Mike Lopresti: Teams retreat toward playoffs

Clearly, this is the season for charity and mercy. How else to explain the final week in the NFL, with so many crimes, and so many pardons?

The New York Giants are losers of six of seven games and haven’t been playing well enough to make the Chick-fil-A Bowl, let alone the NFL playoffs. They looked deader on Christmas Eve than Jacob Marley, losing 30-7 to New Orleans. “Awful,” quarterback Eli Manning said in judgment.

But … they win at Washington this week and they probably get a wild card.

The Seattle Seahawks have lost three straight games, two at home. They haven’t won since Dec. 3. “Get your heads up,” coach Mike Holmgren exhorted his team after the latest fall.

But … they just clinched the NFC West division title. That’s backing in better than a UPS truck.

The Denver Broncos recently lost four straight games and dumped their quarterback. “It’s humiliating, that’s what it is,” safety John Lynch said after the fourth defeat.

But … they’ve recovered to stand on the verge of an AFC wild-card berth.

The Philadelphia Eagles were once 5-6, having lost consecutive weeks 31-13 and 45-21. “You can’t function like that,” coach Andy Reid said the night his team coughed up 45 points at Indianapolis.

But … the Eagles have won three straight road games to clinch a playoff spot, and might win their division.

The Green Bay Packers started 4-8 and were shut out twice at home for the first time since joining the league in 1921.

But … with a win at Chicago Sunday and just a little help, the Packers are in the playoffs.

The Dallas Cowboys have been drilled two straight home games 42-17 and 23-7. “Pitiful,” owner Jerry Jones called the latest effort.

But … if the Cowboys beat the Detroit Lions they might win their division.

And so it goes these fitful days in the National Forgiveness League, where the defending champion Pittsburgh Steelers are finished, but 21 of the 32 teams are still alive for a playoff spot. This includes the Tennessee Titans (who started 0-5), the Carolina Panthers (who have lost four of five), the Atlanta Falcons (who have dropped six of eight) and the St. Louis Rams (3-7 since Oct. 8).

It takes a lot these days to be eliminated in the NFL.

The Giants are the poster children for clemency. They last beat a team with a winning record on Oct. 23, you hear these words from the locker room after the latest effort – “pathetic” and “embarrassing” and “despair” – and they’re STILL at the front of the line for a wild card?

You’d think all they’d have left to play for was pride – “to feel worthy of being on this team and being on the football field, which we haven’t done in six weeks,” Tiki Barber said after the game the other day.

But no, the Giants play this week for a postseason berth, just like almost everyone else, including a few who look like they belong on a department store’s after-Christmas return rack.

And while the instinct is to assume the haggard survivors will be quick and easy kills in the playoffs, who is to say for sure, especially in the NFC, which has the consistency of pudding?

There has been growing mention around the NFL of another team that gasped for life at the end of the regular season, but ended up a champion. A curious twist it is that in football’s final days, inspiration and hope should come from … baseball’s St. Louis Cardinals.