GREEN BAY – With the Cardinals’ victory over the Cowboys earlier on Sunday, the Packers can secure the No.1 seed in the NFC playoffs with a victory over the Vikings at Lambeau Field in prime time. The Cowboys’ loss decreased their record to 11-5, and if the Packers (12-3) win their 13th game, the Cowboys won’t be able to catch them with one game remaining in the regular season.
Green Bay has the tiebreaker over the two NFC clubs with 12 wins: the Los Angeles Rams and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Only the top-seeded club in the playoffs receives a first-round bye. The top seed also receives home-field advantage as long as it remains in the tournament. Also on Sunday, the Eagles and 49ers won their games to move to 9-7, while the Vikings, with a record of 7-8, are attempting to save their season.
If Green Bay defeated Minnesota, the Vikings would be eliminated from postseason contention.
Can Green Bay secure the top seed?
Packers claim NFC’s top spot with dominating victory against Vikings The Green Bay Packers are the National Football Conference’s No.1 seed for the second consecutive year. Sunday night at Lambeau Field, Matt LaFleur’s squad moved to 13-3 and claimed the conference’s top spot with a dominating victory against the Minnesota Vikings.
- Obtaining the No.1 seed in the NFC playoffs guarantees the Packers a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.
- Under the new playoff structure, only the Packers will have a first-round bye in the NFC.
- Green Bay concludes the 2021 regular season next Sunday at Ford Field against the Detroit Lions.
The Packers would not play again until the NFC Divisional Round, when they would host the team with the lowest remaining seed. Last month, the Packers secured their third consecutive NFC North championship. Next on the agenda was securing the No.1 seed in the NFC.
It was a significant victory over a divisional rival, but not everything went as planned. Let’s examine what went wrong versus Minnesota on Sunday night. – The Packers do not commence play until the second quarter. Right?
- Obviously, I’m joking, but regrettably, it appears to be the case. The Packers entered week 17 with the 26th-ranked offense in the first quarter.
- In order to advance to the playoffs, the Packers will need to get out to stronger starts, particularly against superior opponents.
- The Packers’ offensive woes in the red zone continue.
- The Packers’ field goal unit was one of the things that went well, but it resulted in their offense stagnating in the red zone, something they had battled with all season prior to this game.
- The first two Packers drives were effective and productive, but they were unable to convert crucial third downs.
- The Packers concluded the game by scoring touchdowns on three of their seven trips into the red zone, a statistic that must also be improved prior to must-win games.
- The Packers will focus on maybe resting some starters and, more importantly, bringing key players back from injury now that they have secured the number one seed.
The Packers’ regular season will conclude on the road against the Detroit Lions. With a bye week approaching, Rodgers, Adams, and head coach Matt LeFleur discussed resting players and who would play to close out the season. Time will tell who plays and who doesn’t, but this week’s most important issue is keeping an eye on the injury list, as a pair of All-Pros might return to bolster the roster.
How Can the Green Bay Packers capture the division?
GREEN BAY – The Packers must wait at least one further week to clinch the NFC North. As a result of Minnesota’s victory over Pittsburgh on Thursday night, Green Bay’s magic number to secure the division remains at two. On Sunday night against the Bears, the Packers can at most decrease it to one.
- Green Bay still has a chance to secure at least a wild-card playoff place.
- To qualify for the playoffs, the Packers must defeat the Bears and hope that New Orleans and San Francisco both lose.
- Therefore, to expedite Green Bay’s postseason qualification, cheer for the Jets to defeat the Saints and the Bengals to defeat the 49ers.
If both of these outcomes occur on Sunday afternoon, the Packers will have the opportunity to clinch a playoff spot by defeating the Bears at Lambeau Field that evening. (There is an additional scenario in which the Saints and Rams both lose and the 49ers tie, but ties are so uncommon that it is hardly worth mentioning.
- In addition, as noted below, it is more advantageous for the Packers if the Rams win this week.) As a total, the top five teams in the NFC are separated by two games and are now ranked as follows.1.
- Arizona (10-2), 2.
- Green Bay (9-3), 3.
- Tampa Bay (9-3), 4.
- Dallas (8-4), 5.
- LA Rams (8-4).
- All teams have now had their byes, so from now on everyone will play every week.
Monday night’s matchup between Arizona and Los Angeles will be the most important of the week. The Rams hope to close to within one game of the Cardinals’ NFC West lead, while Arizona hopes to take a three-game lead with four games remaining and relegate the Rams to the wild-card picture.
- A Cardinals loss would help the Packers tremendously in their pursuit of the No.1 seed, which carries the only NFC bye and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.
- If Green Bay defeats Chicago on Sunday and Los Angeles defeats Arizona on Monday, the Packers would not need any further assistance to claim the top spot because they hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over Arizona.
So cheer for the Rams to prevail in the Monday night matchup. Elsewhere on Sunday, Dallas has a crucial NFC East clash against Washington, which is two games behind the division leader. With the Cowboys close behind the Packers, rooting for Washington to win would help Green Bay maintain its space.
Before the evening matchup between the Bears and the Packers, Buffalo will face Tampa Bay. This is the Buccaneers’ hardest remaining matchup, since it is their only remaining contest against a club with a winning record. Green Bay now has the tiebreaker over Tampa Bay owing to a higher conference record, thus if the Packers continue to win, the Buccaneers cannot catch up to them.
Clearly, though, rooting for the Bills to defeat them would aid the Packers, as it’s unlikely that the Buccaneers would suffer a fourth loss elsewhere.
