Week 10 Playoff Update: Checking In at the Halfway Point

136 games down, 136 to go. We’ve reached the halfway point of the season, and it’s still anybody’s race.

Technically. Mathematically, that is.

As you read this, every single team in the NFL can still win every single seed possible. That will likely change Sunday, as our first elimination scenario of the season has materialized – if you were counting on the Cardinals winning the top seed in the NFC, you may want to get off that bandwagon now. But, as we’re in the last point in time where anyone can win a playoff spot, it’s worth checking into see who actually is in contention. As a follow-up to our quarter-pole check-in, here’s how the playoff races stand as we enter the back half of the year.

NFC

Top Seed

Is this a two-horse race? A four-horse race? Or can you stretch it out all the way to five?

What we know for sure is this: the Eagles (8-1) are the favorites, with somewhere between 50% and 70% of the equity, depending on just how good you believe them to be. They’re the one team in the NFC that controls their own fate for the top seed; it’s theirs if they go undefeated. It’s more likely theirs than not if they go 5-3, honestly; they’re going to be tested after the bye week with a gauntlet that goes Kansas City-Buffalo-San Francisco-Dallas-Seattle, but as long as they’re not blown to pieces by it they should come out on top and ready to roll.

The Lions (6-2) are the other team who has definite equity here; somewhere between 15-25% odds depending on where you’re looking at the moment. They don’t get to play the Eagles, which is a problem, but they have the third-easiest remaining schedule per FTN, so they have a smoother road the rest of the way. If they run the table, they’ll be more likely than not to be the top seed as Philadelphia will likely slip up somewhere. They can probably stay in play with a couple losses, too, but they’ll likely lose to the Eagles on tiebreakers should it come to that. Philadelphia has yet to lose in conference, and a decent chunk of their tough games on the road ahead take place against AFC opponents. The Lions probably have to actually pass Philadelphia to pass Philadelphia – certainly possible with the easier schedule, but no guarantee.

The other contenders depend on who you believe. FTN gives San Francisco (5-3) a 13.9% chance of the top seed, and Dallas (5-3) a 6.4%. They still are strong believers in the 49ers despite the three-game losing streak they’re on; they’re third in DVOA and the highest in the conference. If they can get hot like they did last year, and run the table the rest of the way, like they did a year ago, they have a chance, but their three game-losing streak essentially removed all their room for error. The Cowboys are in a similar boat, but their losses to Philadelphia and San Francisco have them in an even worse situation. It would take a minor miracle for them to beat Philadelphia for the division, and so the top seed is a tough ask; they’ve got about a 50/50 shot to be #1 if they win every single game the rest of the way.

Don’t fully count out Seattle (5-3), though. FTN doesn’t give them much of a chance (2.4%), because they’re just barely in the top half of DVOA. But unlike San Francisco or Dallas, Seattle has a chance to sweep everyone else on this list and thus have full and complete tiebreakers no matter what happens. Like the 49ers and Cowboys, they can’t afford to lose, and unlike them, they’re really not of #1 seed quality, based on their play so far. But they’ve still got some live cards to play if they can turn things around.

Division Races

Technically, the NFC East isn’t over just yet, but Dallas’ loss to Philadelphia more or less does them in in most realistic outcomes. While there are still 65,536 outcomes between the Eagles and Cowboys (excluding ties), all of the realistic ones require Dallas to beat Philadelphia in the rematch, and at least five of the seven big games remaining going Dallas’ way – that’s the Cowboys versus the Dolphins, Lions and Commanders, and the Eagles versus the Chiefs, Bills, 49ers and Seahawks. Outside of that, you’d need borderline insane upsets (like the Giants over the Eagles) for Dallas to catch up, and if that’s the level you’re stooping to to create hope with nine weeks left, you’re doomed. So Dallas clings on by the tiniest of threads.

Josh Dobbs’ particular brand of magic keeps the Vikings (5-4) on life support in the NFC North. The Lions win the division in 93.2% of FTN’s simulations, which is more than fair – remember, the Cardinals only won one game with Dobbs at quarterback, and while Minnesota has a superior supporting cast, they’re also all getting hurt, and Minnesota faces the tougher schedule, having to deal with Cincinnati rather than getting a couple games against the Bears. They’ll likely have to play .500 ball as it stands to even have a ghost of a shot. It seems exceedingly unlikely this division will remain up for grabs when the two teams play in Weeks 16 and 18, but at least Dobbs keeps Minnesota conscious for a little while longer.

If you squint, and like longshots, you can make a case for the NFC West being a three-way race. Obviously, the main race here is between the 49ers and Seahawks – it’s a close race if you go by record, and not nearly as close if you go by advanced stats. I still tend to side on San Francisco running away with things when all is said and done, but San Francisco did have the worse defense in the league in their last two games. I tend to think the missed tackles that plagued them were a result of injuries and fatigue rather than a new weakness that materialized out of nowhere, but they did bleed away their lead! But forget about Seattle catching San Francisco – should we write off the Rams (3-6) at this point in time? Don’t get me wrong; the Rams are a bad (if frisky) football team, and now have injury concerns at quarterback. But they’re just two wins back in the win column, after all, and get a week to rest up. What if they come back rejuvenated, rattling off wins against the Seahawks, Cardinals and Browns in back-to-back weeks, and then bouncing back from a loss to the Ravens (let’s not go crazy here) with wins over the Commanders, Saints and Giants as the season comes to a close. Meanwhile, the Seahawks play like their middling DVOA, unable to beat the likes of Dallas, Philadelphia or Tennessee. They do split with San Francisco, but their recent run of poor defense continues to be a problem. They lose to the #1 DVOA Ravens? Fine. They lose on the road to the Jaguars and Eagles? Tough to swallow, but these things happen. But maybe things get nasty down the stretch. The lack of pressure becoming sacks means Sam Howell has a day. Kyler Murray is healthy and gives San Francisco their customary fits against mobile quarterbacks. Is it really that crazy for San Francisco to fall to 8-9? For Los Angeles to ride a 4-2 divisional record to the top of the NFC West?

Yes. Yes it is. But with half a season to go, it’s still squinting at the edge of possibility.

A more traditional three-way race is in the NFC South, though the Saints (5-4) are beginning to pull away from the Falcons (4-5) and Buccaneers (3-5). If any of these teams hit 10-7, they can feel fairly confident they’ll be division chamions. This should get particularly feisty down the stretch, with New Orleans playing Tampa Bay in Week 17 and Atlanta in Week 18 in games which should decide which team gets to win the division and go on to lose to the Cowboys in the Wild Card round.

Wild Card

No teams are mathematically dead at this point, but we can write a few off – specifically, the Giants, Bears, Panthers and Cardinals. Even if Arizona were to win out, they’d just be 9-8 with middling tiebreakers. They probably make the playoffs more often than not in that case because the conference isn’t that great, but it’s far from a guarantee, and that’s without even one slip-up. The rest of the teams are in similar boats; they’ll all playing for next year already. We’ll cover their cases as they one-by-one get mathematically eliminated, but they should be long done before the middle of December rolls around.

Then you have the teams who are mostly hoping for miracle turnarounds from their young quarterbacks in the Packers and Commanders. Unlike the group above, the path to them getting back in contention is clear, it’s just very unlikely at this point. You can likely group Washington (now that they’ve traded away their entire pass rush) and Los Angeles to this group as well – maybe able to affect the playoff race with some upsets down the stretch, but not likely to be major players in and of themselves. The Buccaneers could fall into this category, too, but they at least have a more live draw at their divisional title.

The NFC East runner-up will almost assuredly take one wildcard slot. That would leave two slots for some combination of the Vikings, Saints/Falcons runner up, and NFC West runner up (most likely Seattle). That makes this week’s Minnesota-New Orleans game particularly spicy, as it’s the only game left between these four teams. The wildcard race may end up playing out mostly in a vacuum.

AFC

Top Seed

Kansas City (7-2) is coming back from Germany with a big win over Miami (6-3), which makes them the favorite for the top seed. They’re the only team in the AFC who controls their own fate for the top seed. Unlike the NFC, however, you’d probably take the field over the Chiefs right now, with four teams all within a game of the top seed.

Miami does have the worst shot, by far. Not only have they just lost head-to-head against the Chiefs, but they also have fairly bad tiebreakers, all things considered. They have only one win against even a .500 team, beating the Chargers back in Week 1— every time they have played a competent opponent, they have lost. With a microscopic .275 strength of victory, Miami’s odds of winning a multi-way tie have rapidly approached zero. The offense can still fire at any given point in time, and they have an easier schedule left than Baltimore or Jacksonville, so it’s not out of the question yet that they’ll end up with the most wins when things are said and done. But their margin of error at this point is maybe one game; they’re going to have to beat a good team eventually.

Baltimore (7-2) may be behind Kansas City on the conference record tiebreaker, but they are in the opposite position to Miami – they’re destroying good opposition, having embarrassed Seattle and Detroit over the last three weeks. They are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the conference in DVOA, and at the moment feel like the most unstoppable team in football. It remains to be seen if Baltimore can keep up this run of play for the rest of the year – remember, they lost games to Indy and Pittsburgh earlier in some games where they couldn’t catch a cold, much less a football – and they have the second-toughest remaining schedule in all of football. The war of attrition in the AFC North might end up knocking them down before all is said and done. But if you were to restart the season today, the Ravens might well be your favorites for the conference.

That leaves the Jaguars (6-2) as sort of the “others receiving votes” category. A two game lead over the rest of the AFC South certainly helps, and they have a better chance of winning their division than the Dolphins or Ravens do – you can’t win the top seed if you’re not tops in your division! But they’ve already lost to the Chiefs as well, pushing their target even higher. They’ll get fully tested over the next month and a half, as five of their six next opponents (San Francisco, Houston, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Baltimore) are in playoff position at the moment. If Jacksonville can get a winning record out of those five games, they’ll be serious contenders themselves.

Still, at the moment, the Chiefs have the best chance of taking home the top seed, the Ravens second, the Jaguars third and the Dolphins fourth. The Ravens get the Jaguars (Week 15) and Dolphins (Week 17), but we don’t have a Ravens-Chiefs matchup to look forward to this year. It may turn out one of those early season AFC losses will come back to haunt Baltimore.

Division Races

The Chiefs will win the AFC West. Sure, the Chargers (4-4) have Justin Herbert and a .500 record and one more swing at Kansas City in Week 18, but let’s be reasonable, here.

The Jaguars will probably win the AFC South, but the continued development of CJ Stroud at least makes the Houston (4-4) an interesting fly in the ointment – and remember, they have the Week 3 win under their belt. If they can duplicate that feet in the Week 12 rematch, it’s game on in the South. Houston probably does need to go 6-3 from here with a win over Jacksonville to have a chance, but their schedule is actually on the easier side from here on out, especially when they get past the Week 10 trip to Cincinnati. Jacksonville should land the division title without too much trouble, but “should” is the operative word there, and it’s nice for this not to be the walkover we were presuming at the beginning of the year.

The entire AFC East lost this week, meaning that the three top teams at least stayed theoretically alive – Miami (6-3), Buffalo (5-4) and New York (4-4). None of them can be feeling too great about themselves, with the Dolphins apparently unable to beat any serious competition, the Bills’ defense so banged up they can hardly stay in any matchup at the moment, and the Jets starting Zach Wilson.

DVOA still thinks Buffalo is a top-five team, but their defense has plummeted to 17th and should keep dropping as the injuries take their toll on that side of the ball. They have a soft immediate schedule (Broncos and Jets) and a decently soft set of games towards the end (Chargers and Patriots), but that leaves them with the fifth-toughest future schedule in the league per DVOA. They’re going to have to recover that early season form, and fast, if they want to keep pace with Miami. The Jets…well, they also play football. And their future schedule ranks just 15th in DVOA, which could be worse. Is it that crazy to suggest Miami’s occasional staggering when getting punched in the mouth could lead to them sputtering twice against the Jets in Weeks 12 and 15? And that the same defense that upset the Bills earlier in the year can’t run circles against poor offenses in Cleveland and New England?

…I wrote most of that before Monday night, and yes, I now think that IS that crazy.

As for the AFC North? Baltimore’s DVOA lead gives them a significant advantage according to the FTN odds (76.9%!), but each of the other three teams are at at least 7.0%. If you’re not as convinced as DVOA that the Ravens are the crème of the league to this point, you can probably bump each of Pittsburgh (5-3), Cleveland (5-3) and Cincinnati (5-3) up to at least 10% or so – Baltimore is, and should be the favorite, but when you have four teams all in postseason position at the moment, the division remains very much up for grabs.

Wild Card

Once again, no team is mathematically dead. But the 2-7 Patriots might as well be, last in the standings and very much looking like a rudderless team at this point. The bottom has finally fallen out on the last remnants of the New England dynasty. DVOA would throw in the Raiders and Broncos into that group, too. A look at the standings would argue that a two-game deficit isn’t too much to overcome. A look at the actual quality of Denver and Las Vegas football reminds us that yes, it probably is.

The next tier up from them would include the dregs of the AFC South, with the Titans and Colts rounding out our teams with five or more losses. DVOA gives Indianapolis the better odds mostly because they’re a half-game ahead at the moment, but you could argue that Tennessee is in better shape as their injury-induced quarterback change may end up benefitting them in the long run, with Will Levis being more promising for the future than Gardner Minshew. Still, we’re probably picking nits, considering the sheer number of teams ahead of both of them in the race.

That leaves…well, pretty much everyone else fighting for those three wildcard seeds. Take your pick of three of the four AFC North teams, as they’re holding on to all three spots at the moment, but the Bills, Jets, Texans and Chargers are all very much in this as well. And unlike the NFC, there are plenty of matchups between the seven or eight teams with real chances at the wildcard yet to come. This is where we’ll spend most of November and December sorting through outcomes; the real drama this year looks to be the battle for the fifth, sixth and seventh seeds. Should be fun!

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