The Way Too Early Playoff Qualifying Tiebreaker Prediction Thread

I'm the type of person who runs hundreds of playoff qualifying tiebreaker scenarios in my head way too early in the season. That being said, I think it's interesting to try and realistically predict what might happen in the schedules of playoff contending teams for the rest of this season and gauge how they affect the Jets' playoff chances. I fully encourage everyone to make their own predictions as well.

I attempted to give all teams "a best case scenario" when predicting their schedules and chose them all with significant optimism so you will see some inconsistencies in my picks (ex. when predicting the rest of the season for the Broncos I assumed that they will beat the Chargers but when predicting the rest of the season for the Chargers I assumed that they will beat the Broncos).

Patriots (6-3)
Chiefs W (7-3)
@ Eagles W (8-3)
Colts W (9-3)
@ Redskins W (10-3)
@ Broncos W (11-3)
Dolphins W (12-3)
Bills W (13-3) Win the AFC East

Jets (5-5)
Bills W (6-5)
@ Redskins W (7-5)
Chiefs W (8-5)
@ Eagles W (9-5)
Giants L (9-6)
@ Dolphins W (10-6)

Bills (5-5)
@ Jets L (5-6)
Titans L (6-6)
@ Chargers W (7-6)
Dolphins W (8-7)
@ Patriots (rest starters) W (9-7)

[even if we assume that the Bills win every game but lose their next game to the Jets if the Jets win 5/6 of their last games they would win the tiebreaker with the Bills for a playoff spot].

Ravens (7-3)
49ers W (8-3) <-- could easily lose this one
@ Browns W (9-3)
Colts W (10-3)
@ Chargers W (11-3)
Browns W (12-3)
@ Bengals W (13-3) Win AFC North on head to head tiebreaker w/ Steelers

Steelers (7-3)
@ Chiefs W (8-3)
Bengals W (9-3)
Browns W (10-3)
@ 49ers W (11-3) <-- could easily lose this one
Rams W (12-3)
@ Browns W (13-3) Win the 1st Wildcard

Bengals (6-4)
Browns W (7-4)
@Steelers L (7-5)
Texans W (8-5)
@ Rams W (9-5)
Cardinals W (10-5)
Ravens L (10-6)

[In this scenario the Jets and Bengals would have the same record with no head-to-head record, the same conference record, and the same common game win percentage making the tiebreaker strength of victory which is way too difficult to predict at this point].

Texans (7-3)
@ Jaguars W (8-3)
Falcons L (8-4)
@ Bengals L (8-5)
Panthers W (9-5)
@ Colts W (10-5)
Titans W (11-5) Win AFC South

Titans (5-5)
Buccaneers L (5-6)
@ Bills W (6-6)
Saints L (6-7)
@ Colts W (7-7)
Jaguars W (8-7)
@ Texans W (9-7)

Raiders (6-4)
Bears L (6-5)
@ Dolphins W (7-5)
@ Packers L (7-6)
Lions L (7-7)
@ Chiefs W (8-7)
Chargers W (9-7)

Broncos (5-5)
@ Chargers W (6-5)
@ Vikings W (7-5)
Bears L (7-6)
Patriots L (7-7)
@Bills W (8-7)
Chiefs W (9-7)

[In this scenario the Broncos would win the division based on the common games tiebreaker since both the Raiders and Broncos would have the same record, would have split their head-to-head season series, and would have the same division record. The only difference in their common games would be that I predicted the Broncos to beat the Bills in week 16 while the Raiders lost to them in week 2]. (Personally I think the Broncos will probably fall apart at some point but I chose to pick the games optimistically).

Chargers (4-6)
Broncos W (5-6)
@ Jaguars W (6-6)
Bills W (7-6)
Ravens L (7-7)
@ Lions L (7-8)
@ Raiders W (8-8)

[If the Chargers win both their game against the Raiders and their game against the Broncos in this scenario, all three of these teams would have 8-8 records and the Chargers would win the division based on a three-way head to head tie-breaker. If they only finished with the same record as the Broncos they would win the division, because they would have swept the season series and if they only finished with the same record as the Raiders they would still win the AFC West but on the division record tie-breaker instead].

Chiefs (4-5)
@ Patriots L (4-6)
Steelers L (4-7)
@ Bears L (4-8)
@ Jets L (4-9)
Packers L (4-10)
Raiders L (4-11)
Broncos L (4-12)

[I've never seen a schedule that ends as brutally as this one].

Doing these predictions helped emphasize something that was fairly obvious but bears repeating. There is very little chance that the Jets make the playoffs like they did in the 2009-2010 season at 9-7. Too many teams such as the Broncos, Raiders, Titans, Texans, Patriots, Bills, Steelers, Ravens and Bengals all have a very good shot of finishing at AT LEAST 9-7. Four of those teams will win their divisions but that still leaves 5 teams with a legitimate shot at going 9-7 with the Jets. Additionally, of those teams, the Ravens, Patriots, Raiders and Broncos currently hold head-to-head tiebreakers against the Jets which only adds to their need to go 10-6. Fortunately, the Jets' remaining schedule is not too bad so this is a possibility. It's not gonna be easy to get a playoff spot this year.

After picking every team's schedule (again looking at each schedule optimistically) according to my predictions the AFC would look something like this:

1. Ravens (on common opponents tiebreaker with the Patriots)
2. Patriots
3. Texans
4. Broncos (I think they'll stumble and the Raiders will take the West though).
5. Steelers
6. Bengals/Jets

 

Yes, yes it would. Thanks! That makes me a little happier if things do happen to play out that way.

 

I don't disagree with you but look at their schedule and tell me they can't beat the Vikings (a 2-win team), the Bills (who are on a 3 game losing streak and just got smashed by the Dolphins), and the Chiefs (who they beat two weeks ago). In addition, if you look at the Chiefs' schedule (which is absolutely brutal) they're going to be drained by the time they face Denver and will have nothing to play for. The Chargers haven't been playing well at all recently either so looking at the schedule optimistically, why don't you think they at least have a shot at winning those four games?

 

I think the 49'ers will probably edge out the Ravens this Thanksgiving and I also expect them to beat the Steelers but I'm looking at it as a best case scenario for those teams in the AFC and kind of a worst case scenario for the Jets (in terms of the records of other teams).

It will be close, but I actually do think Cincy will beat the Texans because I don't have very much faith in Leinart being able to get it done, and I fully expect the Pats to win out with the soft schedule they have.