Going into today’s games the Jaguars and Broncos were in good position to get the wild card slots in the AFC.  But after both teams lost and most the 6-6 teams won the wild card race got a lot closer.

I (lucky me) got to watch the Lions-Ravens, Bengals-Vikings, and Chargers-Cowboys games today.  Because I live about 60 minutes north of Baltimore I actually had to watch the ENTIRE Ravens-Lions game.  Brutal.  And lets be honest the Vikings-Bengals game wasn’t much better.

While watching those games I noticed a few things….the Bengals aren’t going to beat anyone in the playoffs, the Lions suck, and the Chargers are quite possibly turning into the team to beat in the AFC.

Sure the Colts are still undefeated and will get homefield advantage throughout the playoffs but the Chargers have the talent and are playing the most complete football right now.  I am not saying that todays win was overly impressive, it wasn’t, but they have now won 8 in row and are in good position to get the #2 seed in the AFC.  Next week they welcome the Bengals to San Diego and after watching the Bungals today I would say they won’t challenge the Chargers next week too much.

In the NFC the Saints continued to roll albeit uncomfortably.  They haven’t looked great the past 2 weeks and really with the exception of the New England game they haven’t looked good in a couple months.  They do what they need to do to get the win and that is all that matters right now.  Today it was the depleted Falcons giving them fits taking the game down to the wire before the Saints won by 3.

If I was a Saints fan I would be a little worried at this point.  Sure they might get homefield advantage (need to win 2 more) but that might not be enough.  They just haven’t looked that good recently.  The defense is giving up yardage in chunks and they are starting to look like the Saints of the past couple years…outscore the opponents at all costs.

I think most of the appeal of the Saints defense this season has been that they score regularly but that isn’t always going to happen.  At some point they just need to man up and shut down an opposing offense.  So far this season they have only been able to do that in a couple games.  In their 13 games this season at this point they have held their opponent to under 20 points only 4 times.  For a defense that everyone claims is so good they can’t seem to get off the field.

This has got to be the best time of year for NFL fans though.  The next 2 months are incredible followed by 6 months of horrible boredom.  The playoff races are coming down to the wire…2 divisions are locked up (AFC and NFC South), 3 more are all but done (NFC and AFC North and NFC West), while 2 East divisions could come down to the final weekend.

And the wild card races??  They are going to be fun.  There are 8 teams in the AFC that are still alive while the NFC is a little less interesting as only 4 or 5 teams have a legitimate shot.  Tonight’s game between the Eagles and the Giants will either cloud the picture further or all but settle the NFC East.