UPDATE (7 pm): From ESPN Stats & Info - Consider the circumstances for the Houston Texans to make the playoffs ... they needed to: - Win with Case Keenum making 2nd start of season - Have Ravens lose to QB making 1st NFL start (Connor Shaw - Browns) - Have Chargers lose to QB making his 2nd NFL start (Chase Daniel - Chiefs). And they succeeded in two of those, and were less than a quarter from the Browns winning as well!
The Carolina Panthers did something that's never been done before: repeat as NFC South champs! In fact, for seven consecutive years, the winner of the division had been the team who was LAST the previous season!
Finally, on the fourteen games all the prognosticators agreed on, we picked eleven correctly (we missed the victories by the Jets, Bills, and Panthers). On the two we disagreed on, Vegas got the 49ers victory right (although we hit the right side of the spread) and we got the Eagles win correct.
UPDATE (6:30 mst): So, after a slow start, Seattle looked like the team to beat, scoring 20 unanswered in the second half after Russell Wilson's first scoreless first half as a Seahawk to beat the Rams. Green Bay got the job done against Detroit, although presumptive MVP Aaron Rodgers came up lame throwing a TD pass; he finished the game and will get a welcome week off before hosting a divisional round game (as will New England, Denver, and the Seahawks).
Carolina is most certainly the most threatening 7-8-1 playoff team in NFL history (look it up!) after another strong win, annihilating the favored Falcons 34-3 on enemy turf. Cam Newton and that defense looked superb, and hosting Arizona and its third string QB (losers to San Francisco in Jim Harbaugh's last game as their coach), could very likely be favorites next week!
Speaking of "last game as their coach", Black Monday looks to be as drastic a day in coach firings as we've seen in a long time. Here's our best guess list of teams who may be in the market for a coach, even though it may simply be one of the ones another team just fired: San Francisco (confirmed), Atlanta (we think reasonable and likely), Washington (more likely than we think it should be), Chicago (necessary, IOO), Tampa, St. Louis, and NYGiants (all would be mistakes, we think) in the NFC; Tennessee (probable), NYJets (sounds like a done deal already, thankfully), Miami (ludicrous if it happens), Jacksonville (always a possibility!), and Oakland, who was already on an interim coach. Tony Sporano took over a team that was on a ten game losing streak, and after six games to reform it, went 3-3 over his last six games. We weren't big fans of his first stint, but think he deserves a shot to continue what he's begun there.
2:30 pm) So, when push came to shove, San Diego couldn't get it done after all. After losing 19-7 to Kansas City, who also had a shot at the post season IF, the figurative ball passed to the Baltimore Ravens, who struggled with the third string QB led Cleveland Browns, 20-10, and gave the AFC North THREE teams in the playoffs (along with Cincinnati and Pittsburgh).
How teams treat the last Sunday of the season varies, understandably, with their motivation regarding the playoffs. Of course, teams trying to get into the playoffs or move up a seed have obvious and tangible motivation, and play hard. But teams who were already in and essentially no way to move up or down? For Dallas and Indianapolis, it was business as usual so they would go into the playoffs with momentum - both won easily - while New England took the week off without actually taking the week off, resting five starters for the whole game, and Brady and others the second half despite trailing, and fell to the Buffalo Bills 17-9.
Meanwhile, the situation at the bottom of the world was similar: if you have the worst record, do you try to lose? Tampa Bay didn't, to their credit, and except for a strong fourth quarter by the Saints would've won. None of the bottom teams let up today - Jacksonville and both New York teams played well, while Washington, Tennessee, and Oakland simply played superior opponents today.
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