Week 16 Playoff Update: The AFC Doomsday Scenario

As we enter Week 16 in the NFL, it’s important to realize that we are all in grave danger. A Doomsday Scenario has arisen, one that has shaken us here at PlaySheet to our very core.

For the first time since the 1970 merger and the corresponding increase in playoff size, it’s possible for one conference to have every playoff team locked down with two weeks to play. If the Broncos, Colts, Dolphins and Bengals all lose this week, then all seven playoff teams will be set in stone. It’s not that we won’t have anything to track in the conference – the bye week could still be in play, as could the AFC North. But even those could be locked up in the worst of worst-case scenarios, with the Ravens, Texans and Bills all falling too. Shuffling around the wildcard seeds just doesn’t bring with it the same pizzazz, you know?

Is this likely to happen? No, of course not. That seven-way parlay is currently at +125,526 on DraftKings, thanks in large part to it requiring the Patriots to upset the Bills. That being said, it’s not like the Patriots didn’t beat the Bills last season, with Buffalo struggling on third downs and Mac Jones doing just enough to take advantage of the opportunities given. Browns over Bengals seems like a stretch, too, but maybe DTR takes advantage of a super-soft Cincinnati defense and has some of that first-start backup quarterback magic in him. The Steelers are underdogs against the Ravens, but they beat them earlier this year in a 18-16 field goal fest. You want to count out the Dolphins flopping against the 49ers? The Colts throwing six picks against the Titans? You want to bet against Patrick Mahomes?

The odds are we’ll have something to talk about in the AFC after this week – and, frankly, even if we don’t, the NFC races will be tight down to the wire, so we won’t exactly close up shop even if all the AFC results come in. There is some good discussion to be had about how much effort you put into games if you’re just jostling for seeding, which is dependent on just how good your potential opponents are. That would be fun to break down. Theoretically, a three-way tie at 9-6 in the wildcard slot could be interesting as well, though in reality all tiebreakers there are already locked in place by head-to-head results. The most interesting thing, however, might be seeing how the NFL would respond to this, as this would destroy their Christmas Day schedule. Chiefs-Steelers and Texans-Ravens become much less interesting if everything in the AFC is wrapped up tightly in a neat little package before kickoff!

What’s backfired here is going to seven teams in each conference. Not because of the extra team; that’s just bad luck. Yes, we’d have more intrigue if we only had six spots and one of the Ravens, Chargers or Broncos would have to stay home, but if all you care about is interesting races, we’d also get some if we expanded out to eight teams, and the mid-to-dregs of the conference were all still in contention. It’s unfortunate that there is a fairly clear top seven in the AFC and the possibility for those seven to fully pull away when we just so happen to have seven slots, but the fact that that all lined up is just bad luck.

No, the real problem is the lack of bye weeks. That gives teams less to play for once they’ve clinched their division, and that’s what’s potentially biting us here. In the Nightmare Scenario, a tie between the Bills and Steelers at 11-4 could lead to a dramatic finish down the stretch, both teams racing to earn that second bye and avoid a potential wildcard round upset. The Steelers would hold the one-game conference record advantage, but still would have to face the Chiefs while the Bills would get a couple long-dead divisional rivals down the stretch. There’d be drama and excitement, and it’s just not there when you’re talking about who gets to play #7 versus who gets to play #6. That’s especially true this year, where there isn’t a big gap between the sixth and seventh team in the conference, but a matchup decision is never going to be as interesting as a bye week and essential auto-win versus having to actually play a football game.

The NFL has hinted that it wants to expand to a 16-team playoff one day, with eight teams in each conference. But getting rid of the final bye week could make scenarios like this more common, not less. Giving teams fewer goals to achieve in the regular season could lead to lackluster finishes, and more seasons ending in a whimper, not a bang.

Race Updates

Ties Matter!

We have not one but two different divisions in the NFC where a team is hanging on by the thinnest of threads. Both the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers enter Week 16 with the ability to win their division, but would require a Week 18 tie to do so.

The Packers could win out to get to 13-4, handing the Vikings a loss along the way. That leaves the Vikings and Lions with 12 wins each, which would be fine – except they play each other in the final week of the season, so there’s an extra win up for grabs, and that’s no good for the Packers in any situation. If they tie with the Lions, then Detroit is the champ thanks to their head-to-head sweep – and that’s true whether it’s a two-way tie or a three-way tie. If they tie with the Vikings instead, then Minnesota wins based on a 4-2 divisional record compared to Green Bay’s 3-3 – so, once again, it’s that extra loss to Detroit doing them in. The only way to clear that hurdle is to have the Lions and Vikings tie.

The 49ers are in an even worse situation. Winning out would get them to 9-8, with the Rams and Seahawks sitting on 8 wins each and the Cardinals sitting on 7. They’d need both Los Angeles and Seattle to lose their other games entering Week 18, though that hands the Cardinals their eighth win, so now San Francisco needs Arizona to fall to Carolina, as well – they can’t win a 9-8 tie against the Cardinals because of their inferior divisional record. That just leaves the Seahawks and Rams and, yup, they play in Week 18, too. The 49ers were swept by Los Angeles, so they can’t win that head-to-head tie, and that extra divisional loss would cost them against Seattle, too. The only way to clear that hurdle is to have the two teams tie.

I might advise San Francisco and Green Bay not to be swept by a rival next year if they intend to compete for the divisional crown. Maybe that’s just me.

If we ignore the Packers and 49ers’ long-shot, tie-laden chances, we can get a pretty clean look at the scenarios in both divisions. First up, the NFC North:

Ten of the 16 possible paths to Week 18 gives us a Vikings-Lions game for the NFC North title. That feels a lot like a game that will get flexed to Saturday, because both teams will already be in the playoffs and this is just for seeding. It’s important enough to highlight it, but not quite big enough to be the last game on the entire slate. The other six paths have the Vikings with a worse record over the next two weeks than Detroit has; they can not win any divisional tiebreakers at this point.

The NFC West remains a mess, with 128 possible non-tie combinations remaining, even after excluding San Francisco!

Counting up the scenarios, that’s 56 outcomes where the Rams win the division, 51 where the Seahawks win, 13 where the Cardinals win, and eight which come down to a strength of victory tie scenario between the Rams and Seahawks. The Rams hold a big lead there, .473 to .438, but that is not set in stone just yet. Assuming the Rams beat the Jets this week, we’ll break this down in more detail in our preview for Week 17.

The Most Competitive AFC Finish?

We’ve talked about how the Nightmare Scenario would involve the AFC bye week being sewn up with two weeks to play…but surely, the Chiefs are way out in front there, right? What’s the real difference if it happens the week before Christmas or the week after? Well, to see how well the Chiefs are in control, let’s look at what happens in the worst-case scenario for them this week – if they lose, but the Bills and Steelers both win. That would leave 32 scenarios remaining (excluding ties)

That’s still very heavy with Chiefs wins there in the results column; that Bills loss to the Rams really hurt them. But it’s no runaway. Yes, they’d probably still need to then lose on Christmas to Pittsburgh for things to get really interesting, but the possibility of the Chiefs holding head-to-head losses against both the Bills and Steelers keeps this race at least somewhat vital.

Then again, the Chiefs have been lucky enough this season that it seems overwhelmingly likely that Buffalo and Pittsburgh will step on a huge number of rakes between now and the end of the season, taking themselves out of the picture and letting KC cruise to victory. Still, we can dream…

Divisional Title Games…Kinda

Both the NFC East and AFC North races can finish this week, as the division leader takes on the second-place team in a win-and-it’s-over situation. That’s where the similarities end, though.

The Eagles are essentially guaranteed to win their division; Washington is just too far behind to do much at this point even after an upset. They’d need to win out and have the Eagles lose out, and do it while playing Atlanta as opposed to Philly’s matchup against the Giants. No thank you.

The Steelers, though? Drop this one, and they’re in trouble. The Ravens are, on paper, the significantly better team – DVOA has them as the top team in the league, and other EPA-based metrics have them very close to the top as well. The Ravens are also close enough where they could win a tiebreaker, if the Steelers slipped against Cincinnati in Week 18 – the Bengals will likely be out of it by then, but ruining Pittsburgh’s day always seems like a good reason to show up for work in the AFC North. Pittsburgh still has more winning scenarios than losing ones even if they drop this, but things will get very, very interesting if they can’t close things up when they have the chance.

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