November 28, 2023

NFC Hierarchy/Obituary: Week 13 edition

The Eagles are No. 1, but what about the rest of the conference?

By Jimmy Kempski
PhillyVoice Staff

Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports

Deebo Samuel had 6 rushes for -9 yards and a lost fumble in the NFC Championship Game against the Eagles last January.

Week 12 of the NFL season is in the books, and the 49ers and Cowboys keep putting pressure on the Eagles but the Eagles keep winning. There are no new obituaries this week.

Graveyard

Hierarchy

10) Buccaneers (4-7): If the Buccaneers played in any other division they'd be in the graveyard.

Last week: 9

9) Saints (5-6): This tweet and accompanying video make me legit lol.

WOW! What an incredible play from #Saints QB Derek Carr. Breaks a tackle on third down and throws an absolute DIME of a checkdown 🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/Al5kkYjRLu
— Jayden (@JaydenDat) November 27, 2023

Last week: 7

8) Falcons (5-6): There have been four teams since division realignment in 2002 that have won divisions with a losing record.

• 2022 Buccaneers: 8-9
• 2020 Football Team: 7-9
• 2014 Panthers: 7-8-1
• 2010 Seahawks: 7-9

If the season ended today (it doesn't), the Falcons would be the fifth.

The Falcons have the easiest remaining strength of schedule in the NFL, at 0.358. The Bucs have the second-easiest, at 0.379, and the Saints have the fifth-easiest, at 0.403. It'll be a true feat of divisional incompetence if the NFC South's winner has a losing record after Week 18.

Last week: 8

7) Packers (5-6): You all saw how good Jordan Love was on Thanksgiving. He has had an up and down season, but clearly he has talent and the Packers can feel good about continuing to develop him.

But the guy who really impressed me on Thanksgiving was Rashan Gary. He dominated. 7 tackles, 3 sacks, 2 forced fumbles.

.@packers defense is absolutely dominating this game.

📺: #GBvsDET on FOX
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/N5H8NbZZUE pic.twitter.com/JB2roLrNit
— NFL (@NFL) November 23, 2023

In late October, Gary signed a four-year extension worth $96 million that was widely mocked. Maybe they got that deal done with him at just the right time before he explodes?

Last week: 10

6) Vikings (6-6): This time last week the Vikings had a 1.5-game cushion for the final wildcard spot in the NFC, and a home game against the Bears. Now? That lead is down to 0.5 games, and three teams are just behind them at 5-6. The wildcard race:

Seed	NFC standings	Record	Conf record
5	Cowboys	8-3	4-3
6	Seahawks	6-5	5-2
7	Vikings	6-6	6-3
8	Packers	5-6	4-3
9	Rams	5-6	4-4
10	Saints	5-6	2-4

How'd they get there? Well, in primetime at home against the trash Bears, Kevin O'Connell blew a game.

The Vikings had a 1st and 10 from the Chicago 43 with 3:27 left and a 10-9 lead after a Justin Fields fumble. What'd they do? Two runs into a loaded box for 1 yard, a quick screen to the WR for a loss of 1, and a punt. Gross. Their strategy seemed to be to get like 7 or 8 yards, try a 50+ yard field goal to go up 4, hope they get it, and then make the Bears go score a touchdown with around 2 minutes to go. They didn't even get the long field goal attempt!

The Bears then made some plays on offense, got into field goal range, bled out the rest of the clock, and hit a walkoff field goal.

That's the second game that O'Connell cost the Vikings this season. The first was Week 3 against a Chargers team that consistently begs opponents to beat them:

What a terrible sequence by Kirk Cousins and the Vikings. They pick up the first down, stand around like they have days left, finally snap the ball after 20 second and throw an int to end the game. pic.twitter.com/xMx6sROUeT
— CFBBlueprint (@CFBBluePrint) September 24, 2023

Last week: 6

5) Seahawks (6-5): (Fart noise.)

Last week: 5

4) Lions (8-3): With an extremely easy schedule to close out the regular season, the Lions seemed poised to contend for the 1 seed in the NFC, but their chances of having the NFC playoffs go through Detroit were heavily damaged after a loss at home to the Packers on Thanksgiving. The curse of the Thanksgiving waxing gibbous moon strikes again.

i have bad news for the lions :(

since the afl/nfl merger, they are 0-12 (.000) on thanksgiving when the moon is in a waxing gibbous phase. tomorrow is a waxing gibbous pic.twitter.com/IlKqXH5cgr
— Jay Cuda (@JayCuda) November 22, 2023

Here are some of the quarterback performances the Lions have allowed in their last 5 games:

• Lamar Jackson, Ravens: 21 of 27 for 357 yards, 3 TDs, 0 INTs, 155.8 passer rating, 9 rushes, 36 yards, 1 TD.
• Justin Herbert, Chargers: 27 of 40 for 323 yards, 4 TDs, 1 INT, 114.9 passer rating, 4 rushes, 15 yards.
• Justin Fields, Bears: 16 of 23 for 169 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs, 105.2 passer rating, 18 rushes, 104 yards.
• Jordan Love, Packers: 22 of 32 for 268, 3 TDs, 0 INTs, 125.5 passer rating, 3 rushes, 39 yards.

Last week: 4

3) 49ers (8-3): 49ers players, coaches, and even their front office cried for the entirety of the offseason about how they were cheated in the NFC Championship Game. On Monday, Deebo Samuel doubled down on comments he made this offseason that Eagles CB James Bradberry is "trash."

Deebo doesn't regret any of his comments about the Eagles 👀 pic.twitter.com/JyfnPihm3b
— 49ers on NBCS (@NBCS49ers) November 27, 2023

If they beat the Eagles on Sunday, the Niners' organization as a whole and certainly the fan base will be convinced that they would have won last January in Philly, as opposed to, you know, the truth, which is that they took an ass-whooping in the trenches on both sides of the ball.

This matchup was very clearly THE game that the Niners metaphorically circled when the schedules came out in May, and because they played on Thanksgiving, they'll have extra rest for it. The Eagles, meanwhile, are coming off of two grimy slugfests against the AFC's elite.

As such, the Niners are 2-point favorites! You don't often see 10-1 home underdogs, but that's where we are.

Of course, after all the endless talk that has come out of San Francisco over the past 10 months, this team is under enormous pressure to win on Sunday. Anything less will be an embarrassment. It'll be interesting to see if the pressure that the Niners have put on themselves — wittingly or not — will affect them positively or negatively.

Last week: 3

2) Cowboys (8-3): Credit the Cowboys for beating the living crap out of their bad opponents. They can only play who is on their schedule, and they have emphatically torn those teams apart. It's not like they're Ohio State, actively choosing to schedule teams like Youngstown State and Western Kentucky.

With that disclaimer out of the way, it's kind of funny that 8 of their 9 games have been against the top 9 teams in the current projected draft order. Screenshot via Tankathon.com (h/t: @PhilaMathia).

Last week: 2

1) Eagles (10-1): The Eagles are entering the gauntliest part of their gauntlet.

After a Monday road game in Kansas City, on short rest they had to play a very good, very desperate Bills team, during which the defense was on the field for almost 100 snaps. Now they have consecutive games against their two biggest threats in the NFC, both of whom are / will be coming off of mini-byes.

On the one hand, that's brutal, obviously. On the other hand, no matter what the Eagles' road through the playoffs will be, nothing will be as hard as this stretch.

Also, I would like to propose that after this season is over, can we institute a ban on the word "gauntlet" for a while? Thank you all for your cooperation in advance.

Last week: 1

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