Atlanta Falcons vs. New Orleans Saints: 4 Playoff Scenarios with a Saints' Win

Football is a crazy sport. With only 16 regular season games, playoff spots are often decided not by the win-loss record but some tie-breaker. But in the NFC, three teams stand at a Kevin Durant arm length from the rest of the conference. 

Those teams in order are of course: Green Bay, San Francisco and New Orleans. 

Green Bay only needs one win to clinch the overall No. 1 seed in the conference and home field advantage throughout the playoffs. 

San Francisco needs only to win out attain the No. 2 seed and the second playoff bye in the conference. 

New Orleans needs to win out and have San Francisco lose one of its two final games for an opportunity to get that all-important second seed. 

But the number of scenarios involved in the entire playoff scene is much more complicated and kind of fun to investigate. Will you go with me on that journey?

Saints Win Out, Packers Lose Out, and Niners Drop One

This scenario really wouldn't affect much. The Saints are incapable of catching the Packers for the overall No. 1 seed—unless there is some tie-breaker that comes into play which I am unaware of. 

Under this scenario, the Packers I believe would still retain the No. 1 seed, though the Saints would obtain the second seed. This scenario is the same as if Packers win one—or both—of their final two games and the other two results stay the same. 

But if this were to happen, wouldn't that give the Saints even more confidence going into Lambeau Field than they already have?

The Packers would try to remake the 2009 Saints' road to the Super Bowl by overcoming a three-game losing streak to win the championship. 

Odds of this Scenario Taking Place: Minus-one percent. In other words, it's not going to happen. 

Saints Win Out, Niners Lose One

Though this scenario would yield the same seeding result as the previous slide's scenario, I wanted to take a moment to discuss the likelihood of this actually taking place. 

While the Packers losing out—and the other two teams defeating them to overcome the No. 1 seed—may not even be possible, it is very possible for the Saints to overcome the Niners. 

In fact, I am almost certain it will happen. As great as Jim Harbaugh, Alex Smith, Frank Gore and that Niners defense have been all season, they've fallen on some hard times dating back to Thanksgiving. 

They've played their least impressive football of the season, and the red zone offense hasn't gotten any better: It currently ranks 31st in the league. On the other hand, the Saints nemesis a year ago, can do the Saints a favor this time around. 

San Francisco plays at Seattle on Saturday afternoon in a game featuring two teams going in opposite directions. Sure the Niners beat up on an injured Steelers team on Monday night, but they are still not a team playing great football. 

Add in the extra lost day of preparation—Monday night to Saturday is pretty close to Sunday afternoon to Thursday night.

The Seahawks appear to have every advantage going into this contest. 

While the Niners pride themselves on being the more physical team each week, few backs can match their physicality as well as Marshawn Lynch. He could run all over that Niners' beat up defense, and the 12th Man could ruin Alex Smith's concentration long enough to create a couple turnovers and give their offense prime field position. 

Needless to say, I am picking the upset and saying Seattle will do the Saints the favor Lance Moore wants for Christmas. 

Odds of this Scenario Taking Place: 80 percent. I'd legitimately be shocked if San Francisco leaves Seattle with a win. 

Saints Win Monday Night but Lose at Home to Carolina on New Year's Day

As much as nobody wants to talk about it, Sean Payton has yet to win a regular season finale as a head coach. 

Three times those losses have come at the hands of...you guessed it, the Carolina Panthers. And twice those losses have come at the Superdome. 

For the Saints to have any shot at the No. 2 overall seed, they're going to have to win out. Even if San Francisco were to lose twice, they'd still have the tie-breaker over the Saints. 

If the Saints lose at home on New Year's Day, they will be secure with the No. 3 overall seed in the NFC and would host either the Detroit Lions, Atlanta Falcons or some other improbable playoff team who grabs the elusive No. 6 seed. 

This situation would guarantee the Saints one home playoff game, which would be good news for their odds to advance to Round 2. And the Saints would be guaranteed a matchup versus the 49ers in San Francisco—assuming they were able to take care of business in that Wild Card game. 

While this sounds horrible for Saints fans—and of course we're all rooting for the Saints to gain the No. 2 seed—at least a matchup against the Niners is favorable for New Orleans regardless of where that game is played. 

Odds of this Scenario Taking Place: 30 percent. Though Sean Payton and the Saints have struggled mightily in closing out the regular season, only once has that game meant anything. In every other outing, their playoff destiny had already been decided. 

If the Saints have to win this game in order to not play the next week, I think they'll go all out to win the football game. And they would build off the film from the first effort Carolina used to lose by just a field goal.

I'm confident the Saints would play well, and most likely win the football game. 

Once in the Playoffs

Every football fan who isn't a Falcons, Lions, Cowboys, Giants, 49ers or Bears fan is looking forward to a Saints vs. Packer rematch on The Frozen Tundra. That is what this all is building towards, is it not? 

But there a few other possibilities. The Cowboys are capable of getting hot, and if they were to win a home playoff game, they could certainly challenge Green Bay.

Similarly, the Detroit Lions seem to be a team that could reasonably challenge the Packers as No. 5seed—so long as Ndamukong Suh decides he'd rather play football than stomp on people. 

Either of those scenarios would give the Saints a home playoff matchup in the NFC Championship game against the team that is able to beat the Packers. 

I like that scenario best in terms of who I want to play for the opportunity to go the Super Bowl, though there is no doubt a Saints-Packers NFC Championship Game would be the best-case scenario for the NFL. 

My Final Prediction: Winner of NFC Championship Game between New Orleans and Green Bay walks all over AFC Champion—no matter who it is.