Hypothetical what-if are factually incorrect, you're right. However pointing to the situation that caused us to lose out on the bye and saying: "man, if we'd have played that differently", is not.
You can't point to a game and reasonably say "if that one call wasn't made...", because then you get into a ***-for-tat mindset. Yes it was a poorely officiated game, if we'd have had different officials it would have been a whole nother game. Who knows, maybe we wouldn't have even been in the position to lose because we wouldn't have gone up on a Jennings TD that he committed Off-Pass Interference on.
Fact remains that we still could have secured a first round bye and a home Divisonal game after that game, and had the chance to do so through week 17. We didn't get it done. The only way your argument holds any water, imo, is if the Packers would have been eliminated from the chance of finishing with the 1st or 2nd overall seed by losing that game; that is not the case.
-Sure. I understand your argument. It's just logically flawed.
Not sure how you can disagree with the logic of my earlier post: if the correct call had been made at the end of the Seahawk game and the remainder of the season played out as it had, we would have had twelve wins heading into week 17, thus locking up the two seed regardless of outcome against the Vikings. (I would love to read your explanation for disagreeing with this reasoning, by the way).
Your argument boils down to the premise that because the Packers had the opportunity to lock up the two seed in week 17 against the Vikings, the mistaken outcome of the Seattle game is moot. Not correct.
Although we could have locked up the two seed in week 17, that does not eliminate the blunder in Seattle or change the fact that the Packers had to expend energy/resources game planning for a critical week 17 game as well as the wild card round playoff game when they could have been resting up.
Though there's no way to know the outcome of such circumstances, if you can't recognize the advantage of a meaningless game followed by a bye v. playing two must-win contests, then you're being obstinate. I know which one NFL coaches and front offices would unanimously select. The Fail Mary had very real consequences on the conclusion of our season.
The NFL season is a marathon, not a sprint, and the games played on Sunday don't exist in a vacuum.