2023 NFL playoff picture: Eight teams in AFC wild-card bracket - ESPN

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%.

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In many cases, this is a race to 10 wins. An AFC team that gets to 10 victories between now and the end of the season should feel good about its chances of playing postseason football. I can't rule out a 10-win team missing or a nine-win team making the playoffs because of all the various permutations, but if you're looking for a round number, start there.

If you want to learn more about what each team needs to do to get to that 10-win mark, here's your breakdown. Leaving aside the current division leaders in the AFC, I'm going to discuss each of the eight teams in the wild-card picture, what they've done well and struggled with this season and their path to advancing out of the regular season. I'll start with the surprise package of the season, which pulled out a critical victory at home on Sunday:

Jump to a team:
BUF | CIN | CLE | DEN
HOU | IND | LAC | PIT

Chances to make the playoffs: 69.4%

Befor