NFL Playoff Scenarios: Wildcard Unlikely For KC Chiefs

We've been saying this season that the Kansas City Chiefs easiest path into the playoffs is by winning the AFC West. We've also been saying that's probably the only way the Chiefs can get in. Though the chances aren't great, the Chiefs can also get a wildcard spot if they lose and the San Diego Chargers win out to take the division.

Basically the Chiefs would need the Baltimore Ravens and New York Jets to lose out to make this easy because the Chiefs don't have many tiebreakers against these two. The Ravens and Jets are 7-3 in the conference while the Chiefs are 5-5 and it looks like they'd have the common opponent advantage, too.

If the Chiefs don't win the division, the best they could do is 10-6 and 7-5 within the conference. They would need the Ravens or Jets to finish worse than that since they don't own any tiebreakers, which means they'd need one of those teams to lose out, which is very unlikely.

The Ravens play the New Orleans Saints, at Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals to finish the season while the Jets play at Pittsburgh Steelers, at Chicago Bears and host the Buffalo Bills.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are 8-5 and the Indianapolis Colts are 7-6 so one of those two teams could be involved if we see a total collapse from the Ravens or Jets, as could the Miami Dolphins.

The thing to remember from this is that the wildcard is very, very unlikely to happen. It's basically the AFC West or bust.