Ranking the 4 teams competing with Washington for playoff berth

The Washington Football Team will get to scoreboard watch Sunday and Monday after the NFL stepped in and postponed their Week 15 matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles, originally scheduled for Sunday, to Tuesday night.

Though the entire city of Philadelphia would vehemently disagree, this was the correct call on a multitude of fronts.

Coming into a must-win game, Washington now has a chance to get a few players back and field a somewhat competitive roster for Tuesday.

It’s a huge sigh of relief for the club, which is currently battling with four teams for one of the two final Wild Card spots in the NFC. Seeing as though Washington won’t play for a few days, we thought it’d be a good idea to rank those squads.

For obvious reasons, the Rams and Cardinals didn’t make this list. While one of those heavyweights will be forced into a Wild Card spot since they hail from the same division, they aren’t necessarily competing with Washington for a playoff berth. No point in involving them in this conversation.

The Washington Football Team is competing with these 4 teams for a playoff berth.

4. Atlanta Falcons

Here’s the deal with the Falcons. They don’t beat many good teams, but they typically beat the teams they’re supposed to.

Behold, the definition of average.

In fact, the Falcons’ most impressive W of the season was in New Orleans, which is never an easy place to win, but even that has an asterisk because Trevor Siemian started under center for the Saints.

There legitimately isn’t a stat out there that explains why the Falcons are where they are in the standings (the only thing keeping them out of the playoffs is tiebreakers).

Matt Ryan is having his worst year since 2015, they rank 26th in rushing offense, 28th in total defense and have the 26th-worst turnover differential in the NFL. Seriously, how is this team not fighting for a top-five pick?

If you couldn’t already tell, we don’t think highly of Arthur Smith’s group, and neither should you. As long as Atlanta’s trend of coming up short against above-average teams continues, they should get trampled by the 49ers on Sunday.

That would send them to 6-8 with games against Buffalo and New Orleans still left on the schedule. Let’s hope this is the final week we mention the Falcons and playoffs in the same sentence because they don’t belong together.