The New Orleans Saints have already punched their ticket for the NFC playoff tournament, but they didn’t get any help from the Minnesota Vikings on Monday night. The Vikings, sunk by an awful performance from franchise quarterback Kirk Cousins, put in a pathetic effort against the Green bay Packers and made New Orleans’ path to a top-two playoff seed (and the bye week it carries) much more difficult.
Winning that first-round bye or securing homefield advantage throughout the playoffs are well within reach for New Orleans, but they’ll need plenty of help. Fortunately, the NFL is here to clear things up. Here are each of the playoff clinch scenarios relevant to the Saints in Week 17.
Saints clinch first-round bye
- Saints beat Panthers, and Packers lose/tie Lions OR
- Saints beat Panthers, and 49ers lose/tie Seahawks OR
- Saints tie Panthers, and Packers lose to Lions OR
- Saints tie Panthers, and 49ers lose to Seahawks OR
- 49ers lose to Seahawks, and Packers beat or tie Lions
Saints clinch No. 1 seed in NFC
- Saints beat Panthers, Packers lose/tie Lions, and 49ers lose/tie Seahawks OR
- Saints tie Panthers, Packers lose to Lions, and 49ers lose to Seahawks
Complicated as that all may be, it’s kind of what we expected: the Saints have to beat the Panthers on Sunday to reach their easiest path to the playoffs. After that, things move out of their hands. The Saints don’t need both the Packers and 49ers to trip up and lose in Week 17, either of them doing that is enough to clinch a playoff bye. And that’s really what’s most important, even if homefield advantage would be nice. The Saints have gone 6-1 on the road in 2019, and their road record speaks for itself — they’ve won 17 of their last 24 away games, going back to the 2017 season, including 13 of their last 15. New Orleans has built a team that can travel well and beat any team in any venue in the league. But they could sure use an extra week to rest up and prepare before making their playoffs debut.
