That is how the final Sunday of the NFL regular season actually started.

With all of America essentially wishing naïm hans into the end zone, which gave everybody permission to celebrate, to cry, to believe in the divine, the idea that not only was to our hamlin, going to be alright.

But now something eerie was officially happening here too.

And a lot of strange stuff has happened in the NFL over these last 48 hours by way.

Not least because after 18 weeks we finally have our playoff picture.

And so today, we ask Mina Kahn to explain a weekend full of dramatic plot twists.

And what should happen next?

I'm Havlotore, it's Monday, January 9th.

And this is ESPN daily.

So Mina Kahn is now midnight on Monday and before we get to these two games, these two games that resulted in a lot, a lot that we got to discuss.

I do want to lay out the two parts of your identity, I guess, for people who are not all caught up on you because on the one hand you are like this deeply rigorous, empirically minded, fair NFL analyst, which is why we have you on the show and why we love talking about football.

At the same time, you're a person whose wedding I attended and you wore a Seahawks helmet. And so the last eight hours for you have been what?

First I want to just let people know I didn't wear the helmet like down the aisle or anything like that.

So just clarify the picture. There was a helmet at the wedding. Maybe I put it on once, but that's.

Yeah, there's evidence.

It was a pretty insane afternoon in small part, and I guess large part actually because of the way the NFL did the schedule Pablo going into week 18.

We knew that the Seahawks playoff chances depended not only on them being in the Rams, but also the Lions being the Packers.

And also that if the other the Rams, the Lions would know they didn't have a shot for the postseason. And so when the NFL decided to put the Lions and the Packers in Sunday night football, you know, there was some concern amongst fans that like, well, what are they playing for?

Well folks, the Lions are coached by Dan Campbell. They will always play for something. And that's exactly what happened. And honestly, it was just such so much fun to watch that team close out the season in a way that it felt like reflected their identity.

I mean, he declared it like one of the great mid game interviews of all time. He declared that they were going to play this game to win this game because they didn't want the Packers to get into the playoffs.

How motivated are you guys? Yeah, we just we don't want them to go. So that's our motivation. So we're ready.

And I know we'll get to the Seahawks in a second here and all of that. All the personal angles on that for you, but like watching what they did to Aaron Rogers.

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