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Normally, after the end of the 8th week, we will be about halfway through the season (the NFL transfers odd-numbered games as annoying trampolines to 18 games, while ignoring that it will destroy the league and the team's season record. (Severity) This is proud of a deep and rich history, but I digress) but we still have a team that only played 40% of the games this season. 

It is not enough to judge each team and actually evaluate the playoff competition between the two conferences. This is interesting because something contrary to our expectations has happened: the AFC looks very predictable going into this year, but a year of decline for the Chiefs makes things very bad. In fact, we may finally realize the importance of Brady's departure for the start of the divisional playoffs. In a pandemic year, a 43-year-old QB raised his seventh trophy on the team's home court in Tampa Bay in his first year. It felt like a fanatical dream. Some things take time to adapt. 

We can learn more about these two conferences and get a bigger picture of how the playoffs began to take shape, but last week’s AFC ranked No. 1 team (Bengal Tigers) just lost to the Jets. The Titans paved the way (the Jets’ only other victory) to take the top spot. The AFC is in chaos. The news of Derek Henry's injury is even more so. But NFC playoff games barely feel three-quarters of the quarter and a half after the start of the season. 

The Saints' victory over the defending Super Bowl champion at home was and should be the biggest story of the week. Although 1) Tom Brady released some huge numbers, and 2) Jaymes Winston tore his ACL, they still defeated the Buccaneers. New Orleans has a record of 5 wins and 2 losses. Sean Payton needs a lot of honor here-in the past three years, due to multi-week and mid-term injuries, he has competed with Teddy Bridgewater and Tasom. Hill, Winston and Trevor Simian have won many games together. I have seen Payton become the coach of the year with a score of 20-1. If Payton and Simian make the playoffs together, and then play a few games with Jermes, then after Drew Bliss retires, he will get a lot of love.

I can continue talking about the Saints calling Philip Rivers, but I just want to put this tweet here. 

The Philip Rivers St. Michael's University team ended their season on Friday night (6-3, 3-3). I believe they just missed the 4A playoffs. Less than 3 hours away from the river, will consider returning to the correct location. With James Winston tearing his ACL, Sean Payton should call Rivers.

In addition, it is more important to talk about the Saints’ way into the playoffs, because they themselves are in a strange stage, far ahead of all the floats around the 7th seed, hoping to accidentally hit the playoffs. 

At the top of NFC, the pecking sequence is very clear. It can be divided into four layers. For fun, let's give them a food theme.

At the top are the Buccaneers, Packers and Rams. I set the (possibly temporary) deadline here, because in the past five years, these three teams have either won the Super Bowl, participated in the Super Bowl, or participated in the back-to-back NFC championship game. 

Tampa Bay lost to New Orleans on Sunday, but I am more inclined to think that the Saints improved their game than to blame the Buccaneers. The Saints' defense is a problem. New Orleans gave up some important offenses in the Tampa Bay passing offense, but this will happen with Brady's play. The Buccaneers lost a very popular game, but felt they were going to win the second game Sean Payton gave Brady 1:44 with some problematic game management to get a field goal. Brady casts a sixth position and the game is over, but this loss-on Halloween, against your only divisional game and main opponent at the Superdome-happened. It happened last year. Bucs would be great, but I might put this L in my mind. 

On Sunday, Aaron Rogers defeated an unbeaten defensive team on the road without Davant Adams or Alan Lazard. When Adams disappeared since 2019, it gave him a 7-0 lead. He is the defending MVP for a reason. The Packers are likely to end 14-3/13-4 and participate in the NFC Championship again. Because they have Aaron Rogers. 

The Rams defeated a terrible Houston team and somehow had almost no screens. Or maybe not, depending on the line you get. They rose 38-0 to a favorite between 14.5 and 16.5 points-the craze for these big favorites in the past two weeks has been crazy-when the fourth quarter started. Houston scored 22 points in the last 8 minutes of the game. Matthew Stafford looked great and won the MVP with a score of 5-1. This crime is electric. For the two who have just become teammates this offseason, his connection with Cooper Cooper is ridiculous, and Darrell Henderson performed very well. Sean McVay's worst season was 9-7. I am happy to announce them as top contenders. 

The controversial approach is to put Dallas and Arizona together, but I can also add the Cowboys to the top team, especially after Cooper Rush defeated the Vikings on the road to SNF at the beginning of his first career. . The Cowboys couldn't really control the ball with Ezekiel Elliott, and they found that they needed to score late. Rush threw it over and created history and things of that nature.

Cooper-Rush-to-Amari-Cooper TD is the first pass TD in NFL history where the passer’s name exactly matches the receiver’s last name. The Cowboys also have the only passer’s LAST and the receiver’s first. A perfect match pass TD: Andy Dalton-Dalton Schultz at MIN in week 11 of 2020

He also threw a touchdown to win the game (Zeke set it up and was the beast to catch and run that time), which could be a bigger deal. The first start of his career, on the road, this Dallas team has an atmosphere for them. CeeDee Lamb is looking for some game winners, but Amari Cooper is not. 

This is the complete record of Amari Cooper's story about CeeDee Lamb lobbying him and Cooper Rush to provide the winner of the game. pic.twitter.com/LW9lf6dreO

Watching Dak Prescott chase Rush and watch him give him a hug. 

After Minnesota's dramatic victory, Dark Prescott chased Cooper Rush and wrapped him in a bear hug. Rush passed the winning touchdown pass to Amari Cooper. pic.twitter.com/hZAawd1EMD

Now, look at the clip again and see Dak doing the action of "Dad after shower, sprains his ankle every Monday night at the basketball game." Rush may not be a live start. I don't take Mike McCarthy's record in the playoffs and my concerns about the future as negative factors-he has performed well this season and deserves to be paid attention to COY. Like Payton, if he jumped into the playoffs due to a quarterback injury in the playoffs, it shouldn't be ignored. But that Dak's limp definitely makes me want to keep Dallas in this part until we know his health.

The same is true for the Cardinals. When they are undefeated, they cannot be excluded from the top team. Like the Cowboys, Arizona can cross these two categories. Thursday night was not a huge lesson-just like the Saints/Pirates game, it was an excuse for two good teams in a close fight, but both sides turned upside down. The change. We just don't have any history of Kliff Kingsbury ending a season, they just lost JJ Watt (I think this is more important than what others did, mainly because of the attitude/existence of the running back and the locker room). Kyler Murray was wearing walking boots, his fingers were taped, and his shoulder was injured. Week 8 did not change my view of Arizona being excellent, but just like Dallas, QB injury problems justified the second place in the top rankings. 

Now do the math-we have three elite teams, two very good/probably elite teams, and suddenly there are only two seats left in the playoffs. 

We introduced the 5-2 Saints above, so I just want to point out that they look much better than anything else left in the meeting, which is why we will throw them to their own part here. Of course, Winston's injury is a huge problem. Let's see how the saints solve it. Standing with Siemian may leave them alone, but the upgrade will put them there with the Cowboys and Cardinals. They just returned to the half-time of the division, and there is a big gap with the rest of the NFC. 

So now it seems obvious that there are six teams that are likely to make the playoffs, and seven — if the Giants beat the Chiefs on Monday, maybe eight — teams starving for the last NFC playoff spot game.

Less than 7 days ago, the Panthers were on full fire in the pursuit of Deshaun Watson, because Sam Darnold couldn't score more than 3 points against the Giants. Maybe it's the ghost of MetLife? Either way, they woke up as a playoff team after a 19-13 victory over the Falcons on Monday morning. Both teams were significantly below average, but were caught in terrible competition in three games. Atlanta's offense runs through Cordarrelle Patterson. The Brinsons support Cordarrelle, but this should explain something. Maybe let the Falcons relax, because Matt Ryan's hand was stepped on and bleeds. Atlanta's offense was significantly worse after the injury. But Kyle Pitts (six goals, two catches, 13 yards)'s lack of breakthrough after the break is worrying. Calvin Ridley's withdrawal from football for mental health reasons is good for him to prioritize his life correctly. More athletes should do this, which will benefit them in the long run. But after he leaves, the Falcons football will not get better. 

Darnold actually threw some good shots in this game, but they were instilled by the officials. Unfortunately, we don't even know if he will perform well in the designed quarterback draw next week. Carolina has three wins in the next four weeks (at home Pates, card team, home vs. WFT, Dolphins). This may determine their season. 3-1 is possible, but 1-3 is not surprising at all. The Panthers faced the Bills, Saints and Buccaneers twice in the last four weeks, and the Falcons had goodbye. They need to enter the clubhouse as quickly as possible with eight wins, hoping to get lucky. 

The Vikings voluntarily rejected a free square on Sunday night and lost because of it. They are 3-3 and Dak Prescott-less Cowboys. Just defeat Cooper Rush and you can control the fate of the playoffs. Mike Zimmer asked for continuous pauses and chose not to do so. No, no, throw more screens and swing passes to CJ Ham. At any time you can guarantee that the full-back will get more catches than Justin Jefferson, while averaging one yard per catch. You have to do this. This is a very difficult team to trust, they have not even played against the Packers. 

This could be a red flag for Matt Najib-Justin Fields finally found a ceiling in the Bears' offense, sprinting for more than 100 yards in a game that Najib missed. Khalil Herbert looks like a nice little fantasy asset, and David Montgomery is still absent. We need a milk carton or Alan Robinson deadline deal. Using franchise labels on him with fewer than six goals per week felt like a terrible and unnecessary effort. If you enter "Allen Robinson" in Google, "Allen Robinson trade" will be automatically populated before "Allen Robinson stats". The Bears still lead the playoffs by 3-5. Their schedule is really tough-if they can beat the AFC North 1-1 in the next two weeks, we can talk about them. 

The 49ers have two big games on deck-they will host the Cardinals and Rams in the next two weeks and really need to make some progress here. From a preseason perspective, I am an important supporter of the nine-man team, so I tried to squint to stay optimistic, but it was not easy. Jimmy Garoppolo has been very good, but not very good. Trey Lance is a wild card-he was injured but didn't, and then he didn't see the fast break yesterday, and the Niners just run Jimmy G in the red zone? This is related to playcall, even if it works. Elijah Mitchell looks great, but what is the point of drafting Trey Sermon? Deebo Samuel is a monster, full stop. Brandon Aiyuk can do too, but he can't seem to get out of the doghouse? Many questions about this team still exist. After these two divisional games, the Nine had four very desirable games. If they really fight for a place in the playoffs, they need to be more convincing than Sunday. 

I thought we were planning a funeral for the Eagles in Detroit, like a short-distance dog against a team that didn't win. But Jalen Hurts & Co. lost a $40 burger on poor Dan Campbell. This is very ruthless. Assuming that Dak's injury is not long-term, NFC East may be wrapped, but the Eagles have enough firepower to enter as a wild card. This seventh position is the best logic for fewer moves by the trade deadline-the Eagles have a record of 3-5, appear to be dead in the water, and are only one game away from the playoffs. More and more teams will be looking for trade pieces, but only a few teams are selling this year. Philadelphia has the Chargers, Broncos, Saints and Giants on deck and may need to stand out from 3-1. 2-2 looks more likely-5-7 may keep them in the game, but it will definitely bring a serious uphill battle in the playoffs. 

Seattle won in a must-win game against the Bengals, and Gino Smith looked sharp under Jacksonville's toothless defense. Everything about them depends on the return of Russell Wilson. In any case, before the start of the season, we will mark this week's Rambo trip as a failure. If Russ can come back after goodbye, we can see that they have won some victories and rebounded to 0.500. I can't believe Geno will make the same effort, despite how good he looked on Sunday. 

If the Giants didn't win on Monday night, they might have a toast. Dak's injury and the Panthers entered the playoffs with a score of 3-3, keeping them alive even at 2-6, but it would be a considerable long shot. At 3-5, you can never log them out. 

Technically speaking, 2-6 Washington is still alive. But the defense was lifeless, and WFT had plenty of opportunities to steal that game from the Broncos on Sunday. The Buccaneers will come to town on Sunday, and Tom Brady may mess around and stifle any hope of last year's playoff rematch. 

Dan Campbell is working hard, but the Lions have been defeated. They need a victory. soon. Just for morale. They may celebrate like winning the Super Bowl. 

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