Unless you’re part of Peter King’s intended audience of people who don’t actually watch football, you have a pretty good idea of which teams are likely to make the postseason. That said, even the savviest of fans can have difficulty sorting through the thorny tangle of tiebreakers that can emerge in tight races. For instance, did you know the seventh procedure used to break a three-way tie for a Wild Card spot is “most player retweets of stupid begging desperate friendless assholes”? It’s true! That’s why they do it!

Yet some would have you believe such a scenario is determined by “best combined ranking among conference teams in points scored and points allowed”. Bunk! Pure bunk! Now you see why confusion is rampant and despair is at an all-time high. Well, worry no longer, friends. For KSK is here to provide the clarity you desperately seek. Follow the handy list below and soon you can redirect your anxiety towards other matters, like everything else in life.

NFC

Green Bay Packers

- The Packers have clinched the NFC North title.

- The Packers have also unlocked the “DOIN’ IT THE RIGHT WAY” badge on Foursquare.

- Packers fans have secured the ability to purchase many more pointless stocks in their team and, in doing so, expose themselves to fines of up to $5,000 from Roger Goodell if caught gambling on any NFL game. WHAT FUN! Aren’t those self-righteous “NFL owner” hats worth it?

San Francisco 49ers

- By winning more than half their games, the 49ers have clinched the next seven NFC West titles.

- San Francisco can attain a first-round bye in the playoffs if we can dig up another six Harbaughs to appear on camera in the next three weeks.

- Aldon Smith can secure the unending love of Bob Costas (or the tiny measure of it not already reserved for Bob Costas) if Smith continues his refusal to dance or even linger on the field after making a play.

New Orleans Saints

- If you dig up the grave Jedidiah Gabriel Collins, don’t expect to find a silver tongue. The Lancaster Football Hall of Fame isn’t letting the sucker get in the ground.

- The Saints destroy everybody in the Superdome, but have lost to such heavyweights as the Rams and Buccaneers on the road. Just a friendly reminder in case you felt like getting your hopes up that someone is capable of knocking off the Packers in Lambeau on the road to the Super Bowl.

Dallas Cowboys

- The Cowboys cheerleaders have had an eventful year. One was given a touchdown ball from boyfriend David Nelson. Another was knocked over by Jason Witten on Thanksgiving. And all have been sky fondled by Jerry Jones.

- In a year when the NFC East is so horrible and yet still so horribly overrated, is it right for any team but the Cowboys to win it? I submit that it is not.

Atlanta Falcons

- Julio Jones has clinched being the only interesting thing about this team.

Detroit Lions

- Ndamukong Suh stomped another player and possibly lied about the facts of a car accident he was in. All this Roger Goodell could deal with, UNTIL SUH MADE A MINOR VIOLATION OF THE UNIFORM POLICY, THEN THE LIFETIME BANS FLOWED LIKE WINE.

- Nate Burleson has clinched a Rainer View Elementary School Field Day participation medal. It gets prime place in the Lions trophy case.

Chicago Bears

- Devin Hester said this week that the Bears signing Donovan McNabb would be “a waste of time”. Once again, Hester is the greatest.

- The Bears implosion has less to do with Jay Cutler suffering a devastating late season injury than the universe upholding the rule that no entity associated with Roy Williams shall ever be allowed to flirt with respectability.

New York Giants

- Hey, the Giants just suffering a disappointing but noble December defeat to an unbeaten team. You know what that means: IT’S TOTALLY 2007 AGAIN! EVERYBODY SEES THE SIGNS! TIME FOR UNCOMFORTABLE ELI MANNING CHAMPIONSHIP PART TWO!

- Every scoring play is already automatically reviewed this season, but Tom Coughlin won’t rest until he can automatically challenge them all as well.

AFC

Houston Texans

- The Texans are going to make the playoffs for the first time in their history. They may even get homefield advantage. And in true Texans nature, they’re going to do so in a way that ensures the least amount of possible relevance.

- Oh yeah. Who are the Texans?

Baltimore Ravens

- Joe Flacco transformed from a middling game manager to a hardcore porn model so gradually, I didn’t even notice.

- The BCS has decreed that Ball So Hard University will face Swaggin University in the AFC North Sh*thole Braggart Bowl.

New England Patriots

- The universe is capable of many a cruel joke, but none so cruel as to give the Pats really, really good white players like Rob Gronkowski.

- If the Packers played the Patriots in the Super Bowl, Aaron Rodgers would break Dan Marino’s single-season passing yardage record with six minutes to go in the second quarter.

Denver Broncos

- If the Broncos get Tebow to the playoffs, it can be referred to as a virgin berth.

- He’s been a hugely divisive figure, but Skrillex has nothing but the best wishes of Von Miller for winning Best New Artist at the Grammys.

Pittsburgh Steelers

- The Steelers will claim a playoff spot if Ziggy Hood utters the secret word.

- The Steelers have retroactively raped the Cowboys out of two of their Lombardi trophies when Big Ben got Tom Landry’s hat.

Oakland Raiders

- The Raiders have clinched Special Teams Champions of the 2000 NFL Draft.

Cincinnati Bengals

- More damaging to the Bengals’ playoff hopes than losing all three games against the Steelers and the Ravens is their disadvantage in the pivotal “no gingers” first tiebreaker in any playoff scenario.

- Does Cincy even need to make the playoffs? Mike Brown swindled someone in a trade this season. That’s like 15 Bengal Super Bowls.

New York Jets

- Hey, the Jets are starting to do their late season thing. Nice to know who’s going to lose the AFC Championship Game more than a month in advance.

[McNabb image via reader Aaron]

We need to hear from you before Monday to claim your prize, or else we’ll consider it unclaimed, and start handing them out to the next-best finishers. If they don’t respond before next Friday, then tough toenails for everyone. Use the EMAIL PUNTER addy in the sidebar to get in touch.

Congrats to our winners and thanks to everyone that participated.

Point: Bears head into this game a ten point favorite at home.
Counterpoint: Seattle won in Chicago 23-20 in week six.

Point: Matt Hasselbeck has never won a road playoff game,
Counterpoint: Jay Cutler has never won (or played) a playoff game

Point: Cutler has earned his reputation for ill-timed interceptions

Counterpoint: “Ow! My lumbago!”

Point: The Bears have one the league’s strongest fan bases who will do there utmost to confuse Seahawks players.

Counterpoint: According to scalpers, tickets are going for regular-season prices and this game is second-fiddle to the Bulls-Heat.

Point: Bears fans have adopted a completely original method to express their esprit de corps

Counterpoint: The bright orange color will make it easier for Public Works employees to clean up Lake Shore Drive after the Bears crash and burn.

Point:

Counterpoint:

Point: Seahawks fans have a passionate, yet eccentric, fanbase

Counterpoint: the Hasselbeck haircut borders on child abuse

Enjoy the game. We’ll have a live-blog for the Jets-Patriots game later today.

The NFL on Sunday debuted its annual commercial to build hype for the playoffs. While admirable in concept – the ad features a quick montage of YouTube clips of Saints fans celebrating Tracy Porter’s decisive pick-six of Fetushead Von Alwayschokes in last year’s Super Bowl – the spot closes on the disquieting image of a small Saints fan (possibly a child) leaping gleefully into the thrusting hips of a Ignatius Reilly-esque behemoth ironically clad in a Reggie Bush jersey.

If wildly size diverse couples, same-sex or not, wish to gyrate suggestively in elation following a monumental play, that’s their business, but we’d prefer the image of which not being foisted on the masses during each commercial break, which means potentially twice per kickoff.

On that note, please have at your teeming stocking of Manningface (Elisha edition) following the jump.

And yes, we plan to live blog the games both Monday and Tuesday nights.

With each passing week, the playoff picture becomes less and less cloudy. It also becomes more apparent that the Pats are really good this season (shit!). That said, with four weeks remaining in the 2010 season, no team has yet clinched a playoff berth and much is still to be determined. To serve the interest of confused readers and indulge our unending desire for quick and lazy jokes, KSK has put together an exhaustive (and exhausting!) list of playoff scenarios for each team still in playoff contention. Actually, that’s not true; we neglected several teams that, while they have yet to be mathematically eliminated, engender zero confidence and have no pressing tasteless jokes about which to tell. Please forgive our oversight.

NFC

The Falcons can clinch the NFC South and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs if:

Kroy Biermann has a blissful marriage with that mannish reality TV whore he proposed to

AND

They come up with names for their children that are at least as stupid as “Kroy”

AND

Kroy commits his post-football life to recreating the seminal late-’90s TV sensation “Shasta McNasty”

OR

The redness of Mike Smith’s face does not exceed three hues brighter than the color featured on the team’s uniforms

The Bears can clinch the NFC North and a first-round bye if:

This guy can find a way to cram a “C” into first-round bye;

AND

Everyone overlooks the fact that the Lions got jobbed against them twice

OR

They somehow get lucky as hell and beat the Pats, Jets and then the Packers on the road in the next month

The Eagles can clinch the NFC East if:

Peter King at least waits until the offseason to satisfy his voracious bloodlust for Michael Vick

AND

Vick stops getting kneed in the head four times per game

The Giants can clinch a playoff spot if:

At any point, fewer than a half dozen of their receivers are injured

AND

They play the Redskins every week

OR

Antrel Rolle receives the military decorations befitting someone who served on the treacherous battlefield of New Meadowlands Stadium

The Packers can clinch a playoff spot if:

Dawg, Greg Jennings carry the team on his f*ckin back, doh

AND

He do this shit

AND they can win the division if:

He do it for Madden

AND

F*CK YOU, GUMBY!

The Saints can unseat and the Falcons and win the NFC South if:

The Drew Brees NFL Shop customized T-shirt ad can just air three more times per commercial break

OR

Malcolm Jenkins strips the division title from Atlanta just before it crosses the goal line

The Buccaneers can clinch a playoff berth if:

They get relocated to the NFC West

OR

Josh Freeman’s parents become a persistent mixed-race marriage joke on “The Boondocks.”

The Rams can win the NFC West if:

I don’t know, they win one more game this year?

The Seahawks can win the NFC West if:

They agree to give Top Pot maple bars to the superior Wild Card team they host in their bullshit home playoff game in the first round.

AFC

The Patriots can win the AFC East and secure homefield advantage through the playoffs if:

Deion Branch’s perm doesn’t make Tom Brady mistake him for Eddie Griffin

OR

flubby refuses to get off his dead ass and pronounce them dead once again

The Steelers can clinch the AFC North and a first-round bye if:

Rooney’s nephews continue their noble quest of handing Pittsburgh games where they didn’t actually get all the calls

Everything that happens is tangentially connected to that unfortunate episode of alleged rapeyness

The Jaguars can clinch the AFC South if:

God truly loves us and shows it by making the Colts miss the playoffs even in a year when the rest of their division is garbage.

The Chiefs can win the AFC West if:

Fantasy owners don’t file rape charges for the continued underuse of Jamaal Charles

OR

Todd Haley ever stops maniacally cackling about Josh McDaniels’ firing

AND

Haley’s little brother still can’t borrow the Camaro

The Jets can secure a playoff spot if:

Sanchez retires

OR

Sanchez doesn’t suck

SO BASICALLY

Sanchez retires

The Ravens can make the playoffs if:

Joe Flacco stops assuming a safety lined up next to linebacker isn’t there to deliver him a fruit basket

The Chargers can win the AFC West if:

Richard from “Fun Diego” doesn’t have too skeevy baggage

OR

The highlight of Ryan Mathews’ season doesn’t end up being this cameo on Jimmy Kimmel (it will)

The Colts can win the AFC South if:

They stop eating the ass of every team they play

OR

Bill Polian convinces the competition committee that it’s mandatory for the Fat Humps to make the playoffs

AND

Colts fans still stupidly demand for Polian to be fired.

The Raiders can win the AFC West if:

Every team can shit the bed against them as aggressively as the Chargers

AND

Jemele Hill successfully ignites a race war when Jason Campbell is benched for the eighth time this season

Welcome back to American Top 10. I’m Casey Kasem.

Before we continue with the countdown, let’s take a moment… and travel back… to December 28, 1996.

Beavis and Butthead Do America was the number one movie at the box office.

On the charts, Toni Braxton held the top spot with the scintillating and sultry “Unbreak My Heart”.

And “America’s Team,”… the Dallas Cowboys… defeated Brad Johnson and the Minnesota Vikings 40-15… in an NFC Wild Card game.

One week later, Michael Irvin is accused of holding a gun to a 23-year-old woman’s head while teammate Erik Williams and another man rape her. An incomprehensible act of evil.

13 years after that, Dallas has been raped in the playoffs… again and again.

And we couldn’t be happier.

All God’s children hate Philadelphia. That much can’t be disputed. But this streak… is too delicious to snap. Plus, we know, the Eagles… will blow it anyway.

Remember, friends: Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.

Except the Cowboys’ star. I wouldn’t touch that thing if it were branded on Jessica Biel’s ass.

There’s really no segment tougher to endure than the “Keys To Victory” segment, which is usually nothing more than a rundown of pointless, outdated football cliches. Stop The Run! Win The Turnover Battle! Something About The Other Team’s Best Player! Thanks for absolutely nothing, fellas. Why not add Score More Points Than The Other Team, does that count for analysis?

And with Joe Gibbs and Joe Theeezman back in the broadcast booth, it’ll just be worse. Football fans were dancing in the streets when Theismann was kicked out of the Monday Night booth in 2007. And it wasn’t because he killed a bunch of dogs or told a bunch of shitty jokes on SNL. He was just bad at talking about football. And whether you’re some douchebag in a bar crowing about the Jets or sitting in front of a national audience in a suit and tie, being boring about football is unforgivable.

Talking eloquently about football pays dividends in other walks of life. It’s why O.J. Simpson–who was an analyst for NBC at the time–was set free in his criminal trial. Nobody ever brings that up, but it’s totally true. It’s why Jerome Bettis was finally pushed back out to sea. It’s why Marv Albert was forgiven for being a sodomist. And a damned good one.

But don’t expect any such goodness with this game. Just hit mute and blow through all the shitty songs on your iPod. And then call your dad and listen about how the Bengals lost the turnover battle. Because that’s all we can expect out of some people. Img.

Now merely a week away from the start of the postseason, the hopes of many have been stoked, only so that they can soon be dashed to our everlasting cackling delight. While only two playoff berths remain to be secured, there can still be a good deal of movement among those assured to be alive past the first week of January (isn’t it so much less clunky when the regular season ends in December?). To help untangle the Gordian knot of playoff scenarios, we unpack how the events of Week 17 can impact those teams still in the running.

NFC

THE SAINTS HAVE HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE PROVIDED: Tom Benson remembers where he put the keys to the team bus when he sobers up.

THE EAGLES CAN CLINCH A FIRST-ROUND BYE IF: God hates us.

AND

He wishes us ill.

AND

Flipadelphia poisons Dallas.

THE CARDINALS CAN CLINCH A FIRST-ROUND BYE IF: They win and the Eagles lose.

OR

They are this year’s Arizona.

THE VIKINGS HAVE CLINCHED: A first-round loss at home.

THE COWBOYS HAVE CLINCHED: A first-round loss on the road or possibly one at home.

SHOULD THE COWBOYS AND VIKINGS MEET IN THE FIRST ROUND: The winner will be determined by an advantage in two of the following three categories:

- Number of Favres on roster.

- Number of Romos on roster.

- Amount of players wearing dew-proof gloves.

THE PACKERS CAN DO ANYTHING THEY WANT IF: They make this stop.

AFC

COLTS FANS WILL SPEND THEIR DEMANDED REFUND FROM LAST WEEK ON: Fries

WITH

Cheese

AND

Bacon

AND

Chili

AND

Beef

AND

Served on a pizza

WITH

The mushrooms removed

AND

Then comes the buffet

THE CHARGERS WILL SPEND THEIR BYE WEEK:

“MARVELING AT 3-D FLOAT TECHNOLOGY! GO SEE IT OR I’LL STICK THE BACK OF MY HEAD PENIS-BRAID WHERE THE DISTANT STAR SYSTEM DON’T SHINE!”

THE PATRIOTS SECURE THE THIRD SEED IF:

The Randy Moss costume requires less effort than being the actual Randy Moss.

THE BENGALS CAN TAKE THE THIRD SEED IF: “15 + 85 = 100 ways to be great” actually means something.

OR

They find a McDonald’s on Revis Island.

THE JETS MAKE THE PLAYOFFS IF: They continue playing teams that only try for half the game (They are!)

OR

Nacho agrees to look at the dump Rex Ryan just took.

THE RAVENS SECURE A WILD CARD BERTH IF: They continue whining about the refs.

AND

Someone actually cares.

THE JAGUARS MAKE THE PLAYOFFS IF: Unicorns frolic through Central Park

AND

Tom Arnold begins farting out rose petals

OR

Jesus returns to Earth and has anal sex with a bear on Fox News.

THE BRONCOS CAN CLINCH A WILD CARD IF: Brandon Stokley hits another ref

OR

Brandon Marshall slugs another woman

OR

Kyle Orton drunkenly hits on a woman who really turns out to be a ref

THE TEXANS MAKE THE PLAYOFFS IF: They are located in Dallas and named the Cowboys.

THE STEELERS MAKE THE PLAYOFFS IF: Roger Goodell has anything to say about it.

THE DOLPHINS MAKE THE PLAYOFFS IF: Their couch feels like the playoffs on weed.

Day two of Wild Card weekend opens with two AFC teams fond of employing gimmick plays and crazed linebackers. If the teams can negotiate a playing field draped in shoes, it’s to their credit.

Of course, it’s a homecoming of sorts for the Ravens, since half their starters went to the U. Okay, just McGahee, Ray-Ray and Ed Reed, otherwise known as the only Ravens anyone gives a shit about (except Bawlmer fans – they love their Matt Stover! That and McGahee sucks).

So join us in some retarded commentary. Otherwise

THAT’S DISRESPECT!

And Peezy ain’t havin’ that.

YOU CAN’T BEAT PEYTON WITH LONG HAIR! HE’S LIKE SAMSON! Well, after the first day of playoff games, in which the Colts are one-and-done yet again, Edgerrin James and Mike Scifres are quixotically your two standout performers. Yes, the two division winners from the weakest divisions beat out two Wild Card teams fawned over by the media in startlingly entertaining contests. We can only hope Sunday offers similar treasures.

Thanks NBC for the total paucity of crowd shots in the opening game. And for “Ice, Ice Baby” vignette with Matty Ice.

Mike Ryan, who Matty Ice appearently ruined for life in a car accident, was on hand to watch his brother’s rookie year humbling. And show as little emotion as possible while doing so. C’MON CLAP OR SOMETHING MIKEY ICE!

That taint tackle: it is brutal in its efficiency. And unfortunate bruises.

“Hey, you Cardinals break up the sodomy fest. Don’t me get the hose. Or sock you in the marbles. Or get Leitch to gently massage them.”

Marmalard is ever the generous resource of ridiculous facial mannerisms and this was the best of the night. Which is why we’re enjoying the douche for at least one more week.

Oh San Diego, you are a fine repository of impossibly bosomed cheerleaders. We’ll miss you when you’re gone.