Playoff Picture: Three teams can lock up playoff spots in Week 13

UPDATE AFTER THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL:

Wow...what a finish. A wonderful Rodgers and Rodgers musical production, unless of course you are a fan of the Lions, Vikings, Seahawks or Cardinals. The Lions have now elevated both the Seahawks and Packers playoff and ultimate seeding potential with excruciating last minute losses to both teams.

Quick impact:

The Packers gain a key division and conference win in the face of sure defeat and are within striking distance of the Vikings who have a huge home game this week against the Seahawks. Good news for Vikings fans is that Minnesota would win a tiebreaker with Green Bay if they end up tied on overall record and the Vikings beat the Packers week 17 as Minnesota would win on division record (4-2 at worst in this scenario vs. GB at 3-3).
Green Bay will take the division lead if Minnesota loses to Seattle based on their H2H win over the Vikings.
If the Packers win out and finish 12-4 including wins over Arizona and Minnesota, they would only need one additional Cardinals loss to gain a first round playoff bye.
The Panthers now need a Seattle loss or tie to clinch a playoff berth if they lose this week and the Falcons win.

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I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and had a chance to take in a few NFL games in between turkey and leftovers. We had some great games this week, but neither New England nor Carolina could garner a playoff spot as the Patriots lost and weren't helped by a Jets win, while the Panthers needed a Seahawks loss to clinch and didn't get it.

No clinches along with no playoff eliminations leaves us with 32 teams still in playoff contention with five weeks to play. This is the first year since 2004 that all NFL teams remain alive with five weeks left and only the third time since 1990 that this has occurred (1995 had all 30 NFL teams alive heading into Week 13).

The main factor leading to no eliminations is that we have a large proportion of teams around the .500 level at 6-5 and 5-6, and that provides some wild-card hopes for teams at 2-9 and 3-8. In fact, in the AFC we have 10 of 16 teams within a two-game spread from 4-7 to 6-5 and nine of 16 NFC teams in that same range. These next two weeks should provide some space, and likely some eliminations.

As for Week 13, we have three teams that can clinch playoff spots. Let's start in the NFC with the Panthers. Here are their official scenarios that we sent to the NFL on Tuesday morning:

CAROLINA PANTHERS

Carolina clinches NFC South division:

CAR win or tie
ATL loss or tie

Carolina clinches a playoff berth:

SEA loss or tie
ARI loss or tie + GB loss or tie as long as both teams don't tie

The division clinch is fairly straightforward as only the Falcons can catch the Panthers. Carolina needs to win out on overall record for now since the two teams still have both head-to-head meetings left on Weeks 14 and 16 and Atlanta can sweep to win any tiebreaker.

If the Panthers lose to the Saints and the Falcons beat the Buccaneers, Carolina can clinch a playoff berth by getting rid of one team between ARI/SEA and MIN/GB, the teams that could catch or beat them as a wild card at 11-5. A Seattle loss or tie gets rid of one team, thus that gets the Panthers in. If Seattle doesn't lose or tie (meaning Minnesota lost), that combined with Arizona and Green Bay losses sets off a domino effect of games including ARI-MIN, ARI-GB, ARI-SEA, MIN-GB that clinches a spot in the top-six seeds for the Panthers.

On the AFC side, we have New England and Cincinnati in positions to secure playoff spots this week. Here are their official scenarios:

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS

New England clinches AFC East division:

NE win + NYJ loss or tie
NE tie + NYJ loss

New England clinches a playoff berth:

NE win + PIT loss or tie
NE win + KC loss or tie
NE tie + KC loss
NE tie + PIT loss + HOU loss or tie

For the Patriots, Buffalo can't catch them for the division title, since New England has swept the Bills and Buffalo can't use the Jets in a three-way tie to overcome that H2H deficit. That leaves the Jets, who can still beat the Pats on overall record and can split H2H if they beat New England in Week 16. The Patriots really just need one more division win to clinch that tiebreaker at 5-1 vs. 4-2, but they don't play within the AFC East until the final two weeks of the season against the Jets and Dolphins. New England can actually lose their next four games while the Jets could win their next four (each team would be 10-5 with one week to play) and the Patriots would only need to beat the Dolphins in Miami to still win the division (or have the Jets lose at Buffalo).

Having said that, the Pats can clinch the division this week with a win and a Jets loss in a similar fashion to Carolina above, as New England needs to win on overall record for now. It should be noted that if the Patriots win this week against the Eagles (non-conference) and then lose out and both the Pats and Jets end at 11-5, the Jets would beat the Patriots on conference record 8-4 to 7-5. If New England had a division game this week, they could clinch the title with a win this week.

On the playoff clinching side, the Patriots need to get better than 10 wins (win or tie this week) and have the five-loss teams like the Steelers and Chiefs take a hit.

CINCINNATI BENGALS

Cincinnati clinches a playoff berth:

CIN win + HOU loss or tie + IND loss or tie + NYJ loss (as long as IND and HOU both don't tie)
CIN win + HOU loss or tie + IND loss or tie + DEN win or tie + KC loss (as long as IND and HOU both don't tie)

Cincinnati can clinch a playoff berth this week with a win at Cleveland and a number of the five-loss teams losing, which gets the AFC South down to only the division champ that can catch the Bengals and creates another domino effect, with the Steelers likely needing to win out to beat the Bengals for the division, which gives the Broncos a loss and so on and so on. More to come on this.

Tiebreaker notes:

The Giants' loss to the Redskins this past week was key as, although they split H2H, the Giants are now fall behind the Redskins on division record (2-1 vs. 2-3) and conference record (5-3 vs. 4-5). Any tie between these teams would likely give Washington the edge.
Cowboys fans would have to ee their team win three of its last five games (without Tony Romo) to even stand a slim chance of winning the division at 6-10, as wild-card chances are slim to none. Can that happen?
The Vikings have a one-game lead over the Packers but Green Bay has that H2H win in hand with a big clash between these two ahead in Week 17. As long as the Packers can stay within one game of the Vikings through Week 16, they control their own fate for the division title.
If the Falcons lose at the Buccaneers this week, you can likely write off Atlanta despite being tied with Seattle for the sixth seed at 6-5. A loss would give TB a sweep of Atlanta and drop the Falcons to 0-3 in the division and 4-5 in the conference. No bueno.
The Seahawks are the No. 6 seed if the season ended today (conference record over Atlanta) and have a huge game at the Vikings this week that could determine wild-card seeding and the NFC North title. It's better for Seattle if Green Bay wins their division, since the Seahawks lost to the Packers in Week 2. Seattle would try to reel in the Vikings and secure the No. 5 seed.
The Jets are on the outside looking in of the four 6-5 wild-card combatants based on conference record, and they don't have H2H games against that group other than a loss to Houston. With two of their next three games against NFC teams, they just need to keep winning and hope others take some conference losses.
The Steelers are the current No. 8 seed at 6-5 and a win this week against the Colts would go a long way to gaining a wild-card berth. Pittsburgh has already lost to the Chiefs and has a tough two-game stretch following the Colts with a visit to the Bengals and hosting the Broncos.
There is renewed hope for a wild-card team to come out of the previous laughingstock AFC South, with both the Colts and Texans at 6-5 and the Texans currently the No. 6 seed. Houston does have losses to Kansas City and Indianapolis already, so wins in the next few weeks, including at the Colts in Week 15, will be key.
I continue to say that the Chiefs are looking more and more like the eventual No. 5 seed and could overtake the Broncos in the division, although Denver's great comeback win over New England last Sunday took some of the steam off that story. The Chiefs have remaining games against Oakland (twice), San Diego, Baltimore and Cleveland, none with a winning record, and three of their opponents have three wins or less. It's not murderers row, by any means.

As I do each week, here are seeding predictions for the end of the season based on current team strengths and momentum, remaining schedule and tiebreakers.

AFC: