NFL Playoff Picture Week 16: AFC, NFC 2015 Postseason Scenarios and Predictions
Peyton Manning fights Tom Brady for postseason position and the NFC is a dogfight in comparison to the AFC.
It must be Week 16 of the NFL season.
The New England Patriots, Denver Broncos and Indianapolis Colts are division champions with two weeks left on the schedule, although much will still unfold in terms of seeding. As everyone predicted, the Arizona Cardinals became the first team in the NFC to clinch a playoff berth, although division titles are still up in the air.
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It gets better—any number of 10-win teams will be on the outs this year. The league will trumpet the "parity" buzzword, while behind the scenes it continues to weigh whether to change the playoff format and seeding system.
Regardless, what fans have in store the next few weeks is football heaven. How things look now means one thing—the playoffs have arrived two weeks early.
Week 16 Playoff Picture
| 1 | (x) New England Patriots (11-3) | 1 | (x) Arizona Cardinals (11-3) |
| 2 | (x) Denver Broncos (11-3) | 2 | Detroit Lions (10-4) |
| 3 | (x) Indianapolis Colts (10-4) | 3 | Dallas Cowboys (10-4) |
| 4 | Cincinnati Bengals (9-4-1) | 4 | New Orleans Saints (6-8) |
| 5 | Pittsburgh Steelers (9-5) | 5 | Seattle Seahawks (10-4) |
| 6 | Baltimore Ravens (9-5) | 6 | Green Bay Packers (10-4) |
AFC in the hunt: Kansas City Chiefs (8-6), San Diego Chargers (8-6), Buffalo Bills (8-6), Houston Texans (7-7), Miami Dolphins (7-7), Cleveland Browns (7-7)
NFC in the hunt: Philadelphia Eagles (9-5), Carolina Panthers (5-8-1), Atlanta Falcons (5-9)
The most competitive division on the AFC side of things is the AFC North. Andy Dalton and the Cincinnati Bengals control their own fate at this point after a 30-0 win over the Cleveland Browns last weekend.
For now, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens get in with identical 9-5 records. This brushes aside AFC West challengers such as Kansas City and San Diego. The latter has perhaps the most brutal season-ending stretch of all. Two games into a four-game stretch that reads New England, Denver, San Francisco and Kansas City, the Chargers are already 0-2.
Kansas City looks no better, though, as the Chiefs' only win over the course of the past month came via an encounter with 2-12 Oakland.
This leaves Buffalo, one of the biggest surprises of the season, on the outs. The Bills have wins over Miami, Detroit and Green Bay this year thanks to a fifth-ranked pass defense and ninth-ranked rush defense.
Storylines run rampant in this scenario. Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts get a shot at revenge against the Ravens for a postseason loss a few years back. Cincinnati and Pittsburgh would meet for a third and final meeting, as they have done recently.
The NFC is even more intriguing.
Arizona sits atop the conference, but the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys are not far behind. The New Orleans Saints, by way of a 31-15 Monday Night Football victory over the Chicago Bears, now own the No. 4 spot.
Drew Brees and the Saints now control their own destiny. It sounds as if the leader will not let his team take the foot off the gas, either.
"I think we've shown a couple times we can handle adversity," Brees said, per The Associated Press, via ESPN.com. "Let's make sure we can handle success, too. The tendency after success is to relax, and it's not time to relax."
Aaron Rodgers and the Packers sit in the sixth spot thanks to a Week 3 loss to Detroit but also happen to control their fate. So do the defending champs, as the Seattle Seahawks sit at 10-4 but can still move up the ladder.
Even if Rodgers and Co. stay in the same spot, a showdown with the Cowboys will have the globe's attention. His eighth-ranked passing attack against DeMarco Murray's third-ranked rushing attack promises fireworks.
A Seattle-New Orleans showdown down South is as unpredictable as it gets, too. The league's best pass defense would either silence Brees and Co. or succumb to the hostile environment thanks to the Saints clutching the higher seed.
Playoff Predictions
| 1 | New England Patriots (13-3) | 1 | Seattle Seahawks (12-4) |
| 2 | Denver Broncos (13-3) | 2 | Green Bay Packers (12-4) |
| 3 | Indianapolis Colts (11-5) | 3 | Dallas Cowboys (12-4) |
| 4 | Baltimore Ravens (11-5) | 4 | New Orleans Saints (8-8) |
| 5 | Cincinnati Bengals (10-5-1) | 5 | Arizona Cardinals (12-4) |
| 6 | Pittsburgh Steelers (10-6) | 6 | Detroit Lions (11-5) |
| First Out | San Diego Chargers (10-6) | First Out | Philadelphia Eagles (11-5) |
Look for New England, Denver and Indianapolis to remain in a holding pattern. The Patriots will take care of business against the New York Jets and Buffalo, and the Colts will move past the Tennessee Titans. Denver gets Cincinnati, a team that cannot play on prime time, and Oakland.
That Cincinnati loss to Denver is critical—and it will happen (Manning is 8-0 against the Bengals in his career)—as it means Baltimore can leapfrog to the AFC North crown. The Bengals finish the season in Pittsburgh, which is a win based on current trends in that rivalry and the back-against-the-wall mentality.
That leaves San Diego, Kansas City and Buffalo on the outs. The first two will hurt one another to close the season, while the Bills will hit a brick wall in the form of a loss to New England in Week 17.
The top two seeds in the NFC are rearranged in this scenario. Seattle is on fire as of late with four wins in a row and can seize the top spot with wins over Arizona and the St. Louis Rams. The Seahawks have a 19-3 win over the Cardinals in Week 12 on the resume, and in Week 16, they get to feast against new Cardinals starter Ryan Lindley, according to Josh Weinfuss of ESPN.com.
Rodgers and the Packers will win out thanks to an encounter with Tampa Bay and a shot at revenge against Detroit at Lambeau Field. Likewise, Dallas will get a win over the Colts at home before taking care of business against Washington.
Look for Brees and the Saints to hold true to their word, too. A visit from Atlanta is quite winnable, especially after the first encounter was just a three-point loss in overtime. So is a matchup with hapless Tampa Bay.
The final two weeks in the NFC are just an appetizer before postseason play, too.
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