The playoff field is set.  The seeding is as follows:

1 – Philadelphia Eagles
2 – Minnesota Vikings
3 – LA Rams
4 – New Orleans Saints
5 – Carolina Panthers
6 – Atlanta Falcons

First, shout out to the NFC South – three teams in the playoffs is quite an accomplishment.

Now, who will the Vikings play in the Divisional Game here in a week and a half?

First, the NFL is unique in their playoffs in that the games flex to accommodate the higher seeds.  This means that the Eagles, as the higher seed over the Vikings, will play the lowest REMAINING seed while the Vikings will draw the HIGHEST remaining seed.  This means that Minnesota cannot play the Falcons and the Eagles cannot play the Rams in that Divisional round.

The first game we’ll look at is the Panthers-Saints.  I’m gonna use two models.  One is the spread as reported by CBSSports.com and the other is the ELO Rating used by FiveThirtyEight.com.

Using the ELO ratings the Saints have a 65% chance of beating the Panthers.  The Saints are picked by 6.5 on the spread.  And teams with such odds have a 72.4% of winning according to BettingTalk.

Now switching to the Rams v Falcons game there is a conflict.  The spread has the same 6.5 favor for the Rams giving them a 72.4% chance of winning.  However, the ELO ratings have the Falcons willing, but barely, at 51%.  So we have to run the data twice.

Using the spread we have the following break down:

Rams win AND Saints win = 52.4%
Rams win AND Panthers win = 20%
Falcons win AND Saints win = 20%
Falcons win AND Panthers win = 7.6%

The Vikings have a 72.4% chance of playing the Rams, a 20% chance of playing the Saints and a 7.6% chance of playing the Panthers.

Now using ELO:

Rams win AND Saints win = 31.9%
Rams win AND Panthers win = 17.1%
Falcons win AND Saints win = 33.2%
Falcons win AND Panthers win = 17.8

The Vikings have a 49% chance of playing the Rams, a 33.2% chance of playing the Saints and a 17.8% chance of playing the Panthers.

If you’re a Viking’s fan, the numbers clearly favor a Minnesota LA game, though much less so sing the ELO numbers.  The most interesting scenario is the potential Panthers matchup.  A scenario more than twice as likely using ELO; one that Minnesota fans would love to see.