The Buffalo Bills sit at 6-6 and climbing a steep hill in the AFC, but they can’t be eliminated from the playoff race in Week 14. Hooray! Let us explain:
If the Bills lose this weekend to the Pittsburgh Steelers, they will fall to 6-7 so their best possible record would be 9-7. Their record in the AFC, the first tiebreaker, would be 6-6 in that case.
Currently, the Denver Broncos hold the sixth and final playoff spot in the conference. If they win this weekend, they will rise to 9-4. If they lost their last three games, they would fall to 9-7 and their AFC record would be 6-6, just like Buffalo. From there, the two teams would move to record vs. common opponents.
The four teams faced by both the Bills and Broncos are the Raiders, Patriots, Bengals, and Jaguars. Buffalo is 3-2 in those games while Denver would be 2-3 in the given scenario after losing to two of those teams over the last three weeks. That gives the Bills the tiebreaker.
In this scenario, the Titans and loser of this Sunday’s Texans/Colts game would need to lose another game and the Dolphins would need to lose their two of their other three games to solidify things. The point is, even if Buffalo loses this weekend, the agony won’t be over until next week at the earliest.