The Chiefs are one of four teams in a pretty cozy spot this weekend, having both secured a playoff spot and locked themselves into an exact seed. Well, it\u2019s not entirely comfortable. Here\u2019s the discomfort: The difficulty of the Chiefs\u2019 playoff path could endure a reshuffling over the weekend, and they\u2019ll have little to do with where it settles.<\/p>\n
As they rest quarterback Patrick Mahomes in favor of giving backup Carson Wentz his first start this season, the remainder of the league will be influencing the Chiefs\u2019 route to a third straight Super Bowl. Technically, there are seven possible opponents still in the mix to travel to GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium for the AFC Divisional Round on Jan. 18-19 \u2014 the Texans, Ravens, Steelers, Chargers, Broncos, Dolphins or Bengals.<\/p>\n
There are two games that will carry much more weight on the likelihood of each, and both are scheduled for Saturday: Browns at Ravens (3:30 p.m.), and Bengals at Steelers (7 p.m.).<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s get the worst-case scenario out of the way first, even if it\u2019s not likely to come to fruition: the Ravens. Recognizing that Lamar Jackson has two career playoff wins in six starts and floundered against the Chiefs last January, Baltimore would quite evidently be the toughest Divisional Round draw the Chiefs could receive. The Ravens are 11-3 in their last 14 games, and they actually rank as the No. 1 overall team in FTN\u2019s all-encompassing DVOA metric. You can doubt them because of their recent playoff history, but you would be overriding their much more recent play.<\/p>\n
The good news? There\u2019s an easy way to avoid seeing the Ravens, at least until a potential AFC Championship Game, when, well, you have to assume the opponent won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n
If the Ravens beat the Browns on Saturday, they will secure the AFC North and No. 3 seed. The Nos 2. and 3 seeds are the only AFC playoff teams that cannot possibly travel to Kansas City in the Divisional Round. The Ravens are favored by 20 points against the Browns as of this writing, the largest betting line in the league this season. Their implied odds in the market are about 97%.<\/p>\n
So it could be Baltimore, yes, but the odds are quite slim. What\u2019s most likely? Well, this gets a bit into the weeds, but let\u2019s say the Ravens win, as they probably will. And let\u2019s take it a step farther and say the Ravens and second-seeded Bills each hold serve in the Wild Card Round (which they will both be heavily favored to do).<\/p>\n
That scenario \u2014 again, the most likely scenario \u2014 would leave the Chiefs to face the winner of the No. 4-5 game in a couple of weeks. That\u2019s the matchup to eye. The Texans, just 2-5 in their last seven games, are locked into the No. 4 spot as the AFC South champion. But their opponent is very much up in the air.<\/p>\n
If the Steelers beat the Bengals, they earn the No. 5 seed and will travel to Houston to meet the Texans. But if the Steelers lose, it opens the door for the Chargers, who would just need to beat the lowly Raiders a day later to steal the No. 5 seed.<\/p>\n
There will be some pushback on this next point, but the Chargers are the toughest team of that bunch. They have a better quarterback than the Steelers; they have the No. 1 scoring defense in the NFL; and Justin Herbert has a career 101.5 passer rating against the Chiefs.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true that Herbert is 2-7 against the Chiefs in his career, but six of those seven losses are by one possession. These aren\u2019t easy games. By contrast, we saw what the Chiefs just did to the Steelers on Christmas Day \u2014 one week after they beat the Texans.<\/p>\n
There are no gimmes in the playoffs, but meeting the winner of the Steelers-Texans matchup is the best-case scenario.<\/p>\n
Which leaves this as something of a rooting guide for the final weekend (knowing we\u2019re playing probabilities and not guarantees): Ravens over Browns, and Steelers over Bengals.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Chiefs are one of four teams in a pretty cozy spot this weekend, having both secured a playoff spot and locked themselves into an exact seed…. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23555,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"\n