Two weeks left to go and here is where we are at.
NFC - 4 teams clinched & 7 teams competing for 3 spots. Unless something really wacky happens the wild cards will be three of these teams
Tampa Bay 8-7
Los Angeles Rams 8-7
Seattle Seahawks 8-7
Minnesota 7-8
Atlanta 7-8
Green Bay 7-8
New Orleans 7-8
Week 17 Head-to-Head
NO @ TB
GB @ Minn
Week 18 Head-to-Head
Atl @ NO
Notes
Rams have the tiebreak over the Seahawks due to H2H. I’m not sure what happens if a three or more way tie.
New Orleans is clearly the 7-8 team with the best shot despite being #7 currently for the top 3 spots. All they have to do is win out.
AFC - Only 2 clinched spots.
3-way tie for the AFC South among Jacksonville, Indianapolis and Houston
In the AFC West, Kansas City’s magic number over Denver is 1
Two not-yet-official wild card teams already have 9+ wins: Buffalo and Cleveland
Five teams have 8 wins: Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Jacksonville, Indianapolis and Houston. One of thoses will be a division winner. So we have effectively 4 teams for 1 slot
Week 17 Head-to-Head
Cin @ KC (Might be impactful if Cincinnati wins)
Week 18 Head-to-Head
Cleve @ Cin
Houston @ Indy
Notes
With only 1 impactful H2H in the next 2 weeks (Houston/Indianapolis), look for it to be a complete cluster of scenarios the next 2 weeks.
There’s 5 8-7 teams fighting for 2 spots (the AFC South title and the 3rd wild card). The 10-5 Browns have a 2 game lead of course on all of them with 2 weeks to go. Despite this they have yet to clinch. Cincy I’ll grant since they play each other next weekend; beat their cross-state rivals and they’re in. They beat the Jags, Colts, AND Texans of course so none of those teams can knock Cleveland out directly if they end up tied, which means the only way they won’t go in is if they do end up at 10-7 but are tied by the Steelers AND Bengals AND the Bills also manage to beat them out (by record or by tiebreak). [Recall they lost a heartbreaker to Pittsburgh early on a lost fumble]
But I also dunno who would come out on top if any of the other 8-7’s also get to 10-7 (in which case the 3+ way tiebreaker rules come into play). Seems like the odds that the Browns won’t make it even if they lose their last 2 appear to be very meager, but weirder things have happened.
Yeah, it’s not working today for me, either. I’m using Chrome.
Here’s another one that appears to work.
Using this one, I found a scenario in which the Browns do not make the playoffs.
Steelers, Browns, Bengals, Jags, and Colts all finish 10-7, while the Bills finish 11-6. Jags win the South, Bills win the first WC. Steelers and Colts win the other two wild-cards.
Whoever does these tiebreak things apparently hasn’t really gone through all the scenarios, because I just noticed that the Bengals are an appalling 0-5 in the division and thus will still lose to the Browns if they tie after beating them on the final weekend (1-1 head to head since Cleveland already won their 1st matchup). 2 of the 8-7 teams will play each other (Houston and Indy), eliminating the loser. So how does Cleveland get bounced out of the playoffs if they will own the tiebreaks against everyone other than the Steelers?
IIRC, if there are 3 or more teams tied, and 2 or more are from the same division, divisional tiebreakers are applied first. So if the Steelers, Browns, Bengals, and Colts all finish 10-7, and there are two spots available, the divisional tiebreakers apply and that would eliminate the Browns and Bengals. That leaves the Steelers and Colts as the WC teams, even though the Browns and Bengals both beat the Colts.
Yeah, I figured it was something kaa-kaa koo-koo like that. I always thought head-to-head was always [ über alles over all other considerations, but apparently that’s incorrect.
The reason head-to-head can’t be used in a 3-way (or 4-way, etc.) tie is because it turns into rock-paper-scissors.
If Team A has beaten Team B who has beaten Team C, but Team C has beaten Team A, then all of their head-to-head wins essentially cancel each other out so that no team can claim to be superior. As such, it has to turn into something like divisional record or common/conference opponents instead.
It can be used but only if one team has swept the others or lost to all the others. In fact that’s the first rule except that only applies to one team from each division as you rank divisions first.
Chiefs are in with a win.
Browns are in with a win.
Bills are in with two wins.
Jags are in with two wins.
Colts are win with two wins.*
Texans are win with two wins.*
*Colts and Texans play each other in the last week of the season.
According to the New York Times’ playoff tracker, the Bengals still stand about a 95% chance of making the playoffs if they win both their remaining two games.
Lose either one, though, and their odds drop to near-nil.
From a league front-office standpoint, this season couldn’t have gone better. These closely-packed-together contenders are making for many compelling storylines all the way down to the wire of the season’s last weeks. A lot fewer bored viewers this season at this time of the year than before.
In this scenario, the Browns would have 6 losses, and the Bengals and Steelers would have 7 losses. Every other wild-card contender would have at least 8 losses.
The Bears are still alive for a playoff berth with something like a 0.7% chance.
That’s worth the read just to understand how convoluted this whole thing is. There’s like 8 scenarios where the Bears get in, but they are all super unlikely because of how many things need to happen.