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Winners and losers from a wild weekend in the NFC

Jeff Gross / Getty Images Sport / Getty

“Sometimes when you win, you really lose, and sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie, and sometimes when you tie, you actually win or lose. Winning or losing is all one organic mechanism, from which one extracts what one needs.”

- Gloria Clemente (Rosie Perez) in "White Men Can't Jump"

The final stretch of the season is setting up to be a wild one in the NFC.

Unlike the AFC, where the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers look like locks as the top two seeds, the NFC is wide-open. Seven teams have a legitimate shot at receiving a first-round bye, and in a four-hour stretch Sunday, the conference race took some dramatic turns.

The two highest-profile NFC games in Week 14 featured the Minnesota Vikings tangling with the Carolina Panthers, and the Los Angeles Rams facing the Philadelphia Eagles. Though the Vikings and Rams lost, I believe they actually won. The Panthers and Eagles won, but Sunday wasn’t a great day for either of them. Here’s why.

Minnesota Vikings

The Vikings started the day leading the NFC race, and though they lost 31-24 to the 9-4 Panthers, they can look back and see a ton of positives.

Over the course of an NFL game, the league as a whole averages 133 total offensive and defensive plays, plus about 35 special-teams snaps. Each NFL player and group is graded with a plus or minus on every play. Over the course of the game, the Vikings “won” the vast majority of the plays. They lost to Cam Newton and the Panthers because their minuses resulted in drastically negative plays.

The Vikings' defense was nearly perfect Sunday. Newton threw for just 129 yards. Against the run, with the exception of two plays, the Vikings gave up 94 yards on 34 Carolina carries.

However, on those big plays, the Panthers ripped off runs of 62 and 60 yards, respectively. In both cases, the Vikings' mistakes were easy to identify and learn from. The 62-yard touchdown run by Jonathan Stewart took place because of a misalignment and poor gap control by the Vikings' base defense against a goal-line offensive formation. This is easily correctable.

The second big play, Newton's game-winning run, was perfectly played by the Vikings' defense except for a missed open-field tackle by Andrew Sendejo. Missing a tackle because Cam Newton beats you in the open field isn’t a crime, but Zendejo needs to find a way to at least slow Newton down. Like the Stewart run, this play could have been avoided.

Offensively, Adam Thielen dropped two “easy” touchdown passes on the same drive to end the first half. That is an abnormal occurrence, to say the least. For a chance to take the lead late in the fourth quarter, Case Keenum missed Stefon Diggs at the front pylon for another easy touchdown. In both situations, the Vikings settled for field goals. Diggs also dropped a highly thrown, but still catchable, smoke screen that turned into an interception.

Keenum made one bad play, a poorly thrown ball on the first drive that was short and off target to Thielen. He also “fumbled” on a play in which the ball was loosened from his hand at the very back of the quarterback’s throwing motion. The ball traveled 10 yards, and the replay could have gone either way.

The Vikings lost to a playoff-caliber team while playing with a banged up O-line. Only two of their starting offensive linemen finished the game. They also made too many mistakes and had a few balls bounce in the Panthers' favor. This doesn’t mean they aren’t a good team. The Vikings know they are - and they also know nobody can make those types of mistakes and win on the road against a good team.

The good news is that they have one of the easiest schedules remaining in the race for home-field advantage. Two of their final three games are against the Bengals and Bears, both at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

Ultimately, the best news for the Vikings wasn’t their overall performance or upcoming schedule, but rather Monday's announcement that Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz is out for the rest of the year with a torn ACL. I imagine Mike Zimmer’s group would feel pretty good about going to Philadelphia in the NFC Championship Game against a Nick Foles-led football team. So, despite the loss, Sunday was more good than bad for the Vikings.

Carolina Panthers

Conversely, the Panthers shouldn’t be all that happy about their performance. They were playing at home, against an opponent who ended the game with only two starting offensive linemen, and the Panthers still let Keenum and his offense get back into the game when it seemed all but over. Then, on a critical play late in the fourth quarter, Newton threw an interception that should have resulted in a Vikings touchdown.

And the Panthers' offense was lifeless for most of the day. Three of their touchdown drives were due to two big plays, which resulted from Minnesota’s alignment mistakes, and a drive that continued three times due to Vikings penalties. Between dropped passes, a missed throw from Keenum to Diggs, and a missed field goal, the Vikings left sixteen points off the board.

Neither the offensive or defensive coordinators should feel great about this outing. Minnesota lost the game more than the Panthers won it.

Los Angeles Rams

Like the Vikings, the Rams can take a lot of positives from their defeat Sunday.

They went toe to toe with one of the best teams in the NFL. For the vast majority of the Rams roster, playoff-type atmospheres in December are a new reality, and although they lost, they didn’t flinch.

More importantly, their lead in the NFC West didn't shrink, and the Seahawks' loss to the Jaguars ended in plenty of ugliness too. Though no suspensions will result, Pete Carroll’s team will face plenty of questions and potential distractions this week.

Lastly, the Vikings' loss, and the reality that Wentz’s season is over, gives the Rams a shot at a first-round bye.

Philadelphia Eagles

Obviously, Philadelphia's biggest “loss” Sunday was the Wentz injury. The 11-2 Eagles will now be without their starting quarterback and MVP candidate for the rest of the season, and Foles will take the reins of the current NFC No. 1 seed. But how far can he take the Eagles in the playoffs?

Foles has played like both an MVP and a career backup during his six-year NFL career. He put up a mind-boggling 27-to-2 touchdown-to-interception ratio while starting 10 games for the Eagles in 2013. He followed that up with a pedestrian 81.4 rating in 2014, and was subsequently shipped to St Louis, where the wheels fell off as he played under Jeff Fisher.

If Foles performs well in the coming weeks, it will mean that three NFL starters have seriously stepped up after putting the Rams organization in their rearview mirrors. Jared Goff and Keenum currently have their teams seeded third and second, respectively, in the NFC. With Foles now quarterbacking the first-place team in the conference, you have to wonder what the heck was going on with Fisher’s offensive coaching staff. (At this point, somebody should probably take another look at Austin Davis.)

If Foles plays the way he did in 2013, the Eagles could get to the Super Bowl. Yesterday, he played well enough, including a clutch third-down completion, to save the win. His very best is good enough for Philadelphia to make a serious run.

The Eagles will be in the playoffs, but Sunday’s true loss severely hurt their chances of bringing the first Lombardi Trophy to the City of Brotherly Love.

__________

Currently, three NFC South teams are “in” the playoffs. Over the final three weeks, every team has at least two games against teams within their division. This race will come down to the wire. A fourth-quarter field goal in Week 17 might make the difference between winning the division and missing the playoffs altogether.

The Seahawks, Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions, and Dallas Cowboys are currently out of the playoffs, but their chances of getting in were helped by the New Orleans Saints, Vikings, and Rams all losing.

Most importantly for the entire NFC, an MVP-caliber quarterback's torn ligament just made the race for the playoffs and home-field advantage really interesting.

Sage Rosenfels is a former 12-year NFL quarterback who writes, does radio, and podcasts about the NFL and college football. Find him on Twitter @SageRosenfels18.

(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)

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