The AFC North is sort of definitely going to have only one playoff workforce, and it’s prone to be one among these two groups. They nonetheless have two head-to-head video games remaining on the schedule, together with a Week 18 sport in Pittsburgh.
Each groups are 6-6 and neither one goes into this sport trying overly spectacular. There are additionally important harm issues with each quarterbacks as Pittsburgh’s Aaron Rodgers and Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson are each coping with accidents.
They’re flawed groups backing into the sport, however it’s nonetheless a large sport that can dramatically change the AFC North race.
It was just a few weeks in the past that the Colts have been 7-1 and appeared to be in full management of the AFC South.
Now they’ve misplaced three of their previous 4 video games, discover themselves tied for the highest spot with Jacksonville and have Houston only one sport behind them.
The remainder of their schedule can be daunting as they play yet another sport in opposition to Houston, each video games in opposition to Jacksonville and in addition non-division video games in opposition to the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers. Will they even win any of them? Might they go from the No. 1 seed within the AFC to out of the playoffs completely? It isn’t out of the query to suppose that they might end in third place within the division the best way issues are going and the best way the remaining schedule appears.
The large query with the Bears within the first half was the actual fact they’d probably not crushed any good groups, and actually have been blown out by the 2 potential playoff groups they performed. It created some questions as to what they might do with their second-half schedule that featured an in depth checklist of playoff contenders.
They made a giant assertion over the previous two weeks with wins over the Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles.
Now they’re getting one other large check on Sunday in opposition to a Packers workforce that’s trying like a prime contender within the NFC.
It’s the third sport of the weekend the place first place is on the road.
If the Bears win this sport, there ought to be no extra questioning of them or their schedule. They are going to be legit.
One other week, one other pivotal sport for the Chiefs and the playoff possibilities. After dropping to the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving the Chiefs now discover themselves able the place they’ve virtually no margin for error the remainder of the best way. Even yet another loss could possibly be sufficient to knock them out of the playoffs this season. That might be extraordinary based mostly on the preseason expectations and what they’ve executed within the Andy Reid-Patrick Mahomes period.
Houston, in the meantime, cannot solely strengthen its wild-card possibilities, but in addition hold tempo within the AFC South race. The Texans protection is likely to be the very best unit within the AFC and that alone makes them a tough workforce to take care of proper now.
