How Week 16 shook up both 1-seed races: Barnwell sizes up the Seahawks, Rams, Broncos and Patriots

How can the 2025 NFL season be so settled and unsettled at the same time? Nominally, with two full weeks to go, the identities of 12 of the league's 14 playoff teams are basically sorted, including all of the wild-card teams. After losses by the Colts in Week 15 and the Lions in Week 16 , it would take something truly extraordinary for those teams to climb back into the playoff picture . The only real races left for playoff berths are in the AFC North and NFC South, where the principals will all meet in Week 18 rematches. The seeding within and particularly at the top of those AFC and NFC brackets, though, is chaotic. The Broncos and Rams came into Week 16 as the top seeds in their respective conferences. They both left the week with losses. The Broncos are still narrowly atop the AFC, but their grip on a potential top seed and sense of invincibility have both weakened after losing their 11-game win streak Sunday . Things are much worse for the Rams, who had seemed to have some sort of psychic hold on Sam Darnold and the Seahawks. Despite leading 30-14 with the ball and 9:39 to go, L.A. couldn't put Seattle away Thursday . The Seahawks forced overtime, won the game on a gutsy (and thoughtful) 2-point conversion, shifting the balance of power in the NFC. Subscribe: 'The Bill Barnwell Show' Now, the Seahawks are the top seed in the conference. A Rams team that looked to be spending January at home in a dome might instead be traveling next month to play in the same uncomfortable conditions that ended their 2024 postseason in Philadelphia . If the 49ers win against Philip Rivers and the Colts on "Monday Night Football," the Rams will fall all the way to the sixth spot. Let's touch on the race for those top seeds in both conferences. And while there are still four teams that could earn the top spot in the NFC and (somehow) six that could end up there in the AFC, I'm going to focus on the four teams who have already played this week and have at least a 20% chance of landing the top seed, per ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI) projections. While teams like the 49ers (20.7%, pending Monday's result), Bears (11.4%) and Jaguars (13.6%) could have everything go their way over the final two weeks of the season, our four favorites are the Broncos and Patriots in the AFC and the Seahawks and Rams in the NFC. I'll start by taking a look at the impact of that Rams-Seahawks game from Thursday night and what it told us about where these teams might be heading if they have another rematch come January. Jump to: Seahawks | Rams | Broncos | Patriots NFC Seattle Seahawks Week 16: Beat the Rams 38-37 (in overtime) FPI odds of finishing as the NFC's 1-seed: 47.6% It had to feel good, right? Just a few weeks...

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