After the Detroit Lions lost on Christmas, six of the seven playoff spots in the NFC have been clinched. We know that we’re going to be seeing the Seahawks, the Bears, the Eagles, the Rams, the Packers, and either the Buccaneers or the Panthers. We know that the Eagles, the Packers, and the winner of the NFC South won’t have that first seed… but that’s it.
What we don’t know is who is going to play who, and where any of those other teams are actually going to be seeded… and there’s a really good chance that we find that all out in the next 48 hours.
Current NFC playoff matchups
- No. 7 Green Bay Packers at No. 2 Chicago Bears
- No. 6 Los Angeles Rams at No. 3 Philadelphia Eagles
- No. 5 San Francisco 49ers at No. 2 Carolina Panthers
This might be the most fun NFC playoff scenario because every single one of these games is a rematch.
Packers at Bears
The Bears and Packers played each other in Weeks 14 and 16. Green Bay won the first game 28-21 after Keisean Nixon intercepted Caleb Williams in the end zone. Chicago won the second game in overtime when Caleb Williams threw a bomb to D.J. Moore.
When both games end as close as they did in the regular season this year, it’s kind of hard to just say one team is better than the other and has earned the right to be at the top of the NFC North. Sure, those games meant a lot when they happened, but there’s nothing like a win-or-die game in the postseason.
The Bears have an opportunity to steal a season from the Packers, and the Packers have an opportunity to give the Bears a swirly and shove them into a locker. This is absolutely the wild card game that the world wants.
Rams at Eagles
The Rams and the Eagles played each other waaaaay back in Week 3. The Eagles couldn’t field a kickoff to save their lives, Lane Johnson got hurt in the first half, and then Jalen Hurts got strip-sacked on the second play of the first half, which gave the Rams the ball on the Philadelphia 10-yard line. The Rams scored and had a 26-7 lead…and those were the last points they would get.
The Eagles’ offense came alive and scored on three of their next four drives (something fans would like to see much more of), and their defense didn’t allow anything. The Eagles led 27-26 as the Rams’ special teams came on to kick a game-winning 44-yard field goal. Jordan Davis blocked it (his second field goal block of the game) and returned it 61 yards for a touchdown, and the Eagles won 33-26.
Sean McVay and the Rams would love to have that one back… especially in a playoff game in Philadelphia, which is where their 2024 season ended in the divisional round of the playoffs. They were the only team in that postseason to threaten the Eagles, but Jalen Carter ended the game with a red-zone sack on third down and a quarterback pressure that made Matt Stafford throw a bad ball on fourth down.
Sean McVay has famously had an unbelievably tough time dealing with Vic Fangio’s defenses throughout the years. Would he finally be able to get over the hump, or would he fall flat on his face and muss up his pretty little hairs? Probably the latter because the 2025 Rams offense has the lethality of either a nuke or a marshmallow gun; Fangio has a way of turning offenses into s’mores.
49ers at Panthers
The 49ers and the Panthers played each other on Monday night in Week 12. San Fran won 20-9 (it wasn’t all that good a game), but Brock Purdy and Bryce Young combined for five interceptions.
Purdy threw his three in the first half, and then Kyle Shanahan decided he wasn’t going to have any more plays where Purdy would have to throw the ball deep. Young threw one of his early, and then another one in the middle of the fourth quarter, which essentially sealed the game.
Aside from the two defenses having shown that they can make plays on the other team’s throws, there's nothing super interesting about this matchup.
What can change in the NFC playoff picture:
The Eagles are the first team to repeat as winners of the NFC East in the last 20 years… and going into Week 17, they are the only team in the entire league that has clinched their division. Not only does that mean that we don’t know who the other three teams in the top four are, but we also don’t know who is going to get the top seed and the bye.
ESPN’s playoff picture says the four teams who have a chance to get the top spot are the Seahawks (41.3 percent chance), the Bears (13.6 percent), the Rams (13.0 percent), and the 49ers (31.8 percent).
The fun part about all of this is that the Eagles and the Rams are the only two teams that have clinched an NFC playoff berth who aren’t playing an NFC playoff/playoff hopeful team. The Panthers play the Seahawks, and the 49ers play the Bears in Week 17. Then in Week 18, the Seahawks play the 49ers.
The 49ers also control their own destiny; they either win out and get the top seed or they drop to a wild card team. That’s a pretty massive swing for a team, but it hasn’t really mattered a whole lot. They have a 4-2 record at home and a 7-2 record away. For them, it’ll be more about not having to play another game… especially when it feels like they lose a key player every single week.
The Bears need help from the Panthers or the 49ers to get the one seed. If Carolina beats Seattle or the 49ers beat Seattle, and the Bears win out, the path to the Super Bowl will go through Chicago. That means if either of the California teams, the Panthers, or the Buccs want to play in San Francisco (that’s where the Super Bowl is) in February, they’re going to have to play football in a championship-starved Chicago in January. That’s got to be hell.
The Rams are going to have to luck into the top seed. They’ll obviously need to win both of their games… and they need the Bears to beat the 49ers, the 49ers to beat the Seahawks, and the Lions to beat the Bears. That’s a five-leg moneyline parlay. Those don’t hit. The Rams are probably going to end up being a wild card team, which has to be a massive kick in the nards based on how well they’ve been playing this season.
Now, for Seattle…
No. 1 seed Seahawks — Good or bad news?
The Seahawks have the top spot right now and control their own destiny. If they win out, they’ll get the top spot. That’d give them a massive homefield advantage. Since 2010, they have a home record of 92-45, which is the sixth-best home record in that span.
As for the benefit of them getting a bye week… It’s a gift and a curse. Of course, if you have to play one fewer playoff game than everyone else, your chance of going to the Super Bowl goes up significantly…
But the Seahawks don’t really scare anyone, and it’s purely because of Sam Darnold. It seems like that bye week could end up being a mega-problem for him.
It’s not a rest vs. rust thing… It’s that the bye would almost be like icing Sam Darnold. We’ve seen this cat crumple like the OceanGate submarine when he gets under the pressure of a big game. He’d have to jump right into a divisional round after watching a weekend of the best teams in his conference bash each other; that’s torture for the fella.
We won’t have a great idea of what the playoff seeds will look like until after Sunday. It’s really up to your preference on what you want to root for when it comes to the most likely scenarios: Do you think Darnold can take a week off and win a do-or-die game? Go for Seattle. Do you think that the Seahawks’ defense, backed by their home crowd, is too scary? Boo for Seattle. They’re the keystone in all of this.