Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Panthers can make playoffs Sunday...

And here's how, according to the NFL's official playoff scenarios:

Carolina clinches a playoff spot with:

1) CAR win + DAL loss or tie OR
2) CAR win or tie + ATL loss or tie OR
3) CAR tie + DAL loss + PHI loss or tie OR
4) ATL loss + DAL loss + WAS loss or tie OR
5) ATL loss + DAL loss + CHI loss or tie OR
6) ATL loss + PHI loss + WAS loss or tie + CHI loss or tie.

So this could most easily happen if Carolina beats Denver at 4:15 p.m. Sunday AND either Dallas loses to the Giants Sunday night OR Atlanta loses to Tampa Bay at 1 p.m.

Either way, it could be some immediate gratification Sunday for Carolina fans.

10 comments:

Karl said...

The problem with a bunch of those scenarios is that we are better off if Dallas and Atlanta win than if the Giants and Tampa Bay win. We want the Giants to be dragged down so that we have a better chance of being #1 in the NFC; and we want the Falcons to beat the Bucs to increase our lead within the division.

Of course, it goes without saying that we need to win.

CarCats89 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
704Champ said...

Denver's running game is banged up, but Cutler is a solid QB and Brandon Marshall and rookie Eddie Royal are great wideouts. Hopefully BofA Stadium will be rocking this Sunday at 4:15!

Unknown said...

thanks for the post to put things into perspective, i didn't realize how close it was as early as it is.

i think at this point everything is about momentum...i'd like for the giants to win against dallas, so that we can play them when they're feeling good rather off a loss, but i doubt they'll (NYG) lose two in a row.

really we need to focus on cutler, marshall, and royal for now...the secondary has to show something unforeseeable, and the line needs to shred cutler to pieces to quash his high testosterone, bravado overconfidence. plan on the excellent denver team to visit us sunday and not their doppleganger.

sunday's game alone is much more important to win than whatever happens with other teams...

go panthers!!!!

John said...

It's just great fun that we can even be discussing stuff like this so late in the season!

Hopefully, the Tampa game will give our O-Line the psychological boost to go out there and continue to dominate at the line and open holes.

Go Cats!

Unknown said...

The formula is simple ... keep winning. Last week(s) don't matter, next week(s) don't mastter. This week is the most important game of the season the rest of the way out .... gotta love it!

Unknown said...

Is there any scenario where we can win the division on Sunday?

Karl said...

Ronan: No.

If we win on Sunday and the Bucs lose, we'll be 11-3 and they'll be 9-5. Let's assume for a second that we then lose the next two games and they win the next two, resulting in us both being 11-5. Then the tiebreakers come into effect.

First tiebreaker is head to head record: We'll both be 1-1, so that's a wash.

Second tiebreaker is divisional record: If everything goes as I described above, we'd both be 3-3 within the division. So that's also a wash.

Third tiebreaker is COMMON games. We have 8 common games with the Bucs. Carolina has played 7 of them already and went 6-1 with 1 remaining. The Bucs have played 6 and are 5-1 with 2 remaining. So we won't know until the final game of the regular season how that tiebreaker turns out.

So we can't win the division this Sunday. If we win and the Bucs lose this weekend, then we can win with a Giants or Tampa loss the following weekend. Winning this weekend against the Broncos is important for us because it means we can't lose the third tiebreaker and the onus will be on the Bucs to win out to have any chance of catching us, while just one more win for us will win us the division.

Idi Murray said...

Just like some of the other posters have said, we need to forget about everybody else and all of those scenarios and just win. The panthers control their fate. Keep winning and we'll be in the playoffs, with a bye, and have home field advantage throughout.

kamagra said...

I've been reading this blog and I think we can't ignore what you did because is one of the newest scenarios, likewise if you typed ATL loss + PHI loss + WAS loss or tie + CHI on Google you;ll see the striking difference between Tampa and Dallas. 23jj