Those of us in the word business had been running out of ways to say that the AFC playoff picture is complete chaos. On Monday night, we started getting some clarity. And on Thursday night, we got a little more.
A wind-influenced game in Buffalo finally gave us an idea of where the AFC is going. The New England Patriots, just as we all predicted, won a 14-10 road game over the Bills by running on all but three of their offensive plays. The win lifted the Patriots to the top of the conference and pushed the Bills back into an eight-team competition for the AFC’s two wild-card spots.
Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Steelers saw their playoff chances fall to nearly unrecoverable depths in a wild 36-38 loss Thursday night to the Minnesota Vikings.
Regardless, the AFC still has plenty of questions. There remain teams near the top who have a decent chance to fall out of the race entirely, and there are teams outside the top 7 who could still wind up winning their division.
Overall, according to ESPN Stats & Information research, the 2021 NFL playoff race is the first time in 19 years that every team in a conference has at least four losses through Week 13.
Sunday, the Baltimore Ravens had dropped their fourth game of the season, a 20-19 loss to the Steelers that left a logjam of 8-4 teams atop the AFC before Monday night’s game.
Week 13 did deliver the first playoff elimination of 2021. The Houston Texans are officially looking toward 2022 after a 31-0 loss to the Indianapolis Colts. (The Detroit Lions managed to avoid a similar fate after upsetting the Vikings for their first win of the season.)
Let’s run through the entire playoff picture as it stands now. As always, we’ll combine ESPN’s Football Power Index with a little bit of human instinct to sketch out where the league is headed.
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The Patriots’ throwback season continued Monday night with their seventh consecutive victory. The win put them in the driver’s seat in the AFC East and gave them by far the best…
Source : espn
