Seahawks still have a playoff chance in crowded NFC

The Seahawks are fighting for a playoff spot. The NFC is bunched up with 3 and 4 loss teams. Here is what Seattle needs to do.

We are just seven weeks into the NFL season but there is a logjam in the NFC with teams vying for the playoffs. The Seahawks are one of five 3 loss teams. There are four 2 loss teams. Seattle has every chance of making the playoffs in 2018.

With a win over the Lions on Sunday, Seattle could put themselves in excellent position, even with a fairly tough schedule after week seven. Detroit has three losses as well. So even more than the Rams in Seattle’s own division, the Seahawks real challenges to the playoffs are teams like Detroit.

And beating teams like Detroit is how Seattle gets to the postseason. And once in the playoffs anything can happen. Seattle will play five teams that currently have two or three losses. But two of those teams are the Packers and Vikings. Each has two losses but also each has a tie.

This means Seattle is really only one-half game behind Green Bay and Minnesota currently so a win over either or both of them means Seattle would be in better contention than the other team.

Seattle gets three of the five games are at home – Green Bay, the Chargers and Minnesota. The fifth team Seattle plays with two or three losses is the Panthers who the Seahawks will play in Carolina. If the Seahawks can go 3-2 in these five games, that would give them six for the season.

10 wins would probably get Seattle in the postseason. So where would those other four wins come from? The Seahawks play the 49ers twice and the Cardinals once. At this time, Seattle is better than both those teams. That should be three wins. So that’s nine wins.

The 10th win would be the difficult one to get. Seattle plays the Rams on the road in week 10 and that’s probably a loss. This means the week 16 match-up against the current one-loss Chiefs is a must-win for Seattle.

Hopefully the Chiefs will be so far out in front of the AFC West at that point that maybe they are already focused on the postseason. Or maybe the Seahawks just beat Kansas City because Seattle plays better. Either way, getting that 10th win should get Seattle into the postseason.