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NFL’s Winds of Change Blow Packers Into Divisional Round

Green Bay isn't the only newcomers among the final eight teams. Far from it, in fact.
Bill Huber|
NFL’s Winds of Change Blow Packers Into Divisional Round
NFL’s Winds of Change Blow Packers Into Divisional Round

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The NFL’s recycling system has been in full effect this season.

Of the eight remaining teams, seven were on the golf course at this time last year. That includes Sunday’s NFC Divisional playoff opponents, the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks. In fact, with San Francisco hosting Minnesota on Saturday, what’s left of the NFC playoff field is new to the NFL’s final eight.

In the AFC, Baltimore hosts Tennessee on Saturday and Kansas City hosts Houston on Sunday. Of those teams, only Kansas City was part of last year’s divisional playoffs.

While Seattle is back in the divisional round, being in the playoffs is standard operating procedure for 68-year-old coach Pete Carroll. For the eighth time in 10 seasons with the Seahawks, Carroll led the team to the playoffs.

Video: NFL's best road teams in 2019

Meanwhile, Packers coach Matt LaFleur joined Jim Caldwell (Indianapolis, 2009), Jim Harbaugh (San Francisco, 2011), Steve Mariucci (San Francisco, 1997) and George Seifert (San Francisco, 1989) as one of five head coaches in league history to win at least 13 games in his first season at the helm of a team.

“They’re a tough team,” LaFleur said of the Seahawks on Monday. “They’ve been extremely tough on the road. We’re just kind of digging in to the early stages of the prep, but I thought they played a physical football game yesterday. Obviously, was glued into that game. It’s going to be a great challenge.”

Quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers (99.4 passer rating) and Russell Wilson (96.0) rank fifth and sixth, respectively, in postseason passer rating (minimum 100 attempts). They’re the only remaining starting quarterbacks among playoff teams who have won Super Bowls.

Regardless of how things shake out this weekend, there will be a new Super Bowl matchup. New England was ousted by Tennessee on Saturday while the Rams failed to even make the playoffs.

Including Minnesota’s upset win at New Orleans and the Titans’ upset of the Patriots, all four of this year’s No. 6 seeds advanced to the divisional round for a second consecutive year

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.

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