Kansas City Chiefs: AFC playoff picture after week 12
The Kansas City Chiefs had their bye in week 12, but the other 15 teams in the AFC played games despite KC being off. What does the AFC side of the playoff bracket look like now that every team in the conference has had their bye?
A 9-2 record is still good enough for the Kansas City Chiefs to hold the top spot in the AFC playoffs. Week 12 was important, however, as there has been some movement among the teams in the standings.
The most notable was Pittsburgh, who dropped a game to the Broncos. The loss now gives the Steelers three losses on the year and they plummeted from the two-seed all the way to the four-seed. That’s not ideal for the Steelers, but good for the Chiefs for sure.
The loss also helped propel New England to the second spot because of course they’re going to be one of the two teams with a bye in the playoffs. They always are. I’m not bitter or anything though.
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Here are the AFC playoff standings after 12 weeks of regular season action.
- Kansas City Chiefs (9-2) – BYE
- New England Patriots (8-3) – BYE
- Houston Texans (8-3)
- Pittsburgh Steelers (7-3-1)
- Los Angeles Chargers (8-3)
- Baltimore Ravens (6-5)
IN THE HUNT: Indianapolis Colts (6-5), Tennessee Titans (5-6), Miami Dolphins (5-6), Cincinnati Bengals (5-6), Denver Broncos (5-6)
The Steelers loss shook up the standings, as now they would host the Chargers in one of the two Wild Card games. The other would take place in Houston, who would welcome in the Ravens. From there, I would predict the Texans advance over the Ravens, but we’ll know more about that potential Chargers/Steelers match-up when they play on Sunday Night Football this upcoming weekend.
I decided to include the “In the Hunt” teams for this week’s edition because the six spot is getting to be quite interesting. The Colts are the hottest team in the conference right now, winning five straight games and looking really good on offense. They could be dangerous come January if the Chiefs have to face them.
The Titans, Dolphins, Bengals, and Broncos are all still in that “In the Hunt” category too, but out of all of those, the Broncos would be the team I’d least want to see face off against the Chiefs. Denver played KC close in both of their games this year and even if they somehow made it to the postseason and got to Arrowhead, I wouldn’t guarantee a Chiefs victory in that one.
One team losing can really shake up the standings and we saw that with the Steelers dropping a game in Denver over the weekend. The Broncos have helped KC out the past two weekends and have put themselves back into the playoff conversation.
The top six teams’ schedule this week looks like:
- Chiefs at Raiders
- Patriots vs Vikings
- Texans vs Browns
- Steelers vs Chargers
- Chargers at Steelers
- Ravens at Falcons
Those are all decent match-ups actually and it could be another weekend of games that greatly affect what the AFC playoff picture looks like. Will the Chiefs continue to hold that top spot?