Since the AFC was done after Sunday I fired up the BBC Micro to try to figure some stuff out. Apologies to the purists for my use of odd three-letter abbreviations for some teams. Usual caveats with the numbers and I don’t factor in tie-games as a possibility in the calculations as they make everything unreadable for such a rare event.

• BAL, CLE, PIT, MIA, KCC, and JAC could all lose out and still have a chance to make the playoffs.
• The BBCM says BUF, NEP, LVR, LAC, TEN, and IND need to reach 7 wins to have any mathematical chance. It says CIN, NYJ, DEN, and HOU would need 8 wins.
• Getting to 12 wins should assure a playoff spot.
• By the powers of public school math, the teams that can’t reach 12 wins aka CIN, BUF, NEP, NYJ, LVR, LAC, TEN do not currently control their own destiny.
• The computer thingy spit out a realistically likely win number for a playoff spot (i.e. wildcard) being barely under 10 for the first time this season. Call it 10 to likely be good enough without tiebreakers coming into play, 9 is risky but looking certainly reasonable now.
• Semi-reasonable projections for wins likely to take the divisions (i.e. roughly 2nd place + 1W or winning tiebreaker) are: AFC East 9-10 wins, North 11-12 wins, South 10-11 wins, West 10-11 wins.
• Looks like the Patriots will be eliminated with a loss and basically there being football on Sunday, computer says a win by PIT, TEN, HOU, CLE, or CIN does it, I didn’t take the time to triple-manually-check that intel though.
• My subjective analysis has BAL being “realistically in” as they could drunken stupor to another win or two to be safe, NEP, TEN, LAC, NYJ and LVR being “realistically out” as they would need divine intervention to get to a win total that has a reasonable chance. Obviously this is subject to change if any of them start on an actual winning streak journey.
• For the teams in the middle of the fight, as in not on either of my nice or naughty lists above, there are four intra-conference games (LAC v NEP, IND v TEN, CIN v JAC, DEN v HOU), and the BBCM says the non-combatant contenders are better off with the following outcomes: Everyone better off with NEP, TEN, and JAC wins (slamming the door on LAC and CIN while bringing IND back down to earth in the wildcard race); For the DEN/HOU game, computer says BUF, MIA, and JAC are better off with a DEN win, CIN, CLE, PIT, KCC, IND are better off with a HOU win.