Updated playoff probabilities for Seahawks after loss to Raiders

Sunday the Seattle Seahawks dropped a game in which they were unable to stop the offense of the Las Vegas Raiders any way besides turnovers. Derek Carr threw for 295 yards and a 98.7 passer rating in spite of a pair of interceptions, and Josh Jacobs gained double the number of yards on the ground on his winning touchdown run (86) than Seahawks running backs gained over the course of the entire game (43).

The loss dropped the Hawks from second place in the NFC West behind the San Francisco 49ers by way of a tiebreaker to all alone in second place, a full game behind the Niners. In addition, pairing the Seattle loss with the win by the Washington Commanders, the team fell from the seventh spot in the NFC to the eighth spot. That means that as they enter the final six weeks of the season the Hawks are on the outside looking in when it comes to the playoffs, at least as of this moment.

There’s no need to panic when it comes to potentially missing the playoffs just yet, however, as all three Wild Card teams in the conference are from the NFC East as of right now, and they play each other quite a bit down the stretch. In fact, the New York Giants and the Commanders play each other twice in the next three weeks, meaning there is a very good opportunity for Seattle to overtake one of those two teams as they face the Los Angeles Rams and Carolina Panthers in the coming weeks.

As for how the probability of making the postseason stacks up, 538 still has the Hawks making the postseason 66% of the time.

While the New York Times has the probability just slightly lower, but still above fifty percent.

For those who wish to play with the different possible outcomes of the season and see how Seattle could make or miss the playoffs, the ESPN Playoff Machine is a great way to avoid doing work while sitting at your desk on a Monday.