The ephemeral nature of these kinds of projections with 6 weeks to go is illustrated in ESPN's Football Power Index which calculates the following odds of gaining the #1 seed based on the Sunday night outcome:
Packer win over 49ers: Packers 44%, 49ers 10%
49ers win over Packers: Packers 4%, 49ers 45%
https://www.espn.com/blog/green-bay...-beat-49ers-once-at-their-place-at-some-point
Those odds won't even last to Sunday night based on the outcomes of the other Sunday games, let alone the 5 weeks to follow.
Even a Rams win at home against the Ravens this week and a Packer loss puts the Rams one game back of the Packers with the Rams holding the head-to-head tie breaker. Then you're looking backward at the threat from behind as much as who's ahead.
Of the current top 7 NFC teams, there are the following head-to-games remaining without even considering other tough matchups left to play, like SEA at PHI this week, SF at BAL the following week, or anybody playing PHI who is still in the hunt, or anybody playing ATL after these last two weeks, etc., etc.:
Week 12: GB at SF
Week 13: MIN at SEA
Week 14: SF at NO, SEA at LAR
Week 15: LAR at DAL
Week 16: LAR at SF, GB at MIN
Week 17: SF at SEA
These algorithmic projections will be a constant rinse and repeat with no clarity until the closing weeks or week. Maybe not until SF @ SEA at 4:30 PM Eastern in week 17.
If that's not enough, it is worth recalling in 2010 that if 8-5 TAM had not lost to 3-10 DET in week 15, the Packers don't make the playoffs. That game went to OT; all TAM needed was a tie as it turned out. Conversely, the Packers lost to 2-10 DET the previous week with Flynn having to play most of the game, yet another instance of "sh*t happens". Detroit won their final 4 games that season; beware the wounded dogs with a bite! ATL might this season's.
The Packers odds of making the playoffs dropped further in Week 15 of that season with the loss to NE with Flynn at QB again, in the ultimate "sh*t" happens game: Rodgers was out which could not have been predicted at Week 12, a NE offensive lineman returned a KO 71 yards costing 7 points, Flynn threw a pick 6, and Flynn was still in position to win at 1st. and 10 at the NE 24 with a minute to play and one time out left in the bag. Then Flynn was sacked. I believe the machines dropped their playoff odds to sub-25%.
I'm sure Rodgers, with a near photgraphic football memory, is aware of how sh*t happens over the course of 6 weeks when he says the Packers will have to beat SF @ SF sooner or later. Certainly he knows that's a big fat TBD. I mean c'mon...even if the Packers don't get a bye, they could as easily be playing in NO or DAL or SEA or PHI or MIN or who knows. Talking up the competition beats the alternative. Any seed that is planted where the opposition runs the NFL Playoff Machine or whatnot in their own minds whereby they conclude that, "Even if we lose we're still in OK shape," would be half of this week's battle. For his guys, it's the idea, "let's not come back," a focus on this game.
In short, these kinds of projections at this stage are like predicting the direction of a swirling wind. I'm not sure what's the bigger waste of time at this juncture, making a projection or explaining why it's a waste of time.
It is one game at a time, taking control of what you can control, boring (when the games are not in progress), until that 4:30 PM SF @ SEA in Week 17 where the guys (and us) can just watch and wait to see what the football gods deliver, providing it even matters at that point. Try to predict at this juncture whether, or in what way, that last game will matter. Good luck with that.
