Written by AccuScore Staff
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2015 AFC Playoff Picture
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There are four weeks left to play in the NFL regular season. For most of the teams these are four last games this year, but which teams will continue their games to the playoffs? Accuscore has run season futures predictions during the season and now we take a closer look at the AFC playoff picture before the week 14.
Three teams are basically secured their spot into postseason: New England Patriots, Cincinnati Bengals and Denver Broncos all have over 99% probability to reach playoffs. Right now it looks like Patriots and Bengals will get first round bye, but next week’s tight matchup between Broncos and Bengals could change this towards Denver, that already have won a tiebreaker against Patriots.
AFC South division winner will take the fourth seed place and a home field advantage in a wild card game. In this race Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts are neck to neck right now. We predict that Colts have marginally better chances to reach playoffs due their easier schedule, but at the same time our predictions give a higher win median (8.2 vs. 8.0) to Houston. The deviation of the Houston’s predicted results of the last 4 games is wider and that gives a bit higher probability to Colts to reach playoffs.
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For the two wild card spots the fight is basically among three 7-5 teams and three 6-6 teams. Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers have the highest probabilities to reach those places right now. Especially Chiefs with wins from the last six games and relatively easy schedule ahead, have almost 85% chance to get one wild card spot.
New York Jets and the loser of the AFC south divisional race have best chance to derail Steelers’ playoff train. However, Jets’ chances are close to 30%, while Steelers have over 70%. Bills are still hanging there with a bit over 10% chance to get into playoffs. Their reminder of the season is interesting as they meet three NFC East teams that are trying to desperately win their own division, but haven’t been in an unbeatable form at any means.
