Bye in the playoffs
 

Anybody decipher what the Seahawk loss means to the Saints' chance at a bye?

The Saints hold the tiebreaker with both Dallas and Seattle. If Dalllas wins out, we have to win 2 out of 3 to clinch the number 2 seed. With Seattle's loss tonight, if Dallas were to lose one more, we would only need one more win to clinch the 2 seed. As it stands now, we are essentially 1 game up on Dallas and hold the tiebreaker, and we are 2 games up on Seattle and we also hold the tiebreaker against them. So we are in good shape.

With seattle loss...we actually clinch first round bye this week if we win and the falcons beat dallas and the giants lose to carolina. Stranger things have happened this year already.

As an added note..we clinch division title with a win - only our second division title and first time ever clinching in front of the home crowd. This city will be going nuts. Lot of people waiting a lot of years to throw this party.

Giants losing to Carolina, now how does that fit in? Wait?! The Giants and Carolina have already played. So that can't be it. You must mean the Eagles.

The Giants could win the NFC East if they win out. Winning out means they beat the Saints (won't happen IMHO, but we're have a hypothetical discussion here) and finish 10-6. Winning out also means they beat the Eagles so they finish with a better division record than Dallas (4-2 to 3-3) and are 1-1 head to head with Dallas.

Now if the Saints finish 10-6 in this scenario (again won't happen IMHO, but just for the sake of discussion) and lose to the Giants, they'd be 0-1 head to head and tied at 10-6.

So if Dallas loses to Atlanta, but the Giants win, then the Giants still have a chance to win the East, beat the Saints (won't happen, won't happen!), finish 10-6 and win the #2 seed.

Ouch!

So presuming that the Giants beat the Eagles, the Saints need to beat the Giants on Christmas Eve in order to secure the #2 seed.

Still something to play for. Not a bad deal.

SFIAH