The NFL playoffs are coming. And plenty of NFL teams still have a chance to get there, at least mathematically.
NFL executive V.P. of football operations Troy Vincent notes on X that the 24 teams still in the chase for Super Bowl LVIII are tied for the most in the past 20 years with two weeks left in the regular season.
That means only eight teams have officially had a fork stuck in them: the Jets, Patriots, Titans, Chargers, Commanders, Giants, Panthers, and Cardinals.
Having 14 teams in the playoffs helps, of course. Even if a seventh seed has yet to beat the No. 2 seed in the wild-card round since the playoffs expanded. (Twice, the Bills came close to losing as the second seed, against the Colts in 2020 and the Dolphins in 2022.)
The best news as it relates to the coming postseason continues to be the fact that the 49ers suddenly don’t look as unbeatable as they had. Even if the 49ers would have beaten the Ravens seven, eight, or nine times out of 10, they played one game — and Baltimore won it. Handily.
The “any given Sunday” cliche endures, even if it’s now “any given Sunday or Monday or Thursday or Friday or Saturday.”