NFL playoff picture starts to take shape
Realistically, all but five berths are pretty well known after the games of Week 6
Fourteen NFL teams will qualify for the post-season this year, up from the usual 12.
Even with 11 weeks still to play, there's a strong likelihood we already know eight of them. Probably nine, actually.
According to the NFL, 80 per cent of teams since 1990 that began a season with a 4-1 record or better wound up making the playoffs. Entering Monday's doubleheader to wrap up Week 6, the following eight teams were 4-1 or better:
In the NFC, Seattle (5-0), Chicago (5-1) and Green Bay (4-1);
In the AFC, Pittsburgh (5-0), Tennessee (5-0), Baltimore (5-1), Kansas City (4-1) and Buffalo (4-1). The latter two played Monday night.
All division champs receive an automatic playoff berth — yes, even the winner of this season's woebegone NFC East. Dallas is the only team in that division with an offence remotely capable of scoring 30 points in any game, so the Cowboys probably for now ought to be considered the ninth likely playoff participant.
If we presume, for the sake of argument and percentages, that all nine of the above teams will make the playoffs, that leaves five other berths.
Fourteen teams, by record, have the best shots at those five spots. Entering Monday night, seven had two losses, seven had three, as follows:
n Tampa Bay (4-2), Los Angeles Rams (4-2), New Orleans (3-2) and Arizona (3-2) in the NFC, and Indianapolis (4-2), Cleveland (4-2) and Las Vegas (3-2) in the AFC;
n San Francisco (3-3), Carolina (3-3), Detroit (2-3) and aforementioned Dallas (2-3) in the NFC, and Miami (3-3), Denver (2-3) and New England (2-3) in the AFC.
Can you believe we went 262 words into a late-October story about likely NFL playoff participants before mentioning the Patriots?
New England finished Week 6 in third place in the AFC East, with its first losing record through five games since October 2001, Tom Brady's first year as NFL starter. The Pats are now in danger of not making the
playoffs for the first time since 2008, which would end their NFL record of consecutive playoff appearances at 11 years.
Look, there's a lot of football yet to be played in 2020. Occasionally a team that starts poorly, even 1-4, makes the playoffs. None of this
week's 10 one-win or no-win teams looks capable of it.
Playoff-likelihood percentages appear more meaningful than usual this season.
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Most people expected it would take a month or two for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offence to get on track, what
with new quarterback Tom Brady learning a new system. They were right.
What people aren't talking about enough — and which bodes at least as well for the Bucs — is the team's defence.
After Week 6 Sunday games, the Bucs ranked No. 1 in the NFL in yards per game
allowed (282.0), yards per play (4.6), rushing yards per game (64.3), rushing yards per attempt (3.0) and first downs allowed (16.8) — and they're No. 2 in sacks per pass play (22 on 236 drop-backs, or 0.093 per play).
We saw evidence of such statistical mastery on Sunday in Tampa Bay's smashing 38-10 defeat of the previously unbeaten Green Bay Packers.
The Bucs defence, co-ordinated by former New York Jets head coach Todd Bowles, eventually rendered the great Aaron Rodgers harmless. Indeed, Tampa shut out the Pack over the final three quarters, not only limiting Rodgers to just 8-of-23 passing for 53 yards, but coming just a few feet short of twice pick-sixing him in the second quarter.
All this after Rodgers and the Packers looked supreme in jumping out to a 10-0 lead. The turnaround was no fluke. These Bucs are talented at all three levels on defence. And they're very well coached.
“We made great adjustments on the sideline,” Bucs head coach Bruce Arians said Monday of the second-quarter pancake-flip. “It was just a matter of letting loose, not being afraid to make a mistake and just go play.”
Jamel Dean is looking like the league's next great cornerback. The way he eyed Rodgers then jumped on his short sideline pass to star receiver Davante Adams was one gem of an elite play.
Pro Bowl linebacker Lavonte David aptly summed up the performance: “We just took control of the game.”
If the Bucs can do THAT to a team that had been 4-0, and to a QB and offence that had been THAT prolific, well, the rest of the NFL must be more than a little concerned.
And get this. The Bucs prospectively got even better AFTER the game.
In a Sunday night trade they acquired one of the New York Jets' best defenders, nose tackle Steve McLendon. The trade won't become official until McLendon passes a physical.
He'd effectively replace Vita Vea, who's done for the year with a broken ankle, suffered two Thursdays ago in Chicago.
The Bucs enter Week 7 in first place in the NFC South, with a 4-2 record. The Saints, coming off a bye, are 3-2 — and appear to have blown their big chance to get a comfortable little lead in the division, before these Bucs got rolling. — on both sides of the ball now.