How far would the Bucs have gone as #6 seed?

Congrats to the Green Bay Packers for winning the George S Halas trophy as the NFC Champs, the FIRST ever 6th seed in the NFC to do it. They won it all on an interception with seconds left in the 4th quarter, eerily similar to the way the regular season ended when the Bucs hopes dies in the arms of a Packer defender. Of course miles away the Redskins were not doing their part, but makes you kind of wonder…what if? What if Chicago had beaten Green Bay and Washington had taken the Giants? The Bucs would have landed at Tampa International with they news they were the NFC’s no.6 Seed and would have to go play at Philadelphia. Imagine that. Could the Bucs have won? Of course we have no idea, Tampa Bay was playing good ball in the last couple of weeks, they dominated the Seahawks, and make no mistake about it, they finally beat a team with a winning record their last week of the season in New Orleans. They handled the Saints in that game, and when they pulled their starters, the Bucs had control of the game and momentum on their side. Drew Brees would not have altered the outcome. Problem is there are just too many variables. For instance, the Bucs defense had started to play well again in spite of all the backups that came in late in the year. It’s doubtful the Bucs would have been able to go all the way to the SuperBowl, but I could have seen them beating the Eagles. Another variable to think about, what if the Bucs had beaten Detroit? They would have taken the 5th seed from New Orleans, and played Seattle again. The Bucs took it to Seattle last year at Qwest field, and would not have played into Seattle’s hands like the Saints did. To play ‘what if’ a little farther, how about if the rash of injuries did not impact Tampa Bay like it did? Say half the IR squad had been on the field in the playoffs. Would Aqib Talib had done a job on DeSean Jackson? Would Gerald McCoy had put the pressure on Michael Vick? No one knows, but Bucs fans like us have one thing to be excited about; Next year the Bucs should be even better than they were this year. Who knows, maybe the Packers will be sitting around this time in 2012 saying “What if we were like Tampa Bay, instead of Green”.