The holidays belong to the NFL's hapless hopefuls. The long shots and wannabes. The flawed-but-pesky wild-card lingerers whose playoff hopes now dangle like a strand of tinsel.
Forget the Patriots and Eagles, with their first-round byes and looming rest-the-starters controversies. Christmas is for teams like the Lions and Titans.
This rundown of the last-gasp playoff hangers-on will get you reacquainted with the teams taking center stage over the next two weeks, some of which are rarely watched or written about (see: Lions, Titans). It covers every team with eight or fewer wins that has not been mathematically eliminated.