With the win over Miami, the Ravens have put themselves in a very, very, very good position to make it into the postseason. Per numberFire, the Ravens have a 66.5% chance of making the postseason compared to just 32.8% last week. Let’s take a look at the current playoff picture (click on the image(s) to enlarge).
As has been mentioned before in Monday’s Ravens links, Baltimore can ensure a playoff berth by winning out for the rest of the season because of the week 17 match-up between the Bengals (8-4-1) and Steelers (8-5) in Pittsburgh. The only teams currently competing for the two wild card spots with 5 wins or less are the Ravens, Steelers, and Chargers. Even if the Chargers also win out, the Ravens will still make the dance. A tie between Cincy and Pittsburgh would leave the Ravens with a better record than the Steelers.
Here are all the most likely Ravens playoff scenarios if they end the season with an 11-5 record.
Ravens earn a Wild Card spot
In order for the Ravens to miss a division title and win a Wild Card spot with an 11-5 record, either the Steelers or Bengals will need to win out. It’s impossible for both to do so, so we’ll break the Wild Card scenarios down into two parts.
Pittsburgh wins out, beats Cincinnati week 17
In the above scenario, neither the Chargers nor the Steelers lose another game the rest of the way. This would require Pittsburgh to win @Atlanta, vs. Kansas City, and vs. Cincinnati. It would also require the Chargers to win vs. Denver, @San Fransisco, and @Kansas City. The Steelers would win the division based on their 4-2 divisional record and would play at home against the Ravens, where they beat them 43-23 Nov 2nd.
If the Chargers lose anywhere along the way, the Ravens would move up to the 5th seed (see above) and would likely face the Colts in Indianapolis (this scenario predicts at least one loss along the way from the Colts, either vs. Houston or @Dallas, but probably not @Tennessee week 17 but in this NFL, who knows). If the Colts win out (they’d be 12-4) and the Chargers lose a game, the Ravens would have the #5 seed and Pittsburgh would have the #4 seed, so the Ravens would play the Steelers on the road.
NOTE: I think the Bengals will lose 2/3 of their remaining games (@Cleveland, vs. Denver, @Pittsburgh), but I ran these scenarios with the idea that Cincinnati wins would hurt the Ravens the most since they, along with the Steelers, will be competing with the Ravens for both the division and the Wild Card.
Cincinnati wins out, beats Pittsburgh week 17
People have talked about the tie that Cincinnati recorded and talked about how it makes the playoff picture murky. I disagree. It makes things way less complicated since there are probably not going to be any tie-breakers necessary (barring no one else ties) to determine Cincinnati’s spot (or lack thereof) in the postseason.
The scenarios involving Cincinnati winning out are very similar to those involving the Steelers winning out. In the highly unlikely scenario where the Bengals win the rest of their games, they will be either the #3 seed or the #4 seed. In order for the Bengals to get the #3 seed, the Colts would need to lose one of their last three games (which, again, would put them at 11-5).
In the above scenario, the Bengals win the rest of their games and the Chargers lose one of their games. This puts the Steelers in the playoffs (ugh) as the #6 seed given that they win the two games before the week 17 game vs. Cincinnati. As you can see, it’s pretty much the same as it would be if the Steelers won out, just with the Steelers and Bengals switching positions.
If the Chargers won out, the Steelers would miss the postseason and the Ravens would again end up as the #6 seed. They would either face Indy or Cincy depending upon whether or not the Colts lost another game.
Ravens win the division
In order for the Ravens to win the division at 11-5, both the Steelers and Bengals need to lose at least one more game. The chances of the Bengals losing at least one more are very high, but much less likely for the Steelers. After watching the Steelers shellack the Bengals on the ground this past week, the chances of them doing the same thing again week 17 are pretty high.
So that leaves @Falcons and vs. Kansas City for the Steelers to get another Kansas City loss. The Falcons did just put up 37 points on the Packers last night, but they also allowed 43 points. Although Aaron Rodgers is probably the best QB in the business, Roethlisberger and his core of weapons have shown this year that they can really put up some points. The Falcons run defense has been awful this year, and Le’Veon Bell has stepped up tremendously recently. The Steelers have a huge edge on the NFC South division leaders (which is a lot like winning “The Biggest Loser”) in this department. They’ll run away with this game.
That leaves Kansas City. After going 7-3 in the first 10 games, the Kansas City Chiefs are reeling a bit after losing to the Raiders during a dreaded Thursday night game. They’ve lost 3 straight, but they have faced some of their toughest competition the past couple of weeks in the Broncos and Cardinals. If they can pull out a win week 16, this is how the playoff picture would look if SD beats KC in week 17.
In order for the Ravens to get the 3rd seed, the Colts would need to lose 2/3 of their final games (again, vs. Houston, @Dallas, @Tennessee). They would lose a head-to-head or 3-way tie-breaker with anyone due to their loss to the Colts week 5 and their poor conference record (at best 7-5). In the above scenario, the Chargers would lose 1/3 of their remaining games (again, vs. Denver, @San Fransisco, @Kansas City), which will probably happen with how tough of a schedule they have. I told myself that I wasn’t going to get into scenarios involving teams besides the Ravens who would make it because it would make this the longest read in the history of sports blogs, but I will give you what I think is the most likely playoff picture if the Ravens win out.
This would be a great match-up for the Ravens due to KC’s inability to stretch the field.
If this didn’t make your head spin enough, we’ll take a look tomorrow at all of the playoff possibilities with a 10-6 record.
Special thanks to ESPN’s Playoff Machine for the images in the article and for helping me to keep track of the different tie-breakers.
