GREEN BAY – For this year's playoffs, the Packers are in the exact same position as last year – the NFC's No. 7 seed.
That means they know exactly where they're going if they can knock off the No. 2 seed Eagles in Philadelphia on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET) in a wild-card contest.
They would earn a divisional-round trip to No. 1 seed Detroit, where the Packers lost on a walk-off field goal a month ago as the Lions swept the season series from Green Bay.
After the tough 34-31 defeat squelched any hopes of winning the NFC North for Green Bay, Head Coach Matt LaFleur told his team in the Ford Field visitors' locker room: "We have to earn the right to potentially come back here."
Well, this is their chance.
The Packers know their road to the Super Bowl will be entirely, well, on the road. As the No. 7 seed, there's no jockeying for position, no rooting for other results to produce a home game, none of that. It's road warrior time.
That's of course how the Packers got to their last Super Bowl, 14 years ago, as the No. 6 (then last) seed, and it started with a trip to Philadelphia. They defeated the No. 3 seed Eagles, then the No. 1 Falcons, followed by the No. 2 Bears, back when the top two seeds each received byes.
That initial wild-card meeting in Jan. 2011 at Lincoln Financial Field was the most recent postseason meeting between these two storied franchises. Their first was all the way back in 1960, playing for the NFL title at Philly's Franklin Field, where legendary Green Bay coach Vince Lombardi lost for the only time in the postseason.
In between, they met in the 2003 divisional round at the Linc, forever remembered as the fourth-and-26 game when the Packers failed to stop the Eagles on that down-and-distance late in the fourth quarter with a three-point lead. Philly got the game to overtime and eventually won.
The Packers seemingly exorcised that postseason demon seven years later, though it took a last-minute interception by cornerback Tramon Williams in the end zone for Green Bay to emerge victorious.
If history in any way repeats itself Sunday, the references to 14 years ago, and LaFleur's quote from a month ago, will fill the (digital) airwaves.
As for the other two NFC Wild Card matchups, No. 5 seed Minnesota travels to face the No. 4 Los Angeles Rams, the only team to beat the Vikings this season other than the Lions.
The Rams beat the Vikings in LA back on a Thursday night in Week 8, just four days after Minnesota had taken its first loss of the season, at home to the Lions. After those two losses in five days, the Vikings didn't lose again until the regular-season finale at Detroit, which decided the conference's top seed and dropped the loser to the No. 5 spot.
Meanwhile, the Rams clinched the NFC West title in Week 17 and rested several starters last week in preparation for the playoffs, despite the ability to get a higher seed (No. 3) with a win. Seattle beat LA to drop the Rams to the No. 4 spot.
Also in the NFC, No. 6 seed Washington travels to No. 3 Tampa Bay, after the Buccaneers secured the NFC South crown in their final regular-season game. Tampa Bay's Baker Mayfield is one of the hotter quarterbacks around, posting a 124.3 passer rating over his last four games (101-134, 75.4%, 1,171 yards, 13 TDs, 3 INTs).
Meanwhile, Commanders rookie QB Jayden Daniels is one of the rising stars and stories of the year in the league. He brings Washington into the postseason for the first time since 2020 (also a first-round matchup with Tampa Bay) riding a five-game winning streak.
Amazingly, the last four games of that streak, the Commanders have won in the final seconds – a two-point conversion stop with no time left for a one-point win at New Orleans, a TD pass with six seconds left to beat Philadelphia, a walk-off overtime TD against Atlanta, and a TD pass with three seconds left at Dallas.
Combine all that with a Week 2 walk-off field goal and a Week 8 Hail Mary, and six of Washington's 12 wins this season have come on essentially the game's last play.
