Kansas City Chiefs enter the Week 9 AFC playoff picture

If the playoffs started today the Kansas City Chiefs would be IN and traveling to Cincinnati to play the Bengals on Wild Card weekend. The Chiefs currently hold the sixth playoff spot, which means they would play the third seeded team, the Bengals, on the road.

The "If the playoffs started today..." question doesn't mean anything because, well, the playoffs don't start today. There are still eight more games for the Chiefs to play. But it's a much cooler question when your team is currently in.

The Week 9 AFC playoff picture

1. Patriots (7-2, bye)

2. Broncos (6-2, bye)

3. Bengals (5-2-1)

4. Colts (5-3)

5. Steelers (6-3)

6. Chiefs (5-3)

The tiebreakers

Cleveland, Buffalo and Miami are all in the hunt at 5-3, the same record as the Chiefs. ESPN's handy playoff picture lists out the tiebreakers the Chiefs hold over those teams: "Wins tie break over Buffalo and Cleveland based on best win percentage in conference games. Division tie break was initially used to eliminate Miami (Buffalo wins tie break over Miami based on head-to-head win percentage)."

The 5-4 Chargers and Ravens round out the 11 AFC teams over .500. That shows you how much playoff picture movement there is to come.

Chiefs upcoming schedule

Now for the fun part of the schedule. The Chiefs still play Buffalo (Week 10), Denver (Week 13), Steelers (Week 16) and San Diego (Week 17). Those games, especially the last two, will be critical in securing tiebreakers over other Wild Card hopefuls. Mixed in there are games against the Seahawks and the NFL's best Arizona Cardinals.

Things get rolling this week against Buffalo, which is turning into a game with serious AFC playoff implications.