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Prince Amukamara said Sunday night that "Nobody wins the division in October." You can, however, certainly lose it. The 3-4 New York Giants, three losses behind the 6-1 Dallas Cowboys and 5-1 Philadelphia Eagles have almost certainly already done that.
Can they still reach the playoffs as an NFC wild-card team? At 3-4, reaching the playoffs is definitely mathematically possible for the Giants. It is, however, realistic? Team Rankings gives the Giants a 13.4 percent chance of reaching the playoffs.
To do that, the Giants are going to have-leap-frog several teams over their final nine games -- and hope none of the teams behind them catch fire and go on a crazy winning streak.
If the season ended today, the Eagles (5-1) and Green Bay Packers (5-2) would be the NFC wild-card teams. The San Francisco 49ers (4-3), Seattle Seahawks (3-3) and Chicago Bears (3-3) are all ahead of the Giants right now. The big problem for the Giants is that all of the teams ahead of them not only currently have better overall records, but the Giants' 2-4 conference record (used as a tie-breaker) is the worst of the bunch.
If the Giants can somehow win two or three of their upcoming games against the Indianapolis Colts, Seahawks, 49ers and Cowboys anything is possible. A stretch of winnable games the Jacksonville Jaguars, Tennessee Titans, Washington Redskins and St. Louis Rams follows that. The Giants, though, have work to do in order to make those games meaningul.
This season the Giants have beaten three opponents with winning percentages of .500 or below. They have lost every game against teams with winning records. That has to change -- quickly -- if the playoffs are to be a possibility.
Can the Giants get it done? Vote in the poll and let us know. By the way, when we did this same poll a week ago, 78 percent of 1,774 voters said the Giants would not make the playoffs.