Week 9: Halfway Home

Let's start here: The last bye week in the AFC is Week 13. 

Here is the Chiefs schedule through week 13:

home vs Eagles on MNF

at Raiders

at Packers on SNF

Let's assume Chiefs win 2 out of those three. That means after week 13, KC will be 9-3. 

Chiefs own the tiebreaker over the Jaguars and Dolphins. And they currently have a better AFC record than the Ravens, 5-1 vs 4-2, which is the first tiebreaker. 

For the Ravens to be in 1st place over a 9-3 KC, they would need to go 3-0 over Browns, Bengals, Chargers. 

For the Jaguars to be in 1st place over a 9-3 KC, they would need to go 4-0 over 49ers, Titans, Texans, Bengals.

The point here is that the tiebreakers are huge. The Chiefs still have to play the Bills and Bengals so nothing is locked up by any means, but it's still a great spot to be in. 

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The Bengals are back. They've won 4 in a row.

The Ravens are strong. They've won 4 in a row.

You know what, let's just do the AFC Playoff Picture now. 

Cross-Offs: Patriots, Broncos, Raiders, Titans

Playoff Teams: Chiefs, Ravens, Jaguars, Dolphins, Bengals. 

That leaves two wild-card spots for Bills, Browns, Steelers, Texans, Chargers.  (Colts and Jets live in the nether space between In The Hunt and Cross-Offs at the moment.)

I still think the Bills can rally for a wild-card spot. Browns/Steelers/Texans/Chargers for one spot is pretty interesting. I might go Browns right now thinking that their defense is the best unit of any on these four teams.

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NFC

Cross-Offs: Cardinals, Panthers, Giants, Bears, Rams, Packers, Bucs.

Playoff Teams: Eagles, Lions, 49ers, Cowboys.

That leaves three spots for five teams. 

Saints are leading the South.

Commanders were sellers of their D-line at the deadline.

Bad loss for the Seahawks.

The Vikings should miss the playoffs without a QB that's been there for a week.

And the Falcons just loss to the Vikings without a QB that's been there for a week.

Saints and Seahawks still seem like safest bets. Vikings-Falcons is up for grabs I guess and Vikings just grabbed the tiebreaker. So Dobbs is going to carry the Vikes to a 7-seed?

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If we're talking pure contenders, there's not a lot of teams I trust. I still don't trust the Ravens despite their good performances. Something about Lamar getting hurt in December, something about lack of playoff success. I'm just not ready to believe in them as a legit contender. This could be the year where Lamar writes a new narrative but it's going to be hard for me to believe without seeing it.

As of right now, if I had to predict the AFC/NFC Championship games, I would pick Bengals at Chiefs and 49ers at Eagles...which was exactly what we got in January 2023.