's fault, he thought we would win by 2 TD's.

Seriously, the Rams are too late, we win the next two easy, then it comes down to the last game. No predictions. That will decide everything for us.

Yea, I didn't see that one coming. That was our worst overall performance in the past 2 years. I'm expecting a new 82" TV to be delivered this morning and I'm thankful that I didn't receive it earlier and jinx it by breaking it in on a sorry game like what we saw last night.

But it's not the end of the world. We need Sis to start a thread with the title "10-3 is a disaster." The loss meant that we have to win our last 3 games in order to get a first round bye and hope that the Saints and Packers lose at least one of their remaining games if we are to secure HFA.

If we fail to get the NFC west and are seeded in #5 or #6 I would think IF we get to the NFC title game. ( A huge "IF" given last night) I would think the preference would be to play at Santa Clara rather than NO.

I am not too concerned as all of this is a bonus. Prior to the season I would have been thrilled with 9-7 and now we can still be 13-3 or 12-4

I was nervous coming into the game after watching the beating the Rams laid on the Cardinals and my fears were more than realized, That was a beating. No Russ magic, dropped passes, no protection, losing penney (ugh) defense back to ground zero other than the 2 picks which were wasted. Bad. Lets face it every game was a must win for the Rams, we derailed their season earlier in seattle and they were just far better prepared and motivated. Seattle's recent play of fits and starts and doing just enough wasn't close to good enough against a team that was razor sharp.

That said if seatte can run the next 2 and they should be favored in both they can enter week 17 with a chance to win the division although Im not betting a plug nickel on them sweeping the 9ers. Not saying they can't but that team is hot, so much for game manager Jimmy G. meanwhile I gotta say it again, our boy Russ is slumping. Picks in 4 straight games now. It's still rare that they enter the 4th quarter with no real chance or fail to score a TD on offense. I hate to say it but 10-6 is still mathematically possible.

I didn't expect us to win more than 10 games this year, so it's a bonus.
Most teams don't win 8 road games, and we were coming off of 2 emotional wins
so we were ripe to come out flat. Shaquille Griffin said something to the effect that
they can't afford to just waltz into the game and expect to win, so this may be a
good thing in the long run.

I still think we are a couple of players away from being a real SB contender. Fate
might just hand us another chance this year if the cards all fall in our direction,
but we have some obvious problems at the moment. The Penny loss might end
up being huge if he's out for the rest of the year.

Hawktawk wrote: That said if seatte can run the next 2 and they should be favored in both they can enter week 17 with a chance to win the division although Im not betting a plug nickel on them sweeping the 9ers. Not saying they can't but that team is hot, so much for game manager Jimmy G. meanwhile I gotta say it again, our boy Russ is slumping. Picks in 4 straight games now. It's still rare that they enter the 4th quarter with no real chance or fail to score a TD on offense. I hate to say it but 10-6 is still mathematically possible.

Russell's pretty much taken himself out of the running for MVP. I don't think the MVP talk is a problem either for Russell or the team, but you never know. Perhaps last night was a wake-up call. Nearly everyone under performed.

It was obvious to me that last night the RAMS were the more motivated team, just judging by the energy output disparity.

Having said that, our defense also had some key injuries to starters that either kept them out or limited their effectiveness. It also seems to me that Lockett is still not up to snuff.

trents wrote:It was obvious to me that last night the RAMS were the more motivated team, just judging by the energy output disparity.

Having said that, our defense also had some key injuries to starters that either kept them out or limited their effectiveness. It also seems to me that Lockett is still not up to snuff.

River and I have been right and wrong on games, what I found amusing is when he said a couple of TD's? When do we ever beat teams by 14? We don't find ways to keep games close, we are Grandmasters at it! Gurley looks way better, which is everything for them. I still think that they are too far behind. I actually think we steamroll the next two opponents, which locks up the playoffs. IF the Panther game was at the Clink it would be a wipe out, I still think we win because they have packed it in, but its the NFL, who knows.

Russell's pretty much taken himself out of the running for MVP. I don't think the MVP talk is a problem either for Russell or the team, but you never know. Perhaps last night was a wake-up call. Nearly everyone under performed.

Donald and Mathews are the most committed Wilson stoppers of all time, now they are on the same team. We just got too far behind.

Russell's pretty much taken himself out of the running for MVP. I don't think the MVP talk is a problem either for Russell or the team, but you never know. Perhaps last night was a wake-up call. Nearly everyone under performed.

obiken wrote:Donald and Mathews are the most committed Wilson stoppers of all time, now they are on the same team. We just got too far behind.

More than likely, we won't have to worry about the Rams until next season. They pretty much have to run the table and get some help if they are to make the playoffs. But they can pay us back for the charitable act we gifted them by beating the Niners in two weeks.

I will be beyond disgusted if Sea makes it to the playoffs after the beating we gave em.

Most you will do is a WC and go get yours asses pounded in Dallas again

River, what happens IF we beat the Cards Sun, the 9ers lose to the Rams, then we lose to the 9ers?

obiken wrote:River, what happens IF we beat the Cards Sun, the 9ers lose to the Rams, then we lose to the 9ers?

We win the division and probably the 2 seed.

c_hawkbob wrote:
We win the division and probably the 2 seed.

Yep, we could wrap up the division this weekend!! On another note it doesn't matter what happens we will still have a chance to win the division after this weekend- even if we lose and the niners win. We're in a pretty good situation- worst case scenario after this weekend is that we are playing at home with a chance to win the division (although it would be nice to know we have the division wrapped up by next Sunday evening!).

obiken wrote:River, what happens IF we beat the Cards Sun, the 9ers lose to the Rams, then we lose to the 9ers?

Under the above scenario, we will have split the season series with the Niners, have the same division record (4-2), the same conference record (9-3), and the same record against common opponents (we lost to the Saints, Niners lost to the Falcons, and both of us will have lost to the Ravens and Rams). The next tiebreaker would be strength of victory. The teams that Niners beat that either beat us or that we did not play are the Saints (11 wins if they win tonight), the Packers (11), and Redskins (3), for a total of 25 wins. Teams we beat that the Niners didn't are the Falcons (5), Vikings(10), and Eagles (7), or 22 wins. All of our other wins have come against teams that the Niners also beat.

By my estimation, assuming the Saints win tonight, the Niners have a 3 game lead on us in the strength of victory tiebreaker with 6 games left to play, meaning that we need to root for the Saints, Packers, and Redskins to lose and for the Vikings, Eagles, and Falcons to win. In other words, I don't think it's possible that we can wrap up the division next weekend.

Here's the tiebreaking procedures:

https://www.nfl.com/standings/tiebreakingprocedures

Cbob and Mykc, feel free to double check my logic. It's pretty complicated.

RiverDog wrote:
Cbob and Mykc, feel free to double check my logic. It's pretty complicated.

I just used the playoff machine- had Rams beat niners, Hawks beat Cards, and then niners beat Hawks in week 17. That scenario gave us the division due to Hawks having best win percentage in common games.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/playoffs/machine

On another note no matter what else happens, we need to be Green Bay fans. As long as we are tied with the Saints and Packers we get the #1 seed because Head-to-Head is taken out... Come on Hawks and Packers!!!