At 10-4, the Green Bay Packers are still alive for the NFC North title…technically. There’s only one remaining path for the remainder of the season where the Packers come out on top of the North.
If the Packers win out the rest of their games, that’ll give them a final record of 13-4 on the season. They need that. One loss and their NFC North title hopes are over. Green Bay finishes the regular season against the New Orleans Saints, a road trip against the Minnesota Vikings and a trip back home against the Chicago Bears.
If Minnesota and the Detroit Lions, who play each other in Week 18, lose their next two games, they’ll head into the final week of the season at 12-4. Certainly, this means that the Packers have some sort of tiebreaker over one of the Lions or Vikings, if they still have a chance to win the division, right?
Wrong.
If Minnesota wins, they’ll tie the Packers with a 13-4 record. In this scenario, their head-to-head record would be tied, meaning that the second-level tie-breaker will decide who gets in. The Vikings have a 4-2 record in the division compared to the Packers’ 3-3, meaning that they’d get in even if the Lions lose out, the Packers lose out and Minnesota only wins in the final week of the regular season.
So we root for the Lions to be the 13-4 team then, right?
Wrong again!
Because Detroit won both their matchups with Green Bay, the Lions would win the head-to-head tiebreaker if both teams finish the regular season with a 13-4 record.
So how aren’t the Packers eliminated? Well…they need a tie in that final Week 18 matchup between the Lions and Vikings, so that both of those clubs finish with a 12-4-1 record while Green Bay wins the NFC North with a 13-4 mark.
That’s right, the singular path for the Packers winning the NFC North is as follows:
- The Packers must win out
- The Lions and Vikings must go winless in Weeks 16 and 17
- The Lions and Vikings must tie in Week 18
