NFL Week 15: Playoff implications abound

This was the third Sunday in a row that the NFL played against a backdrop of tragedy. So my Christmas wish this year is a simple one (also I’m not sure I get one because I’m Jewish): that next Sunday we don’t need to watch football to forget, but that we need to watch it because it’s the fantasy football championship.

TAKEAWAY: Good riddance, Thursday Night Football

Three snaps to be exact.

The former supplemental draft pick then watched the rest of the game from the bench as Palmer went on to lead his team to five field goals, snapping the Raiders’ six-game losing streak in the process.

That puts 10 who could realistically hope to pick up one of the five remaining spots in both the AFC and NFC.

Read all about the playoff picture here.

It was a relatively tame Sunday on the injury front in the NFL, with only a few major injuries to report (but don’t tell that to fantasy owners of the players listed below). Here are the key injuries from Sunday’s action, and their potential impacts:

The Panthers’ out-gained the Chargers’ offense by 208 total yards and 16 first downs all while holding the ball for over 15 more minutes. Making matters worse is that this pitiful performance comes only one week after San Diego turned in arguably their finest effort of the season (a 34-24 victory in Pittsburgh).

Following this defeat, John Gennaro of Bolts From the Blue stated that the Chargers organization has “cancer.” He went on to add that since “the white blood cells,” a.k.a. the front office, doesn’t “have the intelligence or strength to build a plan of attack that would actually work and fix this mess,” it’s time to “fire everyone.”

Semi-finals are almost in the books for most fantasy leagues. If you started any of the good listed below, you aren’t doing too bad. However, there were a high number of WR1 and WR2 players that were either hurt or finished well under 50 yards without a touchdown.

Such is the random, chaotic heartbreak of fantasy football. Hope it was worth it!

The NFC South avoided major injuries in Week 15, with only a couple players suffering some minor nicks over the weekend.

First round fantasy picks showed up everywhere on my lists of Best and Worst this week. If you had the best, you’re probably good. However if you had the trio of the worst, you are probably not going to collect anything better than third place money if you’re lucky.

There is only one game left for most leagues, probably leaving only a handful of people that still care about what is going on in fantasy football. You may be one of those people! Congrats!

Keep your eyes on the AFC North, where the Bengals and Steelers are in a dogfight for that final spot. The Ravens, despite the loss, clinched a playoff berth by virtue of the Steelers losing in Dallas.

Here’s what the AFC playoff seeding looks like right now:

Let’s start in the NFC East, because that’s the division that holds the key to entire NFC playoff picture. The Cowboys, Giants and Redskins all have the same record. Washington gets the edge with the best record against the rest of the division. That makes next week’s whistle stop in Philadelphia important. It also sets up what could be a big show down at FedEx against the Cowboys in Week 17.

The 49ers pass the eyeball test as the second-best team in the conference. Sunday night’s win in New England is hard to argue. A game next week against Seattle could prove otherwise, but the NFC West is no longer on the line thanks to this week’s win.

The loss snapped a seven-game win streak for the Pats and kept the Niners on top of the NFC West.

Fantasy studs and duds

49ers defensive lineman Ray McDonald broke through the Patriots offensive line on 2nd-and-10 to bring down Tom Brady and help his team hold a lead. In the process he lost his helmet. He didn’t need it anyway.

It’s a strange night in New England. Ed Hochuli is making bizarre calls that nobody understands, and two of the league’s best teams are really struggling to hold onto the ball. One of the game’s strangest sequences occurred in the third quarter when Tom Brady threw his second interception of the night.

Brady was throwing the ball to Aaron Hernandez, who couldn’t hold onto it on 1st-and-10. The ball ricocheted off his hand, then off a helment before landing in the arms of Aldon Smith.

What hell is Ed Hochuli talking about? That was the question the entire world of football fans and media members were asking after a confusing chain of events in the second quarter of Sunday night’s game between the 49ers and the Patriots.

The Patriots punted on 4th-and-6 to the 49ers 32-yard line. San Francisco was flagged for a penalty. New England got dinged for a first touching violation, when a player from the kicking team touches the ball before it was touched by a player from the receiving team.

The injury occurred on a carry early in the second quarter, and he did not return to the game after being examined in the locker room. This is the second time that Matthews, who finished Sunday’s game with seven touches for 30 yards, has suffered this particular injury this year as he also broke his right clavicle in the preseason.

Matthews will finish his third season in the NFL with a total of 685 rushing yards and one touchdown on 180 carries. He also chipped in 244 yards on 26 receptions.

Currently, the Redskins hold the tiebreaker and thus, are technically in sole possession of the top spot in the division. However, Dallas has a chance to unseat Washington from the throne in Week 17, marking the second straight season the Cowboys will play for a the NFC East title in the final week.

Pittsburgh won the toss in overtime and took the ball, but after a seven-yard completion to Miller, Roethlisberger threw the interception that set the Cowboys up for victory.

Winners

If the Ravens are unable to win out, and Cincinnati win both their games the Bengals will win the AFC North. If Baltimore finishes 1-1, and Cincinnati are 2-0, then the Ravens still win the AFC north. Here is where Pittsburgh come in: If they finish 2-0, the Bengals finish 1-1, and the Ravens finish 0-2 -- then the Steelers find a back door, and they win the AFC North based on their head-to-head with Cincinnati and Baltimore.

The Raiders accumulated nearly 400 yards of total offense, but had problems finishing drives. That didn’t matter to Janikowski, who nailed two kicks of 50-plus yards, including a 57-yarder at the end of the first half, which gave Oakland a two-score lead.

Of course, one score would have been too much for the Chiefs to overcome on this day. Kansas City gained just 119 yards of total offense, and was held to a measly 17 in the first half. The Chiefs’ running game was the their biggest issue; Kansas City had minus-2 rushing yards at halftime, and finished the game with just 10.

Turnovers proved to be the difference on Sunday when the Lions faced the Cardinals, as Arizona scored 35 points off of takeaways on their way to a 38-10 win.

The Lions’ late effort also proved fruitless and, after turning the ball over on downs with under four minutes to play, the Cardinals took advantage of the short field once again with Beanie Wells scoring his third touchdown of the game to put Arizona ahead, 38-10.

Despite trailing only 14 to 7 after the first quarter, the Bills didn’t seem to be in the game and they weren’t. The Seahawks exploded for 17 second-quarter points to build a 31-7 lead before Buffalo could find the end zone again. The Seahawks scored 19 more points in the second half while shutting out the Bills to complete the rout.

Odds: The Seahawks opened as three-point favorites and had little trouble covering the spread. The over was set at 42.5 when opening lines came out, which Seattle was able to cover by itself.

The best part is the little pause and slide where the pants come all the way down past the rump. You can just imagine a slide-whistle sound effect and Bob Saget adopting a stupid voice.

Actually, no, wait. That’s not the best part. This is the best part:

After two and a half years back in the pros, following a decade of dominance at USC, Pete Carroll is super happy to have comfortable leads in the NFL for the first time. So happy that he wants all of the points and all of the plays.

“Easy tiger. Wait until you get to 3,000 yards. Then you can talk.”