NFL Playoff standings: Seahawks can clinch with win on Sunday

The Seattle Seahawks currently hold down the NFC's fifth seed in the 2012 NFL Playoff standings, and need one win in their last two games to guarantee a Wild Card spot. Seattle sits at 9-5, while a slew of teams battling for the last playoff position at 8-6. The Seahawks hold head-to-head tiebreakers over three out of five of those teams, including Minnesota, Chicago and Dallas.

With Dallas and Washington playing each other in the last week of the season, it is guaranteed that one of them will not finish 10-6. Both would hold a tiebreaker of a 10-6 Giants team for the division title. The Seahawks would lose a tiebreaker with the Giants team based on conference record, but thanks to the head-to-head over the Bears and Vikings, would still be in the playoffs with 10 wins.

As for the division, Seattle is 1 1/2 games behind the 49ers with two games to play. If the Seahawks win out, they would have to hope for a San Francisco loss to Arizona in Week 17. Not likely, but not impossible.

A first-round bye is possible if Seattle does take the NFC West. The Niners currently hold the second seed, but would obviously fall out of that if the Seahawks overtake them. An 11-5 Seattle team would need Green Bay to lose one of its final two games and finish at 11-5. That would set up a situation where the Seahawks get a bye based on the head-to-head tiebreak with the Packers in a controversial game decided by the replacement refs.

Complete standings can be found at S.I.'s NFL standings page.