The Buffalo Bills beat an AFC team on Sunday, so that means their playoff odds should go up, right? RIGHT!? Not exactly.
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At 6-5, Buffalo has a 46% shot of making the playoffs according to historical data from FiveThirtyEight.com. That’s a jump of 17% with just one win and a 34% jump over the last two weeks. Taking into account score differential, the unexpected nature of their wins, what other teams in the AFC are doing, and more, the website gives this specific Buffalo team just a 27% chance of making the playoffs. (They were at 26% last week so that AFC win did almost nothing for their playoff hopes.) Buffalo still has a projected projected 9 wins, the seventh-best number in the AFC:
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As they ave done for the last several weeks, Football Outsiders has thrown out Buffalo’s game against Jacoby Brisett and the New England Patriots on defense since it’s so much of an outlier. They actually had Buffalo’s playoff chances going DOWN despite the win. The Bills now have a 21% chance of making the playoffs in their simulations, the tenth-best number in the AFC. (That’s with the eighth-most anticipated wins at 8.9.)
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The NY Times Playoff Machine calculates Buffalo’s chances of making the postseason at somewhere between 21 and 23%. A win on Sunday would boost that to near 38%.