Half of last year’s postseason teams are outside of the NFL playoff picture at the midway point of the 2022 season. The league’s biggest disappointments reside in the NFC, where some of the preseason Super Bowl contenders have fallen to the bottom half of the standings.
The Los Angeles Rams, Green Bay Packers and Arizona Cardinals enter Week 10 on the outside of the NFC playoff picture. In the AFC, the New England Patriots, Cincinnati Bengals, Las Vegas Raiders and Pittsburgh Steelers would miss the postseason if the playoffs started after Week 9.
The Packers’ playoff chances are fading fast. Green Bay extended its losing streak with a 15-9 loss against the Detroit Lions. With a 3-6 record entering Week 10, the Packers are 4.5 games behind the Minnesota Vikings for first place in the NFC North. Green Bay is the No. 12 seed in the NFC, trailing the San Francisco 49ers by 1.5 games for the conference’s final wild-card spot.
Green Bay only scored nine points against the league’s worst scoring defense. Aaron Rodgers threw three interceptions, including a pair of picks at the goal line. The back-to-back MVP has an 89.0 passer rating, putting him behind 15 other starting quarterbacks. Only five teams are averaging fewer points per game than the Packers.
The Rams are one of those teams, putting up just 16.4 points per game during their Super Bowl defense. Following Sunday’s 16-13 loss against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Los Angeles has scored fewer than 15 points in all five of its losses. Matthew Stafford has thrown the same number of touchdown passes and interceptions.
The Rams are the NFC’s No. 10 seed, trailing the Seattle Seahawks by 2.5 games for first place in the NFC West. The 49ers are technically only a game ahead of the Rams in the wild-card race, but San Francisco owns the tiebreaker because it has already beaten Los Angeles twice.
The NFC West is quickly turning into a two-team race between the 49ers and Seahawks. Seattle’s 31-21 victory over Arizona in Week 9 kept the Cardinals in last place and gave the Seahawks a three-game edge over their division rivals. Arizona is the NFC’s No. 13 seed.
The Philadelphia Eagles atop the overall standings as the league’s lone undefeated team, on track to get a first-round playoff bye. The Vikings are the No. 2 seed and only a game behind the Eagles with a six-game winning streak. The Seahawks enter Week 10 as the NFC’s No. 3 seed. The Buccaneers are the No. 4 seed as the first-place team in the NFC South, despite their 4-5 record.
The Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants are comfortably the first two wild-card teams with a 6-2 record. The 49ers are a half-game ahead of the No. 8 seed Atlanta Falcons for the final wild-card spot.
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