Even Joe Gibbs seems surprised the Redskins are still in the playoff hunt. Jamie Squire/Getty Images

OK, I'm only going to say this once, so listen up: All you need to know about how weak the NFC is this season is that the Washington Redskins (5-9) still have a viable shot to make the playoffs. We are not making this up. Do not panic. Do not adjust your computer.

If Washington can win at Dallas this week, and the following pieces fall into place, the Redskins would be able to control their own fate and qualify for the playoffs with a Week 17 victory at home against Minnesota (which may already have the NFC North and a No. 3 seed wrapped up at that point):

First, the Redskins have to beat the Cowboys (which is plausible).

Tampa Bay would have to win at home against Carolina (could happen).

Cincinnati would have to beat the visiting Giants (should happen).

Atlanta would have to win at New Orleans (might happen).

And Philadelphia would have to win at St. Louis (will happen).

We'll pause a moment as you pick yourself back up off the floor. How about that scenario, football fans? Didn't you just know Joe Gibbs would return the franchise to greatness? True, there were a few doubters at 4-9, but hey, that was more than a week ago. It's a worst-to-No. 6-seed league these days.

In honor of this year's rallying Redskins, and the ever-so-middling NFC, here's our stab at the five worst teams to ever qualify for the playoffs. Just remember, sometimes in life, mediocrity is rewarded:

1. 1969 Houston Oilers (6-6-2) -- Until the 1982 strike-interrupted season came along, the '69 Oilers stood alone as the only NFL or AFL team to reach the postseason despite a .500 record. And it was a well-earned distinction, because the that season's Oilers will never be confused with the '69 Mets. In their own way, however, they were quite amazin'. Houston started well enough, going 3-1 in the first month. But then, over the ensuing nine games, the Oilers won just twice more, in addition to managing to eke out ties in back-to-back November games.

When a 2-5-2 run makes up the heart of your season and you still make the playoffs, maybe you were blessed with a bit of that Mets fairy dust after all. The Oilers wound up second in the AFL's Eastern Division, trailing the first-place New York Jets (10-4) by a healthy margin, but their 27-23 win over Boston in the regular-season finale clinched a playoff spot.

But the charade of the Oilers as a championship contender was quickly exposed in the first round of the AFL's postseason when they went to Oakland and lost a squeaker ... 56-7. The AFL Western Division champion Raiders (12-1-1) were led by quarterback Daryle Lamonica's six touchdown passes.

How bad were the '69 Oilers? Well, despite having some truly great players in linebacker George Webster, defensive end Elvin Bethea and safety Ken Houston, the Oilers on offense were less than stellar. They were outscored 279-278, had no 800-yard rusher, 700-yard receiver, or 2,500-yard passer. Starting quarterback Pete Beathard tossed 21 interceptions and just 10 touchdowns, had a 55.6 quarterback rating and completed just 48.6 percent of his passes. Which was only slightly higher than rookie kicker Roy Gerela's ghastly 19-of-40 (47.5) field-goal percentage.

You can look it up.

2. 1940 Washington Redskins (9-2) -- You know what I'm up to, don't you? Sorry 'Skins fans, but any playoff club that loses the NFL Championship Game 73-0 at home -- the league's most lopsided game ever -- makes my top five. The Redskins' humiliating defeat at the hands of the George Halas-led Chicago Bears gave us perhaps the most famous set of numbers in NFL history. People who couldn't tell you what position Emmitt Smith or Jerry Rice play have heard that the fabled Bears of 1940 laid a 73-0 whupping on Sammy Baugh and the Redskins.

Ten different Bears scored touchdowns against Washington, whose Griffith Stadium crowd of 36,034 must have been booing by the second quarter and calling for owner Daniel Snyder to hire Joe Gibbs as head coach (try to stay with me here). What is most notable about the game is that Chicago's offense formally unveiled the T-formation with a man in motion, thereby signaling the start of pro football's modern era.

By all rights, the game shouldn't have been a blowout. Washington and Chicago were very evenly matched that season. The Redskins went 9-2 in regular season, winning the Eastern Division and outscoring their opponents 245-142. The Bears were the Western Division champs at 8-3, with a very comparable 238-152 scoring margin. It just goes to show you, homefield advantage throughout the playoffs is overrated.

Two more interesting notes from the game: It was the first NFL championship game carried on network radio, with the Mutual Broadcasting System paying $2,500 for the rights to send it out to 120 of its affiliated stations. Noted baseball announcer Red Barber did the play-by-play (what, Al Michaels wasn't available?). And also, the winning Bears players each received a $873 share of the take, which went pretty far on Michigan Avenue in those days.

As for Redskins, they signed a bunch of free agents and overcame their embarrassment fairly quickly. Though World War II depleted league rosters in 1942, Washington bounced back that season and beat Chicago 14-6 in the NFL title game, which was again played in Griffith Stadium.

3. 1990 New Orleans Saints (8-8) -- In case you think 2004 was the first time the NFC has ever stunk up the joint, take a look back at 1990. That year, nine of the 14 NFC teams were at .500 or lower, with seven of those teams at either the five or six-win plateau. Which is how the so-so Saints managed to make the post-season despite finishing in second place in the NFC West, a whopping six games behind first-place San Francisco (14-2), and two games behind Philadelphia and Washington (both 10-6), the other two NFC wild cards.

Vince Buck's pained expression was a common sight in New Orleans in 1990. Mike Powell/Getty Images

New Orleans started that season 2-5, but never had more than a two-game winning streak or a two-game losing streak. Sitting 5-7 with four weeks remaining, the Saints got hot and finished with three wins against just one defeat to claim the conference's final of three wild-card berths.

Their shining moment was a 13-10 Week 16 upset of the powerful 49ers in San Francisco. New Orleans' other two final month wins were both against the woeful Rams, who were on their way to a 5-11 last-place showing in the NFC West. New Orleans' second victory over L.A. came at home on New Year's Eve, with kicker Morten Andersen nailing a 24-yard field with two seconds remaining to give the Saints a 20-17 win and a playoff spot.

Saints head coach Jim Mora had some pretty good teams in his 10-plus years in New Orleans. This was not one of them. At least on offense. Steve Walsh and John Fourcade were the Saints' top two quarterbacks, and they combined to throw 15 touchdown passes and 21 interceptions, with a paltry 50.8 completion percentage. Craig "Ironhead'' Heyward led the rushing attack with just 599 yards, and Eric Martin was the Saints' No. 1 receiver, with 63 catches for 912 yards and five touchdowns. Opponents outscored New Orleans 275-274.

Form held in the playoffs as the Saints went ever so quietly, losing 16-6 at Chicago in the wild-card round. New Orleans had just 193 yards of offense and 11 first downs, with Walsh and Fourcade combining to go 11 of 34 with three interceptions and 153 yards. The Bears were so impressive that they went out and lost 31-3 the next week in the divisional round at the Giants. As it turns out, Chicago's win over the Saints was the last post-season victory of the Bears' storied Mike Ditka coaching era.

4. 1999 Detroit Lions (8-8) -- There's peaking as you enter the playoffs, and then there's what the '99 Lions did. After spending most of the 1990s starting every year horribly and then rallying late for a playoff berth and a one-and-done post-season run (usually under head coach Wayne "Nine Lives'' Fontes), Detroit decided to see how the other half lived in '99.

The Lions raced to a 6-2 first half, and after the first week of December stood 8-4 and in great position to make some noise in the NFC playoffs. Then they hit the iceberg. A loss at Tampa Bay was followed by a loss at Chicago, which came before a home loss to Denver and another losing road trip, this time to Minnesota. Presto, chango, 8-4 becomes 8-8. All those seasons that featured winning Decembers were but a memory. The Lions wound up backing into the playoffs like a beeping garbage truck.

Remarkably enough, the Lions weren't even the only 8-8 NFC playoff qualifier that season. Dallas did the .500 thing too, but beat out the Lions for the fifth seed in the NFC by virtue of a better conference record. Not that it really mattered. The Lions went to Washington in the first round and lost 27-13 (in the only playoff win of the Daniel Snyder era in D.C.), and the Cowboys were no match for Minnesota in the Metrodome, falling 27-10.

In what can only be described as an astounding trend, the Lions that season were outscored 323-322, becoming the third team in our top five that was edged by a single point. It took a mighty choke to manage that feat, given that Detroit's offense had carried it for most of the season, scoring at least 20 points in nine of the team's first 12 games. In the Lions' final five games, including the playoffs, they never topped 17 points.

Head coach Bobby Ross must have known something was up, because even though he had led Detroit to the playoffs twice in his first three years in town, he walked away from the job nine games into the 2000 season with Detroit sitting 5-4. The Lions haven't been back to the playoffs since.

5. 1982 Cleveland Browns (4-5) -- Yeah, we know this is kind of cheating, because in the strike-shortened season of 1982, teams only played nine games after taking from mid-September to mid-November off. In the 16-team Super Bowl tournament they had that year, there were bound to be aberrations, and sure enough, both Cleveland and Detroit made the playoffs at 4-5 (making them -- for the time being -- the only two postseason qualifiers with a losing record in league history).

But the Browns deserve this honor, if for no other reason than they were outscored that season 182-140, almost certainly the biggest deficit ever in terms of a playoff entrant. Cleveland in '82 was trounced by 17 at Dallas, by 17 at home against San Diego, by 13 at Cincinnati and by 16 at Pittsburgh. We're guessing playoff tickets went like hotcakes.

Oh, and let's not forget Cleveland's first-round playoff date at the Los Angeles Raiders, where the Browns traveled across the country to lose by -- yep, 17 points -- at the Coliseum.

The '82 Browns weren't quite an offensive juggernaut. They converted just 33.9 percent of the third downs, as opposed to 49.1 percent for their opponents. They were outgained by an average of 349-300 in total yards, out-rushed 1,292-873 yards, and tallied just 17 touchdowns while giving up 23. Three of their four wins were by a combined 10 points, with the fourth victory being a 14-point cakewalk on opening day at Seattle.

In other words, they had a lot in common with this year's Browns, give or take a Terry Robiskie.

Don Banks covers pro football for SI.com.