Seattle Seahawks: Path to the playoffs
By Keith Myers
The Wild Card may be all that is left for the Seattle Seahawks, and even that won’t be easy.
The path to the playoffs for the Seattle Seahawks became extremely murky with their awful performance last week. The 39-32 loss to the Arizona Cardinals left Seattle three games back in the standings with seven games remaining.
There is just one path that would give the Seahawks a chance to win the division. Seattle must win all their remaining games and the Cardinals must lose to at least Seattle, Cincinnati and Green Bay.
That would give both teams an 11-5 record. Seattle would win the tiebreaker based on record against common opponents.
That’s not a likely scenario. Football Outsiders gives the Seahawks just a 2 percent chance to winning the NFC West right now.
At this point, Seattle should turn their attention to trying to secure a wild card spot. One that front, things don’t look nearly as bleak.
Wild Card Standings
| Div | W | L | Div | Conf | |
| Green Bay Packers | NCN | 6 | 3 | 1-1 | 4-2 |
| Atlanta Falcons | NCS | 6 | 3 | 0-2 | 4-3 |
| Washington Redskins | NCE | 4 | 5 | 1-1 | 4-2 |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | NCS | 4 | 5 | 2-1 | 3-3 |
| St. Louis Rams | NCW | 4 | 5 | 3-0 | 3-4 |
| Philadelphia Eagles | NCE | 4 | 5 | 2-2 | 3-4 |
| Seattle Seahawks | NCW | 4 | 5 | 1-2 | 4-4 |
Next: Seahawks are poorly coached right now
The Seahawks are in a tough spot against the NFC North teams because of their Week 2 look to Green Bay. If they end up with the same record as the Packers, the Packers would finish above them in the standings.
With that in mind, the Seahawks would be better off if the Packers win that division. Seattle can help their own cause there by beating Minnesota in Week 13.
The Rams are currently above Seattle because of their win over the Seahawks back in Week 1. A win by Seattle over the Rams later this season doesn’t give the Seahawks the tiebreaker though.
The next criteria is the division record. The Seahawks have just one win in the division right now, while the Rams have three. The Seahawks will need to finish with a better record than the Rams unless they can get some help from San Francisco.
The other team that the Seahawks must worry about is Atlanta. They currently sit 1.5 games ahead of Seattle. They’ve also three of their last four, including bad losses to Tampa Bay and San Francisco. They no longer look like a team that will be able to stay in this race.
While it is possible that Tampa, Washington or Phily can go on a run and sneak into the playoffs, none of those teams have looked capable of doing so. All of those teams are flawed in ways that should keep them near .500 this season.
That puts the Seahawks as one of four teams that are competing for 2 spots. There isn’t a lot of wiggle room there. Seattle must get to 10 wins to have a shot.
That means that the Seahawks will need to go 6-1 in their remaining games. That one loss cannot be against either the Rams or the Vikings.
That is a tough gauntlet for the Seahawks to get through if they are going to make the playoffs. They have the talent to get it done, but they haven’t taken advantage of that talent thus far in the season.