Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NFL. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Washington Commanders fans and fans across the country.Sign up here to participate in regular email surveys.
This week we have three questions in the Reacts survey.
Question 1
Our first question this week is the one we ask every week — Do you feel confident in the direction of the Commanders?
We have been tracking the results of this question throughout the season. In our last survey, following the victory over the Tennessee Titans prior to this week’s bye, confidence was measured at 97%, very much in the range where it has hovered for most of the season. In fact, our confidence measure has fallen under 92% only two times in 2024 — following the losses to the Buccaneers and the Cowboys in Weeks 1 and 13, respectively.
Will confidence remain steady as we come out of the bye week?
Questions 2 & 3
Our other two questions this week both relate to playoff seedings. To answer them thoughtfully, you probably need to spend a few minutes projecting wins & losses for a half-dozen or more teams — or you can simply “go with your gut”.
If you want to take the approach that involves careful consideration, I will provide some information and tools for you in this space. If you are a ‘go with your gut’ type of person, you have probably already answered the poll questions without reading what I have written.
One resource for getting up to speed with the dynamics of the playoff wildcard seedings is the Wildcard Watch article recently published on Hogs Haven.
The ESPN playoff calculator
If you’d like to tinker with potential playoff scenarios without needing pencil & paper or a some really solid spreadsheet skills, ESPN has you covered with the playoff machine.
Just CLICK HERE if you’d like to use the online tool. It allows you to predict the winner of every remaining NFL game of the 2024 regular season in order to see who qualifies for the playoffs, and it updates the results every time you pick a different winner. (Note: If you are interested only in NFC playoff seedings, then you only need to pick winners in games that involve at least one NFC team)
The Contenders for the 6th & 7th seeds
Without considering the Lions, who haven’t lost since Week 1 of the season, there are nine teams (including the Commanders) competing for the 3rd through 7th seedings in the NFC (5 playoff spots), which means that four of the teams in the chart below will miss out on the playoffs this year.
The third & fourth seeds will go to the division champions of the NFC West & South, while the 5th seed will go to an NFC North team.
In today’s survey, you are being asked to predict the 6th and 7th seeds in the NFC playoffs.
Note : teams with the same color in the same week play each other (e.g., the Packers are at the Vikings in Week 17, while the Seahawks are at the Rams in Week 18)
Two examples
I have prepared two examples of how the chart above can be used to predict outcomes and seedings.
Example 1
Example 2
I’ve laid out different projected wins & losses for the 9 relevant teams from Weeks 15-18, showing the resulting projected records and playoff seedings. Here is a summary of the outcomes of the two examples:
Only 6 projected game outcomes (out of 28 total games shown on the chart) were changed from Example 1 to Example 2, yet you will notice that all five seedings are different from one example to the other.
It can be a tricky business to predict the future, but you have your chance in today’s survey to do your best Carnac the Magnificent impression.
Note : If you’d like a copy of what you see above, you canCLICK HERE, copy the contents of the worksheet and paste them into a blank Excel worksheet that you can play with on your own tablet or computer.
Comments & Results
Of course, we invite you to answer the survey questions below, but also feel free to expand on your answers and provide nuance in the comments section. I rely on those comments when discussing the results of the survey when they are posted in a separate article the next few days.
POLL QUESTIONS