Green Bay Packers Playoff Scenarios: Aaron Rodgers Return, 2018 NFL Playoffs Possible

Green Bay Packers’ playoff scenarios are alive and well heading into Week 14. For the Packers to make the 2018 NFL Playoffs, though, the team may need a little help in some of the upcoming games on the league schedule. It’s even possible that former MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers could return in time to lead the team into the postseason again. An important game on Sunday (December 10) comes against the Cleveland Browns. Winning it would put the team back on a trajectory to make the postseason.

With the way the current NFL standings are set, the easiest route to the 2018 NFL Playoffs would be for the Green Bay Packers to win their final four games and for the Minnesota Vikings to lose their final four games. In that playoff scenario, the Packers would win the NFC North by way of the tiebreakers and would be hosting a first-round playoff game. While that’s the easiest Packers playoff scenario on paper, it isn’t always that easy on the gridiron.

The remaining schedule for the Packers has games against the Cleveland Browns, Carolina Panthers, Minnesota Vikings, and Detroit Lions. The schedule for the Vikings has games against the Panthers, Cincinnati Bengals, Packers, and Chicago Bears. The Bears and Bengals aren’t exactly formidable opponents, suggesting it would be a real longshot for the Vikings to lose all four of their remaining regular-season games. These aren’t the only Green Bay Packers playoff scenarios, though.

It’s GAMEDAY??????#GBvsCLE #GoPackGo pic.twitter.com/upsbXpCItk

— Green Bay Packers (@packers) December 10, 2017

The Packers beat the Seattle Seahawks but lost to the Atlanta Falcons earlier in the season. Those games are likely to be very important when it comes to the 2018 NFL Playoffs and potential seeding. To break it down further, for the Packers to make the playoffs, they need to finish 10-6 and then get some help from other teams. In a scenario where the Packers, Seahawks, Panthers, Falcons, and New Orleans Saints all finish with 10-6 records, then the Packers would be the first NFC Wild Card team. This gives the Packers some wiggle room in playoff scenarios.

What the Packers can not have is the Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams finishing with 11-5 records. That would knock the Packers out of the playoffs if they did not win the NFC North. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, the Dallas Cowboys haven’t been eliminated from the 2018 NFL Playoffs either, but the Packers own the head-to-head tiebreaker against them.

Breaking down the Week 14 NFL schedule, the best-case scenario for Green Bay Packers fans is to have the Jacksonville Jaguars beat the Seattle Seahawks and the Minnesota Vikings to beat the Carolina Panthers. The reason a Vikings win over the Panthers helps is that it could take a team fighting for a Wild Card spot out of the equation and the odds of the Vikings not winning the NFC North are a bit too difficult to overcome. Of course, for the Green Bay Packers’ playoff scenarios to work out, the team has to take care of the Cleveland Browns as well.