If you were hoping that Sunday’s action would help the Green Bay Packers’ playoff pursuit, I’m hear to break the unfortunate news. Sitting at 9-4 following the team’s loss to the Detroit Lions on Thursday Night Football, the two things the Packers were rooting against were the Minnesota Vikings building a two-game lead over Green Bay for the top wildcard seed in the NFC and the top NFC West teams winning, which would keep those NFC West teams alive for the sixth or seventh seeds.

The Vikings beat the Atlanta Falcons to go 11-2 on the year while both the Seattle Seahawks, now 8-5, and Los Angeles Rams, now 7-6, beat the Arizona Cardinals and Buffalo Bills, respectively, today.

So what does that mean for the Packers now? Well, they still have a 98 percent chance of making the postseason, according to the New York Times’ playoff simulator, which is only slightly lower than the 99 percent mark they came into Sunday with. Now, though, there’s virtually no chance that the Packers can win the NFC North, even with a Lions collapse. Basically, every single thing would need to break wrong for the Lions and Vikings moving forward, along with the Packers going undefeated, for Green Bay to host a playoff game in the wildcard round.

At this point, you can pretty much bank on the Packers opening up on the road in the playoffs, no matter what happens over the next four weeks. According to the simulator, even if Green Bay finishes with a 0-4 record to end the season, they’ll still have a 26 percent chance to make the playoffs. With just a 1-3 record, they make the playoff around 80 percent of the time.

So what’s at stake for the rest of the year? Avoid total and complete collapse and you make the postseason. Other than that, this Packers team is playing for pride, as the Lions and Vikings have been able to successfully separate themselves from Green Bay through 14 weeks. This is an abnormal situation for a 9-4 team to find themself in, but a historically strong NFC North has sucked the air out of the NFC playoff race in 2024.