The NEXT: NFC Playoffs

We'll take you up to the Divisional Weekend, at least.

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Cowboys vs. Vikings in here, early January?

Had this discussion at Thanksgiving dinner: even with all the Plaxico Burress drama (it hadn't broken yet at the time), the Giants are fairly unstoppable and should get the 1 seed in the NFC playoffs. With the Panthers nice win over the Packers yesterday and their better-than-Tampa Bay backfield, we'll take them at No. 2. Byes now handed out, we like the Minnesota Vikings as the No. 3 from the NFC North (their remaining schedule includes Detroit, Arizona and Atlanta, all of which could be wins and two of which should be). The four goes to the Arizona Cardinals, i.e. "the only team capable of winning the NFC West." In our mind, this means the Buccaneers (No. 5) and Cowboys (No. 6) grab the wild card slots. (Sorry, Falcons fans.) The Cowboys have a tough remaining schedule: Steelers and Eagles on the road, Giants and Ravens in Dallas; we still think they have enough talented players on that team to grab the sixth seed, and we'd like to see two teams from the NFC East make the NFC playoffs. It only seems right, no? OK, so that gives us Vikings vs. Cowboys at the HomerDome and Cardinals vs. Bucs in the desert. Latter game seems easy: Bucs. Former game could be a classic wild-card matchup. The defenses will be stout, but the Boys probably have too many weapons, even on the road. That gives us Bucs vs. Panthers and Giants vs. Cowboys on Divisional Weekend, with the central storyline of Game 2 being "revenge for 2007-2008 playoffs."

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