We'll take it!
The Green Bay Packers are going to make the playoffs. I don't want to come off sounding too presumptuous, but I feel pretty confident that a 10-win team that still has a month's worth of games left is probably going to be playing postseason football.
They're currently the NFC's sixth seed, which is deeply unfair, but 1. that's life in the NFC North, and 2. not a single person on the planet feels bad for the Packers.
That scenario looks a whole lot more likely with the latest Saints injury update this week: it sounds like they'll be without starting QB Derek Carr for Monday night's game, and probably beyond.
On Tuesday morning, NFL Network reporter Ian Rapoport reported that Carr "underwent further examination recently and he’s at least a few weeks away from being able to withstand contact."
Packers won't have to face Saints' QB Derek Carr on Monday Night Football in Week 16
When isn't Derek Carr at least kind of injured? I guess he deserves some credit – if I had two different fractures in my hand and was playing for a 5-9 football team, I'd probably hang it up for these last three weeks. But I guess that's why he's an NFL quarterback and I blog for a living.
It's obviously great news for the Packers, even if the Saints weren't that good with Carr starting in the first place. They play teams tough – enough that Darren Rizzi is being seriously considered as a non-interim candidate – but it's hard to see the Saints coming into Green Bay on a cold Monday Night with Spencer Rattler as QB1 and pulling off the upset.
If the Packers proved anything in their win against the Seahawks on Sunday night, it's that the whole "they might be way better than even their 10-win record suggests" has some truth to it.
So it's simple: the Packers win and they're in. If they lose they're probably still in too, but that's a bummer to think about and it doesn't rhyme.
