Falling into a 2-6 hole near the midpoint of a season is usually a recipe to look to the future for NFL teams, with only two teams ever climbing out of that hole to reach the postseason.
Headed into Week 18 of this season, three teams that lost six of their first eight games remain in the playoff hunt.
Jacksonville can clinch the AFC South with a victory over Tennessee or it could sneak in as a wild-card team with a loss and lots of help.
Detroit and Pittsburgh have more complicated paths, with the Lions needing a win and a Seattle loss to clinch the seventh seed in the NFC and the Steelers needing a win plus losses by Miami and New England to clinch the final wild-card spot in the AFC.
The addition of an extra playoff team in 2020 and a 17th game in 2021 made climbing out of a hole a bit easier than in the past, but it still is rather remarkable.
Before this season, 186 teams in the Super Bowl era started a season 2-6, with only Cincinnati in 1970 and Washington in 2020 making it to the postseason.
The Jaguars have gone on quite a roller-coaster ride, having lost five straight from Weeks 4-8 and then winning the last four games. A victory Saturday night against Tennessee would make Jacksonville the fifth team to get to the playoffs in a season with a both a winning and losing streak of at least five games. The last team to do it was Kansas City in 2015.
The Titans can also join that group win a win, having won five straight early in the season and then losing the last six games.
The only teams to make the playoffs in a season with a six-game losing streak are the 2020 Bears, the 2014 Panthers and the 1970 Bengals.
PLAYOFF NEWCOMERS
The Giants clinched their first playoff berth since 2016, assuring this will be the 33rd straight season with at least four new playoff teams.
New York joins Baltimore, the Los Angeles Chargers and Minnesota as teams that made the postseason a year after missing it. The last time there were fewer than four new playoff teams in a season was in 1989 when only three teams did it.
There’s still a chance for three more teams to join the list, with Jacksonville having a shot at the AFC South or wild-card spots, Miami in contention for an AFC wild-card spot and Detroit and Seattle in the running for the seventh seed in the NFC.
SACK PARTY
The Philadelphia Eagles are closing in on the NFL’s single-season sacks record.
