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Well that’s frustrating. The hapless Chicago Bears fell flat against the Minnesota Vikings on Monday night, losing 17-9 and inadvertently hurting the New Orleans Saints. Having briefly claimed the seventh seed in the NFC playoff standings in their big win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, the Saints needed Chicago to upset the Vikings. That didn’t happen.
While New Orleans and Minnesota share the same 7-7 record at this point in the season, the Vikings have achieved a stronger conference record (5-4) than the Saints (5-5), which breaks the tie. And we aren’t out of the woods yet.
Tuesday night’s game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Football Team, rescheduled due to a series of COVID-19 outbreaks, will further muddy the playoff picture. A Washington win would put them ahead of both the Vikings and the Saints for the seventh seed (owing to their 5-3 NFC record, which would improve to 6-3 with a win against the Eagles). A tie or an Eagles win on the other hand would keep Minnesota in there as the third wild-card seed put them Philadelphia ahead of New Orleans (they’re 4-4 in the NFC, with one of those wins coming against the Saints).
So the chase for that seventh seed is kind of a mess right now — at least we can navigate it thanks to ESPN’s NFL playoff machine. The Saints need an Eagles loss on Tuesday to keep them alive, but it’s tough to see a path forward to a higher spot in the standings. The San Francisco 49ers are 8-6 and hold the sixth seed, while the Los Angeles Rams are 9-4 in the fifth seed. Funny as it would be to see the Buccaneers collapse and open the NFC South back up for the Saints, it just isn’t likely.
New Orleans doesn’t control its own destiny right now, but the mission is the same. They’ve just got to keep stacking up wins and hope another team or two slips up. Maybe that’s enough to get them back in the postseason.
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