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2015 NFL Playoff Picture: Week 3

By Martin Bater

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NFC Division Winners (byes and seeding detailed below)

Mandatory Credit: Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

  1. Carolina Panthers (3-0, bye)
  2. Green Bay Packers (3-0, bye)
  3. Arizona Cardinals (3-0)
  4. Dallas Cowboys (2-1)

The Panthers keep eeking out close wins against opponents they should beat, and that is just fine by them.

They keep making big plays when it counts most and Cam Newton is coming into his own as a franchise quarterback with five TD’s and two picks so far this season.

The entire team started out shaky against Luke McCown’s New Orleans Saints, but they righted the ship thanks to the Newton-Olsen connection. When in doubt, go to your tight end to score two touchdowns and 17 unanswered points.

The Panthers visit Tampa and then head off to Seattle the next two weeks, so we will have the chance to see just how “for real” they truly are.

The Packers, on the other hand, might just be the best team in the NFL.

Aaron Rodgers played chess while the Kansas City Chiefs’ defense played checkers all night long, and that’s how he had five of the simplest and easiest passing touchdowns of his career and a 138.5 QB rating in a 38-28 win on Monday Night football.

In reality, that game was over by halftime when the score was 24-7 Packers. The rest was just make-up. Green Bay might head into their date in Denver with Peyton Manning with a 6-0 record and their confidence through the roof.

In third place we have the Cardinals, who made Colin Kaepernick look like…well, pretty much like you and I would look against that defense.

Kaepernick threw four picks, two of them to Tyrann Mathieu. Mathiew set the tone by running one back for a touchdown in the first quarter, and when you combine that with the Carson Palmer-Larry Fitzgerald connection then you know you have something special.

I don’t see them losing a game until Week 10 at Seattle.

As far as the Cowboys go, Romo’s absence wasn’t that much of an issue against the Falcons. If you had told any of their fans that they would have 28 points by halftime, they would have taken it in a heartbeat.

The problem was that they got into a shootout and they forgot their bullets in the locker room before the second half.

However, even with Romo and Dez out until who knows when, they have shown that they can tread water atop the NFC East for a while.

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