The AFC Playoff Picture at Week 13

NFL Week 13 - Byes are finished

Last week we came to the same conclusion we arrived at last season - The NFL long ago passed over from a Sports League to Sports Entertainment. In an attempt to keep as many viewers watching for as long as possible, that is to achieve the highest ratings possible, games are manipulated by the officials to remain competitive to the point where actual outcomes are invariably affected.  This makes betting on the games doubly difficult and we cannot in good conscience continue to recommend particular plays. While we do not believe that the league has gone as far as say the WWE and mandated the actual winners and losers YET, there is no way to be certain of this. One can still it seems continue to look at trends, momentum, relative strengths and weaknesses, coaching ability and stratagems to try to see where things are headed with much more confidence than single games so we shall try that for now.

American Football Conference

AFC East

At this point in the season, the New England Patriots appear to have the strongest team in the most categories in the NFL. The Patriots have dispatched three (3) consecutive divisional leaders, at home and on the road, in a very convincing fashion, and can be reasonably expected to continue to do so. Their pass defence, which is maybe the leagues finest, matches up very well against the Packers and Chargers while their offence is now averaging 40 points per game and recently added the missing piece from last year’s stretch run in Legarret Blount. It also appears at this point that the Wild Cards will be won by teams currently at 7-4 so the rest of the division is not relevant at this time.

AFC North

With ½ a game separating first and last in is impossible to tell where this is going.

AFC South

We think very little of the Indianapolis Colts and before the season fully expected them to be one of last year’s play-off teams that would not be returning. Unfortunately the Texans signed Ryan Fitzpatrick in the off-season and with Ryan Mallet going down for the season it seemed that Houston’s play-off hopes went with him. Interestingly, the Texans signed Thaddeus Lewis this week. We actually liked what we saw of Thad’s time with the Bills last year and if Bill O’Brien likes what he sees, starts Lewis against Jacksonville in two weeks and Thaddeus gets the win it could get interesting. Especially if Colt McCoy beats the Colts this weekend like Jon Gruden thinks he can and Ryan Fitzpatrick beat the Titans at home as he did in Nashville. Let’s see if that happens first before getting carried away.

AFC West

The Denver Broncos are 2-2 in their last 4 games, and one of those games was against the Raiders. In their other win, Miami was thoroughly out-playing them thru almost 3 quarters when suddenly the Dolphins lost their ability to stop the run. We will get a good gauge of where Denver is or isn’t when they visit Kansas City this weekend. With three of their next 4 games on the road against 7-4 or better AFC teams the 8-3 Broncos could very easily be sitting 9-6 going into their last game against the Raiders already eliminated from the play-offs.

Kansas City won 3 of their last 4 but could not stop the Raiders Derek Carr? On the game-winning drive while San Diego came out of their bye week with enough to square their record over their last four games by (narrowly) beating the Raiders and the Rams. All three teams have killer schedules to finish out the season and 11-5 likely takes the division but who gets there is anyone’s guess. If the Chargers can go into Baltimore and take a win from the Ravens and the Chiefs can hold serve against the Broncos it will be a three way tie at 8-4. The Broncos would still be favored in that scenario with relatively easy games against Buffalo and Oakland upcoming while the Chargers seem to be up against it the most as their “easiest” game looks to be the 49ers.

This one is way too hard to handicap and could very well go down to tie-breakers.