Week 10 of the 2011 NFL season is in the books. Here’s how the playoff race stands right now:
As you might have guessed from the title of this article, the AFC North and the NFC North are both looking extremely tough, accounting for half of the teams currently in position to claim a playoff spot. That’s rare, but don’t expect it to last very long. The problem here is that teams within divisions as tough as the AFC and NFC North tend to beat each other up, often eliminating a playoff caliber team from the playoffs towards the end of the season.
Falling:
Right now, the Ravens and the Lions are both in tough spots. The Ravens can’t seem to figure out what kind of team they are. Derek Pease of TGS went over this in great detail earlier in the day; so, I won’t rehash the same old argument over here. Just know this. The Ravens are having an identity crisis, and they need to figure out what kind of team they’re going to be; otherwise, they won’t have to worry about beating Pittsburgh in January.
The Lions are in trouble for a more obvious reason. They’re just not winning games. They’ve won just one game out of their last four, and that win came against a sub-par Broncos team that’s still adjusting to Tim Tebow as their starting quarterback. The Lions have a huge game against the undefeated Packers coming up on Thanksgiving Day. If they can’t find a way to pull out a win on Turkey Day, their season could be put in very dire straits. With such a huge game looming, it seems easy to forget that they play a dangerous Panthers team this Sunday.
Rising:
The AFC South seemed to be one of the few divisions in football that was well-defined until we learned that Matt Schaub would likely miss the rest of the season with a foot injury. That’s tough news for the Texans to take, especially since the Titans are still just a couple games back. The Texans will be on their bye week on Sunday while the Titans will be visiting Atlanta. If the Titans can pull out a win down south, they would be just a game back with another shot at the Texans still to come. The AFC South is suddenly up for grabs once again.
I mentioned that the Lions were in danger of falling out of their current wildcard slot, and the team to boot them to the curb may be the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys have won their last two games, and they play the Redskins, Dolphins, and the Cardinals consecutively in the next three weeks. They’re currently 5-4, but there’s no reason they shouldn’t be 8-4 at the end of the that stretch. With the Giants just a game ahead of them in the NFC East, they may still be able to claim the third or fourth seed in the playoffs. I can’t believe it, but the Cowboys are finding a way to fly under the radar.
