Seahawks playoff FAQs

Seattle’s loss to Minnesota didn’t sink the Seahawks playoff chances, but it put a hell of a hurting on them.

Seattle now has two paths to reach the playoffs, each of which requires significant help.

The most straightforward path:

• IF the Los Angeles Rams lose to the Arizona Cardinals in Week 17

  AND

• IF the Seattle Seahawks beat the Rams in Week 18.

• THEN: Seattle wins the NFC West.

  Reason: The Seahawks would be the division champions regardless of whether they won Thursday’s game in Chicago. If Seattle beat the Bears in that game, they would finish 10-7 and finish one game ahead of the Rams and (possibly) the Cardinals. If Seattle lost to the Bears and beat the Rams, both teams would finish 9-8. Seattle would win a head-to-head tiebreaker against the Rams by virtue of being 4-2 in division games compared to 3-3 for the Rams. If the Cardinals won their Week 18 game against San Francisco after defeating the Rams in Week 17, Arizona would also be 9-8. Seattle would win a three-way tiebreaker by virtue of being 3-1 in its games against the other two teams while the Rams would be 2-2 and the Cardinals 1-3.

The more convoluted path:

• IF the Seahawks beat the Bears on Thursday night

  AND

• IF the Rams beat the Cardinals in Week 17, Los Angeles will probably win the division regardless of what happens in the Week 18 game.

  UNLESS a number of other outcomes break in Seattle’s favor.

If Seattle and Los Angeles were both to finish 10-7, the tiebreaker would come down to strength of victory. Currently, the Rams have the edge in that category, but the margin is small enough that it could flip to Seattle depending on results of other games.

You don’t really want to know how that would happen, do you? Because it gets really confusing.

But if you do, here goes:

Victories by Denver, Miami, Atlanta, Arizona and Chicago will help the Seahawks.

Victories by Las Vegas, San Francisco, Buffalo, New Orleans and Minnesota will hurt the Seahawks’ chances.

If you need a visual aide, here goes I’m going to put the games that could conceivably help Seattle’s strength-of-victory in Group A.

OK. Now remember, we’re trying to figure out a potential tiebreaker if the Rams and Seahawks both finish 10-7, and for that to happen, both the Rams and Seahawks need to win in Week 17 so that removes those two games from consideration:

Now let’s move over to the teams the Rams have beaten, but the Seahawks have not.

Seattle needs the wins from teams in Group A to be three more than the wins from teams in Group B.

Previous update:

Dec. 16, 2024 — Are you the kind of person who likes information on a need-to-know basis?

If so, all you need to know about the Seahawks playoff chances is that if they win their final three games, they’ll win the NFC West and earn a first-round home game regardless of what else happens.

If Seattle doesn’t win its final three games, it’s going to need help to make the postseason.

Now, if you’re the kind of person who likes to understand all the contingencies in a situation, you’re in luck. Because of all the useless information I acquired in the 15 years I covered the Seahawks on a daily basis, the NFL’s criteria for tiebreakers is way up there.

It simply is not possible for me NOT to tease out the various playoff possibilities, and in the spirit of holiday giving, I’m going to lay it all out in a Frequently Asked Questions.

Q: Do the Seahawks have ANY wiggle room?

Define “wiggle room.”

They’re playing the Vikings, who are 11-2 entering their Monday night game against Chicago. Can Seattle lose to the Vikings and still win the division?

Yes. But Seattle would need the Rams to lose to either the Jets or the Cardinals in the next two weeks. If that happens — and the Seahawks beat Chicago in Week 17 — the Rams and Seahawks would play for the division title in the regular-season finale.

OK. But if the Rams beat the Jets and Cardinals and then lost to the Seahawks, they’d be 10-7. If the Seahawks lost to the Vikings and then beat the Bears and Rams, they’d be 10-7. How would the tiebreakers work?

Well, let’s breakout the league’s tiebreaker criteria.

1. Division record: If Seattle goes 2-1 over the final three games, losing to Minnesota, and L.A. goes 2-1, losing to Seattle, both would be 4-2 in the division.

2. Record in common games: The Rams and Seahawks each played San Francisco (2), Arizona (2), Detroit, Green Bay, Minnesota, Chicago, Miami, New England, New York Jets and Buffalo Bills. Both the Rams and Seahawks would be 7-5 in those games.

3. Conference record: Both would be 6-6.

4. Strength of victory: Currently, the collective win percentage of the teams that the Rams have beaten is .473 while the collective win percentage of the teams that Seattle has beaten is .432. That is close enough, however, that it’s possible the results of the next three weeks could swing to Seattle’s advantage.

Well, that sounds very complicated.

Yeah, and if a divisional tiebreaker comes down to strength-of-victory, Seattle would be greatly helped if it had a victory over Minnesota as opposed to Chicago.

But what about the wild card? Could Seattle make the playoffs without winning the division?

Yes. If Washington loses each of its final three games and the Seahawks win two of their final three, Seattle would earn the third and final wild-card berth for the playoffs.

If Washington wins so much as one of its final three games — which are against the Eagles, the Falcons and the Cowboys — then it’s impossible for Seattle to earn a wild-card berth.

OK. What else?

There is nothing else.

But let’s say Washington goes 1-2 and the Packers go 0-3. That would put both those teams at 10-7. If the Seahawks won two of their final three games, there would be a three-way tie for the final two wild-card berths.

Yep, and Washington would get the first of those two berths by virtue of having the best conference record, and Green Bay would get the final wild-card spot by virtue of its head-to-head victory over the Seahawks.

So Seattle needs to win its next three games to be assured of making the playoffs.

Yup.