Yep. Everything happened that would have put the Carolina Panthers in the playoffs, had they beaten the Dallas Cowboys. In a game clearly stolen by corrupt and inept referees, they lost to the Dallas Cowboys in a game that receive no national media attention whatsoever, despite being on the NFL network. Everybody just assumed that the Carolina Panthers were done. But here’s what happened:

1) Minnesota had to lose both games of their last two games (vs WAS, @ DEN)
2) New Orleans simply had to lose one game, they lost both (vs PHI, @ CHI)

Here’s what partially happened:

1) Carolina had to win out (lost vs DAL, won @ TAM)
2) Washington had to beat Minnesota (they did) but lose to Dallas (they didn’t)

Now, looking at this, you can see two things that should have happened for Carolina to get into the playoffs. And here’s why they should have gotten in:

1) Carolina would have had a decent opportunity to beat the Dallas Cowboys and should have had a fair chance, but after two extremely irrational and poor calls by Mike Carey (referee), they had any chance of pulling the upset taken from them. But let’s go ahead and assume that they won.

2) Dallas would still be tied with Green Bay in the race for the first seed. Therefore, they’d have to try to beat Washington to maintain home field advantage through the rest of the playoffs. Which, there’s a very real chance they would have.

And had all of that happened, the Carolina Panthers would have made it into the playoffs as the sixth seed.

The NFL has yet to apologize for the missed calls. And I want to know why.