There’s just one more week of regular season NFL action, so we know quite a bit about the list of teams that will be playing in January’s football playoffs. The AFC has the Colts, Chargers, Patriots and Bengals. For the last two slots there are a bunch of teams that are in contention. At the moment, the Jets and Broncos have the advantage, but the Steelers, Texans and Ravens are among the other possibilities. In the NFC, the Saints, Eagles, Vikings, Cardinals, Cowboys and Packers are in the playoffs. It’s not clear which rankings they will have, however. This week, on Monday night, the Vikings let their chance at a high seed slide away when they lost in overtime to the Chicago Bears. They might have even lost their 2nd place ranking too and would then have to play on Wild Card weekend. This could be a bad thing, because Favre is a little older and because their team seems to be struggling. We’ll know more next week, but Happy New Year!

You couldn’t expect that Brett Favre would have a permanently easy time in Minnesota. The team seemed to be shockingly well organized and getting along a bit too easily. At the same time, there isn’t any big intrigue in Indianapolis or New Orleans; but these are places where the quarterback isn’t new or anything. But Favre tends to bring his drama with him to his places. This week there was a big discussion about whether the coach had tried to take his QB out during the third quarter of a close game, to avoid getting him hurt. This erupted into the media. Apparently part of the problem is that Favre isn’t allowed such free reign over the offense as he might like. With his experience this is understandable, but the coach is the guy who makes those decisions too. It’s a tough political choice for them, but that’s the way that is.

The Broncos were on a long winning streak at the beginning of the season. But that’s all changed when on Sunday they lost another game, this time to the Oakland Raiders. That’s 6 of the last 8 games that they have lost now. They are really only in the hunt for the playoffs because they had so many wins at the beginning. There is a whole row of teams that are sitting at 7-7, hoping to sneak into the playoffs at the expense of the fading Broncos. They are no longer holding onto the AFC West, because the Chargers have jumped up into it the way that they do almost every year. The Broncos seem to have a bright future, but they have a bit of development to do. Keep an eye on Denver because they are mainly in charge of their own destiny in the next few weeks.

The buildup to the NFL Playoffs this year is intense. We have been watching the games go by and it leads us to a surprising conclusion that we might see the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl this year. You’ll want to get cheap NFL playoff tickets to be there in case this happens. As of this moment, both teams are undefeated, with Indy sitting at 14-0 and the Saints at 13-0. Last night, Indianapolis looked like they might be on the way to their first loss of the season, but Peyton Manning came in and gave them a boost to get their win done. The Saints have had their close calls too, but it hasn’t happened yet for them. Other amazing teams like Minnesota, San Diego, Philadelphia and Cincinnati are right on their heels and hope to upset these two dominant teams. Don’t miss the culmination of a great season!

Last night, we saw a big battle in the NFC East. We can frequently expect that games between the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants are going to be hotly contested and sometimes a little bit angry. As a friend of mine said, “it’s because they’re east coast teams that they get into fights more easily than Bears vs Packers, for example.” That would appear to be true. It was an exciting game anyhow since there were over 80 points scored in this 45-38 game. The Eagles were able to take advantage of the mistakes that New York made, including lots of botched coverage in the secondary, a couple of strange fumbles, and letting them return a punt more than half the field for a touchdown. About 10 yards of that, the guy was walking backwards. At the end of the game, Philly was in sole control of the division, because the Cowboys lost to San Diego as well. It’s still a close division, so hopefully it will remain interesting for a little while.

Tom Brady and the Patriots have a chance to get back into the playoffs this year. But in the AFC East, it’s not taking all that much of a record to get to the playoffs. The Miami Dolphins appear that they might be in the drivers’ seat for this postseason, but on the other hand, the Patriots are close to it too. The biggest problem is that the Patriots haven’t been able to finish off the close games this season at all. They keep dropping easy games and playing only partial games. The coach is trying to get the team to focus finally, sending guys home if they don’t show up for meetings on time and such. If he is successful, we can expect a big comeback. If not, then the Patriots might miss the playoffs again for the 2nd year in a row. Luckily for them, Brady is back on the field after missing most of the week with a small injury.

While they had a record number of penalty yards and a lot of turnovers, Green Bay was able to edge the Baltimore Ravens up in Cheesehead land last night in Monday Night Football. Green Bay’s offense wasn’t at its best and didn’t produce very much. But their defense shut down the Ravens in a way that they could have only hoped for. Green Bay might have an angle at a playoff spot, depending on how things go in the rest of the NFC. The Ravens are fighting it out with one of the most competitive divisions in the game right now. The Steelers haven’t been as good as before, but Cincy seems to be a team that could actually take the division. This game meant a lot for both teams and they both tried to show it.

The Jets started out with such an exciting beginning to the season. They went 4-0 and possibly even better. Mark Sanchez wasn’t able to keep it up through the entire year, but he has shown that he’s going to be one of the nation’s best QBs in the future. Sanchez is strong and a good playmaker. But in the last few weeks, he has been injured. Last night, against Buffalo he didn’t only help lead his team to a win, but he also got a knee injury, or possibly reagrivated one he already had. Hopefully, this is just going to be the beginning of a big career. But on the other hand, he might be the kind of player that is injured most of the time. But there’s not much evidence of this, since he was fine until he came to NYC. This year, the team is probably not headed to the playoffs, but he will be a valuable asset for many years to come!