Posts tagged with “new orleans saints playoff odds”

Can the Falcons turn a losing record into a playoff berth?

Wednesday, 26 November, 2014

Things are going from bad to worse in the NFL. Just four years after the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks became the first team in history to get to the playoffs holding a losing record, we could see the first 10-loss playoff team this year. All members of the awful NFC South have losing records, but despite how bad they’ve been this season, they still have a chance to make it to the playoffs.

If the season ended today, the 4-7 Atlanta Falcons would be in the playoffs and they are on pace to win just six games. The Falcons are listed as betting long shots to win the Super Bowl listed at +10,000 at most online sports betting sites.

To make things even more ridiculous, not only the Falcons could make the playoffs at 6-10 as NFC South champions, they would host a first-round playoff game against a Wild Card team that is likely to have 10 or 11 wins. Just one game behind the 4-5 Saints, the Falcons own a division-best 3-0 mark with one victory over New Orleans and two against the floating Bucs.

If that really happens, Atlanta would become just the second team in league lore to make the playoffs after losing five straight tilts during the regular season.That would be an embarrasement for the NFL, but will open the chance to analyze and implement the playoff format that the head of the competition committee has been proposing for years.

NFL’s head of the competition committee, Rich McKay, has made several tries to change the playoff format. The changes suggested include the fact that teams that play during the first weekend of playoff games (seeds 3-6) are seeded according to their regular season records and tiebreakers, regardless of whether they are a division champion or a Wild Card team.
A 6-10 playoff teams, or even worse, a 5-11 playoff team which is still possible, is probably what we need to get the number of votes needed to make bring some changes to the NFL.