Playoff ESP circa Week 10

[Mickey]

I wrote this about our making the playoffs before the Seattle game when we were 4-6. I will not mention the names of any of you who responded with versions of “Mickey is on crack”.

 

 

Four division winners go and two wild cards. The Division leaders in the AFC are NE, Pitt, Den and Indy. The wild card contestants that are ahead of the Bills right now are SD 7-3, Balt 7-3, Jets 7-3 and J'ville at 6-4. At 4-6, it looks near impossible but, looking at the schedules, it is not as bad as it would seem.

 

SD's remaining opponents are a combined 34-31, J'ville's are 32-28, Balt's are 34-25 and the Jets' are 36-23. Buffalo's are only 24-36 and that is with the Steelers at 9-1. Take them away and our remaining opponents are a pathetic 15-35. We get the Steelers at home on the last game of the season. There is a chance that they will have locked in home field advantage by then so they could be resting their starters. Even if they aren't, if we we're lucky enough to be playing at home on the last game of the year with a shot at a playoff birth, I'd like our chances.

 

The Ravens have games left against Indy, Pitt and NE on the road. Those teams are a combined 24-5 and have only lost one game at home all year. J'Ville has tough games left at Minn and GB. They also have to play Pitt at home. The Jets have Pitt on the road, NE at home, Seattle and St. Louis. San Diego has games against Denver and Indy as well as always tough Tampa.

 

By contrast, the only teams with winning records we play are Seattle and Pitt. If we can pull off a road win against Seattle, things really get interesting. Just for starters, figure that J'ville loses next week to Minn on the road and Balt loses to NE also on the road and we pull off a win in Seattle. That puts us at 5-6, J'Ville at 6-5 and Balt at 7-4 (with road games ahead at Pitt and at Indy). If we win the following week at Miami (1-9) and J'Ville loses to the Steelers which isn't hard to imagine, we will be at 6-6, tied with J'ville. That isn't at all impossible and at that point J'ville would still have an away date with the Packers.

 

We don't have to beat out all 4 of those teams, just 3 of them. Yeah, it is one huge long, long shot but as the saying goes, we 'aint out of it yet.

 

I posted this update after we beat Seattle:

 

 

I posted last week some numbers suggesting that it was less than impossible for Buffalo to make the playoffs. It is still a long, long shot but just about everything we needed to happen this past weekend to improve our chances actually happened with the exception of the Jets getting upset in Arizona.

 

Remember that all division winners get in and two wild cards. Lets start with the presumption that NE, Pitt and Indy are going to win their divisions. The last division in the AFC is up for grabs between SD and Denver. Both were are 7-3 going into the weekend. For us it doesn't matter who wins the division, just that the second place team start to lose some games in a hurry. SD won so we needed Denver to lose and thanks to that blocked kick last night in the snow, Oakland beat them. For now anyway, the Wild Card candidate from that division is Denver at 7-4.

 

 

Along with Denver there is Baltimore, now 7-4 due to its loss to NE yesterday. J'Ville which is at 6-5 following their loss to Minnesota. Then there is the Jets at 8-3 after their close win against the Cardinals. Is it possible for us to get in?

 

Well, lets start with J'ville. We are only one game back from them and they have games remaining against Pitt (10-1), Chicago (4-7), GB which is away (6-4), Houston (5-6) and away at Oak. (4-7). Certainly the Pitt and GB games will be tough. Two losses and the best they finish is 9-7. …And thus it came to pass. As predicted, they lost the Vikings, and the Steelers and then we got lucky with the loss to Houston. The question is, can we finish 10-6? It isn't likely but the schedule isn' t that bad. They are away at Miami (2-9), Cinn (5-6) and SF (1-10) with home dates against Cleveland (3-8) and Pitt (10-1). The Steelers game is the last of the season and so might not be of much interest for them. Perhaps they will be resting their starters. The Bengals on the road is the toughest of that group until you get to the Steelers. It is certainly not impossible for us to go 10-6. We are one step away from doing just that.

 

Denver is at 7-4 with games left at SD (8-3), Ten (4-7) and KC (3-8). They are also at home against Indy (8-3). With two 8-3 teams on the schedule, it is not impossible for them to finish with at least two more losses. Any slip up against the others and they are 9-7 at best. Obligingly and according to our evil plan for world domination, the Broncos did lose to SD, slipped up against the Chiefs. Now we just need them to stick to the script for one more week and lose to Indy.

 

As for Baltimore, they are 7-4 with away games at Indy and Pitt to go as well as games against the Giants and the Bengals, two middle of the road teams that are dangerous. I think the Ravens are looking at two losses minimum over the rest of the season. If anything weird happens, they could slip up against the Giants or Bengals. That would make them 9-7 at best. That is exactly what happened, they lost to Indy and Pitt and were upset by the Bengals. The Ravens gave up 24 points in the 4th quarter and the Bengals drove 60 yards in 1:30 or so for a FG to win it at the buzzer.

 

The Jets at 8-3 have an away game at Pitt and a home games against NE still on the schedule. They easily could lose those (they did) and also have to play Houston (5-6), Seattle (6-5) and St. Louis (5-5). Essentially they are playing two of the best in the league and then three against aspiring teams with solid records. Again, it wouldn't take much for them to lose at least one of those games. So far they haven’t but we have one more chance for them to unravel.

 

In short it is a long shot that just got a tiny bit shorter.