The NFL’s 2024 common season nonetheless has the remainder of Week 17 — after which Week 18 — left to go. So we don’t know precisely how the AFC’s playoff seeding will work out.
However due to the Chiefs’ 29-10 victory over the Steelers on Christmas Day, we do know that Kansas Metropolis will maintain the No. 1 seed.
So if the season ended in the present day, right here’s what the AFC seeding could be:
Kansas Metropolis Chiefs
Buffalo Payments
Baltimore Ravens
Houston Texans
Pittsburgh Steelers
Los Angeles Chargers
Denver Broncos
So keep in mind… every thing that follows could be true if the season ended proper now.
What occurs subsequent?
As the highest seed, the Chiefs get a bye within the Wild Card weekend. Among the many remaining groups, division winners play at house. The best seed performs the bottom seed, the second-highest performs the second-lowest… and so forth. Which means that within the Wild Card spherical, the Payments will host the Broncos, the Chargers shall be on the street towards the Ravens and the Texans shall be at house towards the Steelers.
The identical guidelines apply within the AFC’s Divisional spherical video games in Week 20. The Chiefs will play at house towards the bottom remaining seed. Since solely three groups will survive the Wild Card spherical, we all know that the second and third seeds — the Payments and Ravens — can’t play the Chiefs till the convention championship spherical in Week 21.
So, all we have now to do is determine the likelihood that every of the remaining 4 groups will get via the Wild Card spherical and in addition be seeded the bottom. That is best for the seventh-seed group, which solely must win its first-round sport to be the lowest-surviving seed.
It will get extra difficult after that, but it surely’s nonetheless simple. The sixth seed will play the primary seed if it wins and the seventh seed loses. The likelihood it will occur is the same as the prospect the sixth seed wins multiplied by the prospect the seventh seed loses. Then we proceed that collection of calculations for the remainder of the groups.
The possibilities for every group
We are going to use Neil Paine’s Elo mannequin to calculate the likelihood that every group will win every Wild Card sport.
In response to the Elo mannequin, the Payments have a 82% likelihood to defeat the Broncos, the Ravens have a 83% likelihood of beating the Chargers and the Texans would win 51% of the time towards the Steelers.
After we do the maths, right here’s what we get:
Opponent Likelihood
Texans 34%
Steelers 33%
Chargers 14%
Broncos 18%
So if the season ended in the present day, the Texans could be the almost certainly group to face the Chiefs in Kansas Metropolis — however solely barely extra probably than the Steelers. It’s just about a toss-up.
Over the past two weeks of the season, these seedings may change — together with the Elo rankings for every group. In flip, this might considerably alter the chances in all three AFC Wild Card video games — and finally, which group could be the almost certainly to come back to Kansas Metropolis.
Nonetheless… that is the best way it seems proper now.
What do you assume?
