NFL: AFC Playoff Picture

[Sports Enthusiast]

In SE's world, there might be 1 good team per league.

No but the top 3 in the AFC are miles ahead of the bottom 3 playoff teams and beyond.

 

[misterchainsaw]

Canada, I'm pretty sure I disagree with a couple of your points (may just be misunderstandings), but I'll get to it and edit if necessary tonight when I get home from work before I do the NFC one.

 

[Fish on The Sand]

They lost basically all the "hard" games except for maybe a big Ben less PIT and Manning who shouldn't have even played that game it sounds like. They have poured it on bad teams. They weren't that good last year and I'd bet they are back to mediocrity again next year. Nobody had them as a playoff team this year.

The Chiefs have the 2nd highest strength of victory in the NFL too. As for last season, it is a poor measure of how good the team was since they were playing their B team most of the year as injuries wiped out the roster.

 

[Marc the Habs Fan]

The Chiefs have the 2nd highest strength of victory in the NFL too.

That is a bit deceiving though, they beat the 7 win Steelers with Landry Jones at QB and the 10 win Broncos with Peyton playing like a 97 year old.

 

[Canada4Gold]

SE just doesn't realize that pretty much every's schedule had a lot of bad teams on it so when you only beat 2 or 3 good teams it means you suck, even though most teams only play 2 or 3 good teams since there's only 5 teams more than 4 games over, and 7 teams more than 2 games over.

 

[Jeffrey]

I'm confident the Jets will get in.
They have been dominant and are a bit unlucky to not have a better record. Not to mention their team is well balanced. Of course me being a jets fan I'm getting ready for the worse. But no team we are bound to face really scare me.

 

[misterchainsaw]

Edits made. Bah. Need to stop doing this slightly inebriated I think

 

[Canada4Gold]

you deleted oakland, but there is that 10 result scenario that does eliminate them. A secondary person on the CBS site got the same scenario so I'm confident it's correct

OAK loss, KC win, BUF win, NYJ win, MIA win, IND win, HOU win, BAL loss, CLE loss, and GB loss.

 

[misterchainsaw]

you deleted oakland, but there is that 10 result scenario that does eliminate them. A secondary person on the CBS site got the same scenario so I'm confident it's correct

OAK loss, KC win, BUF win, NYJ win, MIA win, IND win, HOU win, BAL loss, CLE loss, and GB loss.

I was totally willing to ignore a 10 piece scenario, but fine, I'll add it.

Some of it was typos, and I think the NE mistakes were just from going back and forth between the wild card and divisional clinching....I even note that New England can't be a wild card team in any scenario where Cincinnati doesn't win the division because of PIT's extra wins in CIN's clinching scenarios . The Oakland stuff I just spaced on Oakland winning all those 7-9 tiebreakers. I thought I got SD into 2nd in a couple of those scenarios, but I must have been totally ignoring Oakland.

 

[Sports Enthusiast]

That is a bit deceiving though, they beat the 7 win Steelers with Landry Jones at QB and the 10 win Broncos with Peyton playing like a 97 year old.

At this rate I may take the actual 97 year old out there where ever they may be lol

 

[Sports Enthusiast]

I'm confident the Jets will get in.
They have been dominant and are a bit unlucky to not have a better record. Not to mention their team is well balanced. Of course me being a jets fan I'm getting ready for the worse. But no team we are bound to face really scare me.

You have Fitz. He'll break your heart. He was lucky not to yesterday. He was nearly picked in OT. They could definitely lose week 16 and 17. They should have lost yesterday but Coughlin blew it.

 

[Sports Enthusiast]

SE just doesn't realize that pretty much every's schedule had a lot of bad teams on it so when you only beat 2 or 3 good teams it means you suck, even though most teams only play 2 or 3 good teams since there's only 5 teams more than 4 games over, and 7 teams more than 2 games over.

This year isn't normal. Can't remember the week but it was in October...fewest above .500 teams to that point in a season since the merger.

Who have they lost to? Green Bay, Minnesota, Denver, Cincinnati and Chicago(okay weak team)

Who have they beaten? Houston, Oakland, SD, Buffalo, Detroit, Denver and Pitt without Big Ben and. A couple .500 teams and two teams who they played at the right time with their QBs unhealthy. Not exactly wins that make me think they are a threat. The losses are more telling. I mean two 8 win teams and two 10 win teams.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Why do you keep asking "who has x beaten" when you have clearly stated in the sentence above that this year is not normal and there's no one legit to beat?

Enough already.

 

[Fish on The Sand]

This year isn't normal. Can't remember the week but it was in October...fewest above .500 teams to that point in a season since the merger.

Who have they lost to? Green Bay, Minnesota, Denver, Cincinnati and Chicago(okay weak team)

Who have they beaten? Houston, Oakland, SD, Buffalo, Detroit, Denver and Pitt without Big Ben and. A couple .500 teams and two teams who they played at the right time with their QBs unhealthy. Not exactly wins that make me think they are a threat. The losses are more telling. I mean two 8 win teams and two 10 win teams.

Let's play the same game with the Bengals

Victories:

Raiders, Chargers, Ravens, Chiefs, Seahawks, Bills, Steelers, Browns, Rams, Browns

Losses:

Texans, Cardinals

Who have they beat? Seattle when Seattle was trash, the Chiefs (who are bad so they don't count apparently), and the Steelers with the same QB the Chiefs beat them with.

Yet somehow the Bengals are a contender and the Chiefs are a pretender? BS. You have some sort of axe to grind with the Chiefs.

 

[Sports Enthusiast]

Let's play the same game with the Bengals

Victories:

Raiders, Chargers, Ravens, Chiefs, Seahawks, Bills, Steelers, Browns, Rams, Browns

Losses:

Texans, Cardinals

Who have they beat? Seattle when Seattle was trash, the Chiefs (who are bad so they don't count apparently), and the Steelers with the same QB the Chiefs beat them with.

Yet somehow the Bengals are a contender and the Chiefs are a pretender? BS. You have some sort of axe to grind with the Chiefs.

Big difference between division leader and WC team. I have a lot of questions about Cincinnati when it hits January. Dalton is awful in January for one. However a big difference is the Bengals have been good the last few years. They've definitely been building towards this. I'm not denying they haven't had the toughest schedule(neither have the patriots)but its not like they were bad last year or the year before that.

 

[Sports Enthusiast]

Why do you keep asking "who has x beaten" when you have clearly stated in the sentence above that this year is not normal and there's no one legit to beat?

Enough already.

Well you have two divisions with .500 Or less teams completely. If Atlanta loses this weekend you have 3 south teams under .500 as well. That's almost 3 divisions not above .500 alone. I'd venture to guess there's never been 2 divisions in one year with out a team above .500

 

[Fish on The Sand]

Big difference between division leader and WC team. I have a lot of questions about Cincinnati when it hits January. Dalton is awful in January for one. However a big difference is the Bengals have been good the last few years. They've definitely been building towards this. I'm not denying they haven't had the toughest schedule(neither have the patriots)but its not like they were bad last year or the year before that.

The Chiefs are on pace for their 3rd straight over .500 season right now and likely would have made the playoffs last year if

A) Their entire defence wasn't out with injury

and

B) Played in the toughest division in the league

I'm not trying to make a case that the Bengals are a bad team, but every argument you used to say the Chiefs are overrated applies to the Bengals even more than it does to the Chiefs, yet you entirely overlook that fact.

 

[What the Faulk]

SE sounds like my dad who has repeatedly said "there are no good teams in the NFL this year". Actually, there are a lot of them. You don't get to pick and choose your criteria so suit your point.

 

[Sturm]

The Chiefs are a good team. I think in the AFC playoff race, anyone can beat anyone, with the exception being the Colts. Your division winners are Den, NE, Cinncy, Indy, WC: Chiefs and Steelers. All those teams have their flaws - Denever - not sold on Brock, Cincy - can they finally win a big game? New England's health. Steelers have no defense. I could see some big upsets in the AFC

 

[Blitzkrug]

I think the reason why KC gets overlooked is because they don't have a lot of flash at the moment.

Their one electrifying offensive player is out for the season. They're good, but they don't it in a way that gets much attention. Rock solid defense, decent offense with guys who are just simply good (Smith, West, Maclin who despite putting up really good numbers seems to go unnoticed) While i don't think they're Super Bowl contenders, i think they could be a real pain in the ass to knock out come playoff time, especially for a team like Denver.

There are good teams, but not many great ones outside of the usual suspects (Cardinals/Panthers/Bengals/Patriots.) Everyone else has looked like total garbage for points, even New England though because of injury i imagine.

 

[misterchainsaw]

Pittsburgh @ Cincinatti is going to go a long way towards deciding the wild cards.

If PIT wins: It becomes a 3 team race for two spots between KC, PIT, and NYJ, with KC and PIT holding the tiebreaker advantage. BUF would need either KC or PIT to lose a game against vastly inferior competition AND lose their coin flip game (DEN@Pit and OAK @KC).

If Pittsburgh loses, things remain wide open, but I would put the winner of the BUF/NYJ game in week 17 in the driver's seat currently - particularly if it's BUF as they would hold a slight lead in strength of victory and a tiebreaker win at 9-7 if PIT loses to DEN next week. If the Jets lose this week it certainly hurts them - they'd have to beat NE in week 16 to stay in the conversation, IMO.

 

[Sturm]

Pittsburgh and Cincy are both going to be involved in big games that will have big impacts on playoff seeding, who gets byes, who gets the wild card. Pittsburgh plays The Bengals and Broncos, this will have a huge impact on their playoff chances. Lose both and they are in trouble, they beat both and I think you have to say Pittsburgh, even with that defense, is a legit AFC contender. Bengals Broncos will have huge tie breaker and seeing implications. Loser of that game could very well end up as the #3 seed.

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

That is a bit deceiving though, they beat the 7 win Steelers with Landry Jones at QB and the 10 win Broncos with Peyton playing like a 97 year old.

still think Pittsburgh's schedule has been rougher than KC's schedule. the next 2 games make it even look more of a difficult schedule.

 

[Marc the Habs Fan]

Bills are all but done.

Steelers remain out of playoff picture but control playoff destiny. They win out, they are in. Jets will be huge Broncos fans next week because it sure won't be the Ravens, Browns and Raiders who can beat 1 of KC/PIT.

If all 3 teams are 10-6, KC is in regardless. NYJ/PIT for 6th seed comes down to which game the Jets lose. If it's DAL, the Jets are in due to conference record. If it's NE or BUF, the Steelers are the 6th seed due to superior common games record.

Jags are going to be 1 game back when NE beats HOU tonight, lol. And they host the horrible Falcons next, with a visit to NO in week 16. Then it's a game in HOU. They could do this.

 

[Fish on The Sand]

Bills are all but done.

Steelers remain out of playoff picture but control playoff destiny. They win out, they are in. Jets will be huge Broncos fans next week because it sure won't be the Ravens, Browns and Raiders who can beat 1 of KC/PIT.

If all 3 teams are 10-6, KC is in regardless. NYJ/PIT for 6th seed comes down to which game the Jets lose. If it's DAL, the Jets are in due to conference record. If it's NE or BUF, the Steelers are the 6th seed due to superior common games record.

Jags are going to be 1 game back when NE beats HOU tonight, lol. And they host the horrible Falcons next, with a visit to NO in week 16. Then it's a game in HOU. They could do this.

I was really hoping that the Jets and/or Steelers would lose. That would clinch things up for my Chiefs more or less.The Jets one especially hurt because Fitzpatrick ended my fantasy season basically.

I wouldn't give New England the W just yet. Gronk isn't going to be 100% and the Texans could give them trouble in Houston. I'd still be shocked if the Pats lost (can they seriously lose 3 in a row?) but its not as automatic as you may think.