The NFL and two of its network partners got a late Christmas present over the weekend as three standalone games have major playoff stakes in Week 18.
NBC gets Ravens-Steelers on Sunday night in a “loser leaves town” match, where the winner takes home the AFC North and gets a home playoff game. ABC, meanwhile, gets a pair of Saturday games, with the first matchup having, in all likelihood, the same stakes in the NFC South when the Bucs face the Panthers. There’s a scenario where if the Falcons win their final two games, against the Rams and Saints, the Panthers would still win the division with a loss. (The Rams are 7.5-point favorites over the Falcons on Monday night.)
In the second leg of the ABC Saturday doubleheader, the Seahawks play the 49ers for the NFC West title and the top seed in the conference, which comes with a first-round bye. The loser will be a Wild Card playoff seed and have a road game in the first round.
“Wow, we get both those games? Well thank you very much NFL,” a pleasantly-surprised Scott Van Pelt said on ESPN (which operates ABC’s sporting events) after the Week 18 schedule was announced.
The NFL schedule is set up in a way that allows the league to be nimble with its Week 18 slate, as game times—and even dates, in the case of two games occurring on Saturday—are not set until late Sunday night of Week 17. Furthermore, since the 2010 season the NFL has scheduled divisional opponents for the last week of the season, with the hopes that there will be several games with the postseason on the line.
This year, the league needed a little bit of luck to get this fortune. If the Packers had beaten the Ravens or the Steelers had beaten the Browns—which were both the favored outcomes before the respective games kicked off—the Steelers would have wrapped up the division before their game against the Ravens.
If the Bears had beaten the 49ers Sunday night, the Seahawks would have clinched the NFC West. While the Bears and Seahawks still would’ve been vying for the top NFC seed next weekend, they would likely have been doing so in concurrent games Sunday afternoon on Fox or CBS as opposed to in a standalone slot.
