Last Thursday, I broke down the chaotic NFC wild-card race. Well, after Week 12, the AFC playoff picture might be an even bigger mess.
In a week in which the Bengals and Chargers kept their hopes alive with victories and the Browns and Steelers lost what looked like winnable contests, there are eight teams with realistic hopes of landing one of the three AFC wild-card spots.
Those teams roughly break into two tiers. Including their chances of winning their respective divisions, there are four teams whose chances of advancing to the postseason fall between 50% and 70%, per ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI).
From there, there's a dramatic drop off to Tier 2, where chances are between 10% and 25%. With five games to go, only the Jets, Patriots, Raiders and Titans have AFC playoff odds below 1%. Subscribe: «The Bill Barnwell Show» In many cases, this is a race to 10 wins.