Ideally, the Atlanta Falcons would have seen the Carolina Panthers lose on Sunday, putting the NFC South very much in play with a 9-4 Saints team and 8-5 Panthers team. That didn’t quite happen, unfortunately, but the Falcons got the result they really needed later in the Jaguars-Seahawks game.
Jacksonville held on to beat the Seahawks, dropping the latter team’s season record to 8-5. That puts them on even footing with the Falcons, and because Atlanta has the head-to-head tiebreaker thanks to their win earlier this season, the Falcons are back into the #6 seed.