I was just messing around with The NY Times playoff projection calculations.
What I found - almost any combination of winning against Steelers + Bengals, +2 AFC wins gives 97%+ chance of making it.
If we split, we need to win 3 AFC games and we’d have ~94%.
If we lose to Steelers + Bengals, we’d need to win any 5 games and we’d make it. If we win any 4, it drops to ~60% chance if we drop another AFC game, and 70% if we drop another NFC game.
Win out? 90% chance for the Bye week 😈
Before the Ravens game, I concluded they needed to win 6 of the final 9 to ensure playoffs, when looking at all the games for all the remaining playoff contenders. They had to beat either the Ravens or the Steelers for tiebreaker purposes, but preferably the Steelers since they’re less likely to win the division than the Ravens. The Browns have now beaten the Ravens, so that makes it a near lock. We still play the Steelers, Jaguars, Texans, and Bengals. We can afford to lose three or 4 all of them since the Bengals and Jaguars both lost. But again, beating the Steelers is priority #1. I would say that if they beat the Steelers, there’s no way they don’t get in.