DETROIT – The Detroit Lions are heading into Week 14 with a solid lead in the division and eyes on NFC playoff seeding, so which other teams should fans root for?
Detroit doesn’t need any help to win the NFC North -- take care of business and the division will be locked up in a few weeks. But when it comes to the race for a better seed, that’s out of the Lions’ control.
Here are the results Lions fans should root for as Week 14 gets underway:
Buccaneers over Falcons
- Game details: 1 p.m. Sunday in Atlanta.
Let’s start off with one that doesn’t have a whole lot of meaning, but it never hurts to create a little more breathing room.
The Lions have secured the head-to-head tiebreaker over every team in the NFC South, which will come in handy if they somehow end up with the same record as that division’s winner.
Right now, the Falcons lead the South with a 6-6 record, and a loss to the Buccaneers would put all three teams atop that division -- the Falcons, Buccaneers, and Saints -- at seven losses.
In that scenario, since Detroit is 9-3, it would only need one more win to guarantee a top three seed should it win the NFC North. Even if the Lions finished 10-7, the tiebreaker would earn them the No. 3 seed and push the South winner to No. 4, where the top wildcard winner (either the Cowboys or Eagles) awaits in the first round.
Raiders over Vikings
- Game details: 4:05 p.m. Sunday in Las Vegas.
This one’s pretty self-explanatory. With each Vikings loss, the Lions climb that much closer to clinching the NFC North. Detroit’s magic number is at three games over both the Vikings and Packers.
Superstar receiver Justin Jefferson is expected to rejoin Minnesota this week after the team managed to stay afloat during his absence. That’s a major boost to an offense that stalled the past two weeks after winning five straight.
The Vikings currently hold the second wildcard spot in the NFC, but since the Lions have to play them in Weeks 16 and 18, it’s in Detroit’s best interest for Minnesota to lose as many games as possible.
Seahawks over 49ers
- Game details: 4:05 p.m. Sunday in Santa Clara, California.
Even though the Seahawks hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Lions, it really doesn’t look like that’s going to come into play.
As long as the Lions win the NFC North, the Seahawks’ record is irrelevant, because it sure doesn’t look like Seattle is going to catch the 49ers.
San Francisco is on a tear right now, beating the likes of Jacksonville (by 31), Tampa Bay (by 13), Seattle (by 18), and Philadelphia (by 23) since the start of November. This looks like a Super Bowl favorite, and the Lions would certainly like to avoid having to play such a team on the road in the second round of the playoffs.
Whether it’s the 49ers or Eagles who earn a first-round bye in the NFC, the No. 2 seed is a priority for the Lions so they could play a hypothetical divisional round game at Ford Field, instead of traveling to San Francisco or Philadelphia.
Cowboys over Eagles
- Game details: 8:20 p.m. Sunday in Arlington, Texas.
Speaking of the first-round bye, maybe the Cowboys will have something to say about that?
With a win on Sunday night, Dallas would pull into a tie with Philadelphia atop the NFC East and also lock up the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Eagles would still be atop the division because of a better conference record, but only by a thread.
It doesn’t really matter to the Lions which team wins the East, so they might as well root for the Cowboys to knock the Eagles down to three losses, which could create a four-way tie atop the NFC standings.
If that happens, the Lions suddenly aren’t out of the running for the top two spots.
Giants over Packers
- Game details: 8:15 p.m. Monday in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
Like the Vikings, the Packers are three games behind the Lions in the NFC North, so their losses are the Lions’ gains.
Green Bay looks like a more serious threat right now after beating the Lions and Chiefs in back-to-back weeks. The Giants are one of the worst teams in the NFC, so this would be a major (and very welcome) upset.
