The Buffalo Bills finally won a game and inched back up in the playoff odds. What chance are the analytics websites giving them? Not a great shot, but a shot nonetheless.
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At 5-5, Buffalo has a 29% shot of making the playoffs according to historical data from FiveThirtyEight.com. That’s a jump of 17% with just one win. Taking into account score differential, the unexpected nature of their wins, and more, the website gives this specific Buffalo team a 26% chance of making the playoffs with a projected 9 wins, the ninth-best number in the AFC:
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Over at Football Outsiders, they ran their simulations but has now eliminated Buffalo’s defensive game against Jacoby Brissett from their calculations due to its outlier status. Essentially, the Bills defense did way better in that game than the rest of the season so it doesn’t predict how they will perform against other teams. Buffalo’s 22.5% chance of making the playoffs is tenth in the AFC:
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ESPN’s analytics metric is Football Power Index, and that still keeps the Bills very high relative to their record. That gives Buffalo the most hope:
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The Bills will have to make a run to make the playoffs, but they’re not dead yet.