Half of postseason playoff spots still up for grabs today

With two weeks left in the season only three spots in each division are decided.
THE WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON -- At times this season, Cincinnati Bengals Coach Marvin Lewis hasn't had much to smile about. His team struggled through a stretch of five losses in six games after a 3-0 beginning, and he's had to endure a string of off-the-field misdeeds by his players.
But when Lewis sat down at midweek for his regularly scheduled news conference, he was grinning and cracking jokes. "It's an exciting week," he said.
It was suggested that he was acting as camera-friendly as his former boss, Baltimore Ravens Coach Brian Billick.
"No," Lewis said. "He's in the playoffs. I'm not. We're working to get there."
Lewis' Bengals, who play a crucial game in Denver this afternoon, have plenty of company in that quest. The NFL begins the second-to-last Sunday of the regular season with six of the 12 postseason spots still up for grabs. Coaches and players can study the complicated playoff permutations if they choose. Or they can just give up and resolve that all they can do is try to win the game at hand.
"If it doesn't excite you, you need to be in another business," Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells said. "This is what you go through training camp and go through all those practices for."
Part of the NFL's highly successful business formula is that fans in most of the league's cities begin each season with Super Bowl or at least playoff aspirations for their teams. Dominant teams are few and far between in this era because the salary cap and free agency annually rob clubs of cohesion and depth. Teams can -- and do -- go from also-ran to contender status in a year. The scheduling formula, which has teams that were successful the previous season playing large chunks of their out-of-division games against other successful clubs, further aids the push toward competitive balance.
Inherited ideal situation
The NFL's first-year commissioner, Roger Goodell, inherited a league in which the ideal is to have as many teams as possible still alive in the postseason race with a few weeks left in the regular season. The league seems to be achieving that goal.
"We're seeing a lot of parity amongst the teams," Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid said early in the week.
"Commissioner [Paul] Tagliabue, he wanted it that way before he retired. And he's got it. It's there."
Three of the six postseason berths in each conference are locked up. The Chicago Bears have clinched the NFC North title, a first-round playoff bye and home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs.
The New Orleans Saints have clinched the NFC South and the Cowboys have secured a playoff spot.
The Seattle Seahawks have a two-game lead in the NFC West and the Eagles have the wild-card lead with a record of 8-6.
There's a mad scramble for the other NFC wild-card spot with two 7-7 teams (the New York Giants and Atlanta Falcons), a 7-8 club (the Green Bay Packers after their Thursday night triumph over the Minnesota Vikings) and three 6-8 teams (the Carolina Panthers, San Francisco 49ers and St. Louis Rams).
AFC teams in
In the AFC, three of the four division titles are secured: the San Diego Chargers in the West, the Ravens in the North and the Indianapolis Colts in the South. But home-field advantage and first-round byes, not to mention the AFC East title, are yet to be decided.
And the scramble for the two wild-card spots is even more fierce, with four 8-6 teams (the Bengals, Broncos, New York Jets and Jacksonville Jaguars) and four 7-7 clubs (the Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers, Tennessee Titans and, entering Saturday night, the Kansas City Chiefs).
The result is that of the 14 games on the NFL's schedule for Sunday and Monday, 12 of them involve at least one team fighting for a playoff spot or seeding.
The only two clunkers are the Bears, with everything all wrapped up, playing the hopelessly out-of-contention Detroit Lions, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers facing the Cleveland Browns.