As the dust settles: week 17 recap and playoff preview

The playoffs are set! I’ll give my thoughts on each match up in a moment, but let’s look at what happened in week 17 first. Seven teams were fighting for their playoff lives, and 7 out of 9 that had clinched were still playing for a higher seed. Like last week, let’s start with the teams that have a legitimate chance to win the Super Bowl (at least 10 True Wins and a stable quarterback situation; if you haven’t read about True Wins yet, what are you waiting for?):

All these teams got the job done in week 17. I was confident that the Steelers would win a defensive struggle against the Browns

Injured QBs

My Lions are finally having some “luck” in the QB department (Stafford is still healthy!). The same is not true for a number of teams. A quick rundown (roughly in order of their teams’ competitiveness):

• Matt Schaub (Texans) — out for season. He has a “Lisfranc injury” (i.e., he broke his foot). Their backup Matt (Matt Leinart) proceeded to injure his shoulder (out for the year) in his first game, but T.J. Yates has filled in decently, helped by a good defense.