NFC playoff picture: How badly did Giants’ loss at Cowboys hurt postseason chances? Here’s a look

ARLINGTON, Texas — The Giants lost at the Cowboys on Thursday — their third defeat in their past four games, after a 6-1 start.

So now that the Giants are 7-4, with six games remaining in the regular season, what are their chances of reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2016?

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Well, FiveThirtyEight puts those chances at 47% — which is actually five percentage points lower than the Commanders (6-5). The Giants host the Commanders next Sunday.

The Cowboys’ win over the Giants was particularly important, because not only did it improve the Cowboys to 8-3, but it also gave them the head-to-head tiebreaker advantage over the Giants, since the Cowboys have swept the season series.

Here’s how the top nine seeds look in the NFC right now, with the first four being division leaders: Eagles (9-1), Vikings (8-2), 49ers (6-4), Buccaneers (5-5), Cowboys (8-3), Giants (7-4), Seahawks (6-4), Commanders (6-5), and Falcons (5-6).

As you can see, the Bucs and Falcons are battling in the NFC South, while the 49ers and Seahawks are competing for the NFC West lead.

The Seahawks have the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Giants, too. That’s worth remembering down the stretch of this season.

In terms of this Sunday’s games, the Commanders and Falcons will meet, while the Buccaneers have a winnable game against the Browns. Ditto for the Seahawks against the Raiders and the 49ers against the Saints. So things could be rather interesting for the Giants come Monday.

As they try to rebound from Thursday’s loss, here’s how the rest of their schedule looks — versus Commanders, versus Eagles, at Commanders, at Vikings, versus Colts, and at Eagles.

The Giants surely can beat the Colts. But these next three games are huge for coach Brian Daboll’s team. A sweep against the Commanders is certainly possible — and it would provide a huge boost to the Giants’ playoff hopes, even if they get swept by the Eagles and lose to the Vikings.

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Because those three hypothetical wins (Colts once and Commanders twice) would push the Giants to 10 wins — which should be enough to land one of the NFC’s three wild-card spots.

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Darryl Slater may be reached at dslater@njadvancemedia.com.

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