Commanders Wild Card Watch - Week 13 NFC Playoff Projections (Washington as the 6th seed scenario)

Nov 28, 2022 - 11:30 AM

I intend to publish the Wild Card Watch as a weekly series for as long as Washington has a reasonable chance of earning a playoff spot.

A total of 9 losses on the season by Washington at any point will probably bring the series to an abrupt end.

Until then, I’ll keep my eye on the playoff prize and ignore the 2023 draft for as long as there’s a chance at the postseason.

If you aren’t interested in this kind of article, now would be a good time to return to the front page and look for something less optimistic to read.

The thoughts in this article are my own, and do not represent the views of Hogs Haven, its other writers or its managing editor.

NFC Conference overview

Let’s start with a review of the NFC standings as of today (with an all-AFC Monday Night Football matchup, the NFC playoff picture for this week is complete).

The four divisional leaders are circled in blue, and would be seeded 1 - 4 if the playoffs were set based on today’s standings. Under these seedings, the Eagles would get the bye for the wildcard round and home field advantage throughout the playoffs, while the Vikings, Niners and Buccaneers would play the 5th thru 7th seeded wildcard teams.

The entire NFC East is in the playoffs right now

Again, if the playoffs were to be seeded based on current records, that would put the the entire NFC East into the playoffs, with the Cowboys, Giants and Commanders all qualifying as wildcard teams. The Seahawks are a half-game behind the Commanders and a full game behind the Giants at the moment.

The Wildcard weekend would see the following matchups:

Dallas at Tampa Bay
NY Giants at San Francisco
Washington at Minnesota

That leaves open the possibility of an all-NFC East NFC Divisional playoff weekend!

Basically, Washington’s victory at home against the Falcons combined with the Seahawks home loss to the Raiders has allowed the Commanders to move into the “if the season ended today” playoff seedings.

A critical game this Sunday at the Giants

With the Commanders playing the Giants in back-to-back games (Weeks 13 & 15, with a Week 14 BYE), these seedings are due for a shakeup. A win on Sunday on the road in New York/New Jersey would vault the Commanders into the 6th seed position, while a loss could drop then into a tie with the Seahawks at 7-6 each, with the Seahawks winning the tie-break with the better conference record (5-4 vs 4-5).

Stick a fork in ‘em

I’ve taken 6 teams out of consideration for the playoffs for the purposes of this article. I want to point out that I am not declaring all of those teams “out of the playoffs”; instead, I am saying that I don’t see any reasonable path for those teams to knock the Commanders out of a playoff seeding.

For example, the Falcons at 5-7 are two games behind the Commanders with 5 games left to play and Washington holding the lead in both head-to-head games (1-0) and conference record. I don’t believe the Falcons can catch Washington unless Washington falls out of contention by losing at least 3 of their 5 remaining games. If they do that, then it won’t be because of anything the Falcons are doing.

That does not, however, mean that the Falcons are out of contention for a playoff spot. They are just a half-game behind the Buccaneers in the NFC South and could still win the division championship and qualify for the playoffs as the #4 seed.

I’ve removed the Packers, Panthers and Bears for the same reasons that I removed the Falcons.
I took out the Saints & Rams because when I run projections of wins & losses, I can’t find any way for either team to bump Washington from the playoffs.
I’ve kept the Lions in the picture because there is some possibility that they could tie the Commanders for overall record, and the Lions hold the head-to-head advantage.
I’ve kept the Cardinals in the mix because they can potentially match the Commanders win total, and they are a useful example to have for tie-breaking scenarios. The Cards have a BYE this week, but I will likely drop them if they lose in Weeks 13 or 14.

Getting to the 6th seed

We’ve seen the Commanders do the improbable and come back from a 1-4 start to the season to reach 7-5 and “if the season ended today” playoff seeding.

As mentioned above, with a victory over the Giants on Sunday, Washington would leapfrog into the 6th seed spot.

Let’s assume for a moment that that happens. The question then becomes: Can they hold onto the 6th seed?

I’ve made one tweak to last week’s model to show how that can happen.

Current Competition - projection model

I don’t pretend for a moment that I can predict wins & losses for a half-dozen teams over a two-month period, but I think that it’s worth having a model that can be used from week to week to chart a path to the playoffs for the Commanders.

And that’s what you’ll see below — a model that is designed to show, not how the Commanders will fail to make it, but a model that shows what seems to be a reasonable path to the postseason. Over the past two weeks, I charted out paths to the 7th seed that required the Commanders to beat the Texans and Falcons.

Having won those two games, and with just 5 games remaining, I wanted to look at whether it’s possible for Ron Rivera’s team to move up to the 6th seed by season’s end.

In last week’s model, I had the Commanders and Giants splitting their two games, with both teams ending up at 9-8 and Washington earning the 7th seed on tie breakers with the Giants and Cardinals. If I don’t make a change to the Commanders projected wins & losses in this week’s model, we will simply come back to the same result, and I hate to lose the opportunity to further explore the tie-breaking rules of the NFL.

Since this series is not about predicting the future, but exploring possibilities, this week I’m looking at what happens if Washington and Seattle both sweep their remaining 2-game series with division rivals — that is, if Washington goes 2-0 against the Giants while Seattle goes 2-0 against the Rams.

In this model, the division champs for the North, East and South are presumed to be the Vikings, Eagles, and Buccaneers. The NFC West is a bit different; I have shown three teams here, and one of them will go to the playoffs as the division champ. As you can see, I am projecting that to be the 49ers, though, as discussed in a couple of places in this article, the Falcons still have a reasonable shot at winning the division.

With the wins & losses that I have projected here, this is what would happen for the wildcard seedings:

5th seed

The 5th seed would go to the Dallas Cowboys as the only non-division champion to win 12 games.

6th seed

The Commanders and Seahawks would be tied at 10-7, with no other team in wildcard contention having won more than 9 games, leading to a tie-breaker.

Head-to-head competion - The Commanders and Seahawks did not play each other in the regular season, so this tie-breaker does not apply.
Conference record - in this scenario, the Commanders and Seahawks both finish with records of 7-5 against NFC opponents, so there is no result from this tie breaker.
Best won-lost-tied percentage in common games, minimum of four - Here is the list of teams that the Seahawks and Commanders have in common, with results (both actual results and those projected in my model):

Washington, with a 4-2 record in 6 games against common opponents, would win the tiebeaker against Seattle, with a 3-3 record against common opponents.

7th seed

Seattle would be the 7th seed

Will the Commanders make the playoffs? How about the 6th seed?

A week ago, I said that I thought the Commanders had about a 55/45 chance of making the playoffs. Having beaten the Falcons on Sunday, I’m prepared to move my personal odds up a bit to 60/40 for making the playoffs.

If Washington does qualify for the postseason, I’d put my personal seeding odds at 70% for 7th seed and 30% for the 6th seed.

As always, Washington’s playoff hopes rely on the team continuing to win, though it’s not necessary for them to go undefeated. Because they lost too many games early in the season, they don’t have much wiggle room remaining at this point; the Commanders probably need another 3-4 wins with 5 games remaining. The most important games are those against NFC teams because of tie-breaking procedures, and wins against the Giants will be of particular importance if Washington gets into a tie-breaker situation with the Seahawks, as illustrated above.

By winning 6 games in the past 7 weeks, the Commanders have put themselves into a good position for the postseason, but there’s simply too much season left to take anything for granted. Nothing comes easy with this team, and their fight to qualify for the playoffs may not be resolved until the final whistle blows in Week 18.

This week’s rooting guide

If you want to know who to root for in this weekend’s games, here’s a handy rooting guide aimed at maximizing Washington’s chances of earning a wildcard seeding:

Sunday

Seahawks at Rams
This 4 o’clock game is the most critical of the weekend outside of the Commanders game against the Giants. The Seahawks are favored by 4.5 points according to DraftKings. We need Sean McVay to do his former team a solid and beat the living daylights out of the Seahawks. Wear your lucky socks when you watch this NFC West rivalry game and cheer on the team from LA.

Dolphins at 49ers
The Niners don’t actually have the NFC West locked up, and Washington still plays them in SF in Week 16, so this could end up being a hugely important game by the end of the season. While I’m expecting the Niners to win the division, there are a number of plausible scenarios where they don’t. The Dolphins, who are currently on a 5-game winning streak, are surprising 4-point underdogs in this game. A win by Seattle and a loss by the Niners would see them both at 7-5. I’m happy to see a road upset by Miami to put the heat on the 49ers, though I won’t be unhappy if SF further cements its hold on the Western division lead, leaving the Falcons as the only real wildcard threat to Washington from that division.

Colts at Cowboys
I’d say it’s unlikely that Indianapolis can come off of a Monday night game and then travel into Dallas and beat the 8-3 Cowboys, but then it was pretty unlikely when Washington was 1-4 that we’d be talking seriously about the playoffs right now. DraftKings has the Colts as 9-point underdogs, but let’s all hope they are Cowboy-killers on Sunday Night Football just because it’s fun to watch the Cowboys lose.

Jaguars at Lions
Two 4-7 teams, one from the AFC and the other an NFC team with a tie-breaking advantage over the Commanders. Easy call here — root for the Jags to put a nail in the Detroit coffin.

Packers at Bears
The Packers have 4 wins; the Bears have 3 wins. DraftKings has the Bears as 2.5 point underdogs. Both teams lost to the Commanders earlier in the season. The Packers have the better overall record and the better conference record. While I doubt this game will have any effect on Washington’s playoff aspirations this season, there is probably slightly more reason to back the Bears to win than to back the Packers.

Jets at Vikings
DraftKings has the Vikings as 3-point favorites in this game. The Vikings are 2.5 games ahead of the Commanders and hold the key tiebreakers. This game will have no bearing on Washington’s playoff chances, but the default is to root for the AFC team. J-E-T-S Jets.

Steelers at Falcons
Because the Commanders hold key tiebreakers over Atlanta, this is not a hugely critical game, but, as always, the default position is to root for the AFC team, so... go steelers.

Titans at Eagles
Philadelphia is a 6.5 point favorite per DarftKings. The Eagles will not pose a threat to Washington’s hopes of qualifying for a wildcard spot at the end of the season, but let’s all be Titans fans for an afternoon anyway. Titan up!!

Monday

Saints at Buccaneers
I don’t have a lot of reasons to prefer one team over the other, but here’s my thinking. Washington has a head-to-head tie-breaker advantage over the Falcons, but can’t get the same advantage against the Bucs because they don’t play each other this season. It seems like the Commanders’ path to the the postseason is slightly smoother if Tampa Bay wins the NFC South title, so I’d suggest backing Tampa Bay, who are favored by 6 points anyway.

NFC East considerations

Washington is 4 games behind the Eagles in the loss column, meaning that if the Commanders win out (which is very unlikely to happen) they would need the Eagles to go 2-4 in the final 6 games of the season just to get to a potential tie-breaking possibility. If Washington were to go 3-2 in it’s final 5 games, then the Eagles would have to finish 0-6 for Washington to have any shot at the division title.

Check out DraftKings Sportsbook, the official sportsbook partner of SB Nation.

Until the situation becomes much more favorable than that, I won’t be discussing potential paths to a division championship for the Commanders.

There’s a reason why the title says “Wildcard Watch”.

Tie breaking procedures

Here are the tie-breaking procedures:

To Break A Tie Within A Division

If, at the end of the regular season, two or more clubs in the same division finish with identical won-lost-tied percentages, the following steps will be taken until a champion is determined.

Two Clubs

Head-to-head (best won-lost-tied percentage in games between the clubs).
Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the division.
Best won-lost-tied percentage in common games.
Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference.
Strength of victory in all games.
Strength of schedule in all games
Best combined ranking among conference teams in points scored and points allowed in all games.
Best combined ranking among all teams in points scored and points allowed in all games.
Best net points in common games.
Best net points in all games.
Best net touchdowns in all games.
Coin toss

Three or More Clubs

(Note: If two clubs remain tied after one-or-more clubs are eliminated during any step, tiebreaker restarts at Step 1 of two-club format. If three clubs remain tied after a fourth club is eliminated during any step, tiebreaker restarts at Step 1 of three-club format.)

Head-to-head (best won-lost-tied percentage in games among the clubs).
Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the division.
Best won-lost-tied percentage in common games.
Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference.
Strength of victory in all games.
Strength of schedule in all games.
Best combined ranking among conference teams in points scored and points allowed in all games.
Best combined ranking among all teams in points scored and points allowed in all games.
Best net points in common games.
Best net points in all games.
Best net touchdowns in all games.
Coin toss

To Break A Tie For The Wild-Card Team

If it is necessary to break ties to determine the three Wild-Card clubs from each conference, the following steps will be taken.

- If the tied clubs are from the same division, apply division tiebreaker.

- If the tied clubs are from different divisions, apply the following steps.