After Colt McCoy and the New York Giants shocked the NFL with an upset win over the Seattle Seahawks, Washington Football had to answer back.
And on Monday night in Pittsburgh, they did just that: A 23-17 win over the 11-0 Steelers kept Washington and New York level at 5-7 and atop the NFC East.
The division everyone loves to make fun of suddenly scored two huge wins on the road over playoff-bound teams. Go figure, right?
“Well, it's awesome,” Washington head coach Ron Rivera said about the two upset wins.
“It's interesting because one of the things that we talked about was taking care of our business and we'll worry about what we need to do as opposed to worrying about everybody else,” he said. “And that's the thing, we got to continue to focus on us and just work on getting better. So I was real pleased with the way they played.”
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So what chance does Washington really have at making the postseason?
After the weekend’s games, Washington saw their playoff chances increase by 16.6 percent, per Football Outsiders. Rivera’s squad now has a 44.8 percent chance of winning the division and a 1.9 percent chance at the Wild Card, per the advanced analytics site.
The Wild Card is a long shot as Washington would need to pass fellow 5-7 teams - San Francisco, Detroit, and Chicago - plus 6-6 squads - Minnesota and Arizona.
The Giants still have an edge over Washington: 49.1 percent for the division. New York holds the tiebreaker over Washington after sweeping the season series.
The Philadelphia Eagles, who fell to 3-8-1 still hold a 3.4 percent chance at the division and the Dallas Cowboys (who play Tuesday in Baltimore) have just a 2.7 percent chance.
FiveThirtyEight also gives the Giants the edge to win the NFC East over Washington, 53 percent to 40 percent.
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For Washington players, the mantra remains the same: One game at a time.
“I'm not looking beyond literally that next start and trying to take advantage of it with everything I got and enjoy it,” quarterback Alex Smith said.
“I think this entire team, a little bit, from the way we started that season, has kind of got that mentality and I think that's a great mentality to have, just a sense of urgency and living week-to-week and going all in and not looking past that, not getting a held of ourselves,” Smith continued. “So look forward to kind of keeping that going, obviously a short week this week so quick turn around.”
Washington will travel to Arizona to play the 49ers, who lost to the Buffalo Bills Monday night, on Sunday, so there is no rest advantage for either team.
They close the season with home games against the Seahawks and Panthers and closing the season in Philadelphia.
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