Playoffs or Nahhh...

[Boone]

With some help from it's rival NFC East competition and on the heels of 2 convincing wins, the Washington Football Team is in the shocking position of being a fringe playoff competitor. This week's result against the Seahawks will obviously have a big impact on how seriously one can take the idea of the 2021 WFT making a playoff appearance.

What say you?

Is the 2021 WFT destined to be playoff bound?

 

[Canadian Hog]

When you think of the collection of NFC teams battling for the final 1 or 2 playoff spots in the conference, I feel as though we have as good a shot as anybody, provided we can maintain the relatively solid level of play we have witnessed the last couple weeks.

New Orleans and Seattle to me are two teams who are nearing the end of their "runs" so to speak. I feel like those teams are in regression mode and won't be a factor come the end of December.

Carolina has been in a tailspin ever since their 3-0 start to the season. They are going to be a non-factor down the stretch and have questionable QB play right now as well.

Atlanta is hanging around I suppose right now at 5-6, but they are 2-5 in the conference and have lost head to head vs. our guys.

Philadelphia - they feel like a team that has overachieved to this point in the season. As time wears on, they might fizzle out.

Minnesota has a pretty soft schedule down the stretch with Detroit, the Bears twice, and the Steelers at home. They will travel to Green Bay though and host the Rams at home. I can definitely see them dropping two more games which puts them at 8 in the loss category.

I think San Francisco right now has positioned themselves in a nice spot, however, they have a very tough road down the stretch with road games in Seattle, Cincy, Tennessee, and at the Rams. You could easily see them falling into the 8 loss window as well.

For Washington, I see the playoffs as being a realistic possibility, but 5-2 in our final 7 has to be the goal. 9 wins will be enough to do the trick for the #6 or #7 seed in the NFC.

Ideally, you want to get it rolling with a sweep in these next two against Seattle and Vegas. That then affords a little bit of wiggle room. In this case, even if you split with Dallas and Philly, and beat the Giants in Week 18, you are at 4-2 in the division and at 9 wins overall.

If you drop a game tonight against Seattle, then you are positioning yourself in a spot where you almost have to be damn well perfect down the stretch in the division - and we know that is never an easy feat.

Let's hope that we learned a lesson from the Carolina game a year ago. It was a similar situation to tonight - a win would have made life much easier for ourselves playoffs wise, but we came out tight, nervous, and flat.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

The path is there. I mentioned this in another thread, 2 games back of the division lead with 2 games left against dallas. That’s not to mention the wildcard scenarios that exist. Can they do it, the opportunity is there. Will they do it? I have no idea. This team seems to let us down when we expect them to deliver and then deliver when we least expect it. Tonight is the first step in one direction or the other.

 

[Boone]

Great post Paul. There's more than a little irony that what has put us in a position to even be discussing this is 2 week's of pretty great QB play. Clearly that's not the only factor, but it's a huge one. I have to believe that this team goes as far as Heinicke himself can take them. Were the past 2 weeks his peak and can he sustain that kind of play and replicate those kinds of performances? Guess we're about to find out.

 

[SkinsOrlando]

The thing is, it's more open than we thought it would be. It's been upset city the past couple of weeks and some teams weaknesses are really starting to show after they faced stiffer competition. I don't know if we can, but the probability of making the playoffs is higher than I thought 3 weeks ago with how the team was playing. Now if we wet the bed tonight against a struggling Seattle team it's most likely out of reach imo.

 

[SilentThreat]

A lot of things breaking right... which seems to be our history. When we scratch together a playoff run, the ball seems to bounce in our direction.

We still very much control our own destiny with 6/7 of our remaining games being against NFC Opponents. We already have a 4-2 record in the conference which is the best among those teams looking to get into that 7th playoff spot. A win tonight moves us into that position and 'controlling your own destiny' takes on a very literal term.

 

[SkinsOrlando]

But is this team our density?

 

[Knightingale]

I just put this in the 'Schedule' thread, but I listened to the Keim Report today and they were looking at our schedule over the next 3 weeks and how brutal it is in regards to turnarounds.
This is the stretch that will likely make or break our chances.

Away to the Raiders who played Thursday. So we're the travelling road team, coming off a short week, and they've had 10 days rest.

Then Dallas come to town, but we have to travel back from LV and they are coming off 10 days rest as they play the Saints on Thursday.

And that week the Eagles are on a Bye. So when we travel there to play them, they'll be coming off 2 weeks rest.

So the schedulers screwed us. We're a beaten up team and the next few weeks will be brutal against rested opponents. This will test us. Thus I have no clue if we can run the gauntlet and make the playoffs. All things being equal I'd like our chances, but with this schedule, I just don't know.