Week 11 non-Eagles rooting guide

If the NFL season ended today (it doesn't), the Philadelphia Eagles would be the 1 seed in the NFC at 7-2. They'll face the Detroit Lions on Sunday Night Football. The other two 7-2 teams in the NFC — the Los Angeles Rams and Seattle Seahawks — will play each other on Sunday in a huge NFC West matchup.

Here we'll lay out a rooting guide for non-Eagles games on the NFL schedule for those of you on the fence while watching the other action around the league. And yes, I'm aware that most of the below is obvious. Ideal winners bolded.

NFC East

The Eagles are cruising toward an NFC East title, as they have four more wins than the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Commanders.

Inpredictable.com has the Eagles as 98 percent likely to win the division.

• Commanders at Dolphins: This game will be played in Madrid, and will air at 9:30 a.m. EST. The Commanders are cooked, but it can't hurt for them to have one last shovel full of dirt thrown on their grave.

• Cowboys at Raiders: Inpredictable gives the Cowboys a 1% chance of winning the NFC East. They are all but cooked as well, but again, one more loss should put the final nail their coffin.

The Eagles play the Cowboys next week, and in my opinion a win over the Raiders could give them more motivation to play the Eagles with the same kind of good effort they played with in the NFL's opening game Week 1.

• Packers at Giants: Giants wins are ideal for the rest of this season for two reasons:

1. The more games they win, the more secure Joe Schoen's job will be, although John Mara has already stated that Schoen has the organization's full support (lol).
2. They might decide to remove Mike Kafka's "interim" label and just make him the full-time head coach. Kafka, in my opinion, is not a good head coaching prospect.

But also, the more the Packers lose, the further they'll be shoved down behind the Eagles in the NFC standings.

The biggest threats in the NFC

First, a visual of the NFC standings/seeding:

☠️ = Graveyard

• Seahawks at Rams: Personally, I find these teams fairly even. Both Matthew Stafford and Sam Darnold are having excellent seasons, but I think most of us would agree Stafford is presently the better player. However, in my opinion the Seahawks have the better roster otherwise, though I wouldn't put up much of a fight if you thought the Rams have the better roster otherwise.

One factor to consider for these two teams going forward is strength of schedule. Each teams' remaining schedule, after this week:

The head-to-head Week 16 matchup aside, the Rams have two good opponents (Buccaneers, Lions) left on their schedule, while the Seahawks only have one (the Colts, if you're of the opinion that they aren't frauds). The Seahawks have the easier remaining schedule, right?

But also, in a sense, the Eagles have a bigger lead over the Rams than they do over the Seahawks. Huh? How so? Well, the Eagles, Seahawks and Rams are all 7-2. The Eagles hold a head-to-head tiebreaker over the Rams, since, you know, they beat them. They hold a conference record tiebreaker over the Seahawks (the Eagles are 6-1 in-conference, the Seahawks are 4-2). The Eagles' tiebreaker over the Rams is clinched. It's not going to change. Their tiebreaker over the Seahawks could change if the Seahawks keep winning in-conference games and the Eagles lose some.

If you're of the opinion that the Rams are significantly better than the Seahawks, then a Seahawks win is ideal. If you think they're close, as I do, then a Rams win is more ideal because (a) the Eagles hold the crucial head-to-head tiebreaker over the Rams, and (b) the Rams have harder games on their remaining schedule than the Seahawks.

Does that all make sense? Yeah? Cool.

• Buccaneers at Bills: Inpredictable has the Bucs as 87 percent likely to win the NFC South. It's not likely that the Panthers or Falcons will be capable of catching them. So they're very likely going to be in the tourney. The only question is whether they'll have a better seed than the Eagles. Currently, the Eagles are a game up on the Bucs, plus a head-to-head tiebreaker in hand. Still, it's best if the Bucs drop this matchup against an AFC team.

Other NFC fringe playoff contenders

• Bears at Vikings: If the season ended today the Bears would be in the playoffs as the 6 seed. They're a more ideal playoff team than the Packers, for example.

• 49ers at Cardinals: The 49ers are going to have social media interns playing linebacker by the time the season is over. If they get into the playoffs they'll be an easy out.

• Panthers at Falcons: Either of these teams would be ideal playoff opponents, but the Panthers have a record that is closer to playoff contention than the Falcons.

Draft considerations

• Bryce Huff sacks.

• The Eagles own the Jets' third-round pick, so the more games they lose, the better that pick will be. The Jets already lost to the Patri*ts on Thursday Night Football.

If the season ended today, the Giants would have the fourth overall pick.

It's best if teams like the Titans, Jets, Browns, Raiders, Dolphins, or Bengals are picking in the top 5 of the 2026 draft. The Giants aren't likely to select a quarterback given Jaxson Dart's promising rookie season, but the higher they pick, the better the blue-chip prospect they'll be able to pick, or they could potentially be able to parlay a high pick into a lot of valuable picks with a trade back. Ditto that for the Commanders or even the Cowboys.

Therefore, the following bolded winners are ideal:

1. Texans at Titans
2. Steelers at Bengals
3. Ravens at Browns

For future reference

1. Chargers at Jaguars

It doesn't really matter who wins that game, but the Eagles play the Chargers Week 14, so they're just worth keeping an eye on.

(Mostly) irrelevant to the Eagles:

1. Chiefs at Broncos

If the Chiefs win, that would help the Eagles' "strength of victory" tiebreaker, which is unlikely to come into play.BYE: Colts, Saints.

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