With 6 weeks left, NFL playoff picture has almost no unanswered questions

Rams’ fading playoff hopes still better than most who are out of the picture

The L.A. Rams have just a 17% chance to make the playoffs, according to The New York Times playoff simulator, and as bad as that sounds it is still a lot better than most teams who aren’t already slated to make the postseason. By accident or design, the 2024 NFL regular season is leading to a very anticlimactic ending.

Here are the %Chance to make the playoffs for the 4 AFC division leaders:

AFC East – Bills, 99%

AFC North – Steelers, 91%*

AFC South – Texans, 94%

AFC West – Chiefs, 99%

*Ravens, 95%

With six games left, the only question left in the AFC for division winners is whether or not the 8-3 Steelers of 7-4 Ravens will win the division. The team that doesn’t is all but guaranteed to get an AFC wild card spot.

Best Odds in AFC Wild Card

Ravens – 95% (56% chance to win division, compared to 44% for Steelers)

Chargers – 93%

Broncos – 60%

Dolphins – 35%

In the entire AFC, with six more games left to play, the only question is whether or not the 5-6 Dolphins can catch the 7-5 Broncos before the end of the season for the last wild card spot and basically a guarantee to have to go to Buffalo or Kansas City in the first round.

As a matter of fact, we can essentially pencil in the Chiefs and Bills for the divisional round right now because one of them will get a bye and the other will have a very sweet first round matchup at home. And you can guarantee that either the Ravens or Steelers, or both, will be the other two teams in the AFC divisional round playoffs.

The Colts do have an 18% chance to make the playoffs, but for the most part the only unanswered questions are:

• Seeding
• Can the Dolphins catch the Broncos?

Here are the %Chance to make the playoffs for the 4 NFC division leaders:

NFC East – Eagles, 99%

NFC North – Lions, 99%

NFC South – Falcons, 76%

NFC West – Cardinals, 51%

Even though the Vikings are 9-2, there’s almost no chance they catch the Lions. Detroit already beat Minnesota once and just mathematically it looks like the Lions will secure the division before the Week 18 rematch barring somewhat of a collapse by the NFL’s best team.

Don’t fret, Minnesota: The Vikings are still 98% to make the playoffs!

And the Packers are 95% to make the playoffs.

So yes, the NFC playoffs are also decided except for one thing:

Who will win the NFC West?

Even though the first place team and last place are only separated by one game, the 49ers are 1-3 in the division and it’s not looking promising for San Francisco to get back key starters from injury in time to catch up to the other three teams.

The Rams and Cardinals hold an advantage over Seattle in division record:

Cardinals, Rams, 2-1

Seahawks, 2-2

49ers, 1-3

And the Rams do have a head-to-head win over the Seahawks. There’s still a chance that L.A. could catch Seattle, but they already lost to the Cardinals 41-10, so at best the tiebreaker wouldn’t come down to head-to-head or division record. Instead, the tiebreaker would be conference record and the Rams have only a 3-5 conference record.

The Rams would need to get back on track by beating the Saints this week, then do what they can against Buffalo the week after that, then it’s a must-win game against the 49ers in Week 15 on Thursday Night Football.

But to recap, this is only one of two interesting playoff races left in the NFC with six more games to go:

BASICALLY ALREADY IN: EAGLES, LIONS, VIKINGS, PACKERS

IN WITH ANOTHER COUPLE OF WINS: COMMANDERS, FALCONS (2-0 vs BUCS)

The only questions in the NFC are essentially:

• “Who wins the NFC West?”
• “Who gets the third wild card?”

The Commanders are 7-5, which isn’t that amazing, but it’s good enough to have a 74% chance to make the playoffs despite one-third of the season left to go. The Commanders play the Titans, then get a bye, then play the Saints. If they win those two winnable games with a break in between, there won’t be any question of them making the playoffs and leaving NO wild card spot left in the NFC.

The other thing that could happen is the Bucs chasing down the Falcons, but Tampa Bay trails by a game and was already swept by Atlanta, so they’re basically 2 games behind.

This may yet be the most anticlimactic ending to an NFL regular season ever.