The Chiefs playoff picture: No help in Week 13

The Kansas City Chiefs are now 11-1 after picking up a 19-17 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders.

Five weeks remain in the 2024 NFL season, in which Kansas City will host its secondary games against the Los Angeles Chargers, play in Ohio against the Cleveland Browns, play at home against the Houston Texans and conclude the season on the road against the Pittsburgh Steelers Broncos.

Let’s take a look at the team’s current playoff picture. As always, we use these New York Times Playoff calculator to help us figure out what to expect. More details on how it works can be found at the end of the article.

The Chiefs playoff picture

As it stands now, Kansas City has done so secured a spot in the playoffshas one 94% chance to win the AFC West (up from 92% a week ago), a 47% chance to win the individual AFC bye (previously 52%) and a 10% chance to win Super Bowl LIX (previously 11%). In the AFC, the Buffalo Bills now have the best chance of winning the Super Bowl (19%). In the NFC, the Detroit Lions (24%) have the best chances.

These changes in Kansas City’s playoff prospects occurred because in Week 13, the Chiefs defeated the Raiders, the Green Bay Packers defeated the Miami Dolphins, the Bills defeated the San Francisco 49ers, the Steelers defeated the Cincinnati Bengals, and the Chargers defeated the Atlanta Falcons and the Broncos defeated the Browns. Aside from Kansas City’s win over Las Vegas and Miami’s loss to Green Bay, none of these results improved the Chiefs’ postseason prospects.

The playoff calculator allows us to manipulate the results of all remaining games to see how things change as a result.

How the Chiefs can make the playoffs

We can check that off. With the Dolphins’ loss and their win over the Raiders, the Chiefs secured a spot in the playoffs 10 consecutive season.

How the Chiefs can win the AFC West

The Chiefs will wrap up their game with a win over the 8-4 Chargers on Sunday ninth consecutive division titles. But if Kansas City loses, it can still win the West by winning the next three games — or two of the last four games with at least one Chargers loss. Here’s the worst-case scenario: Los Angeles wins against the Chiefs, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Broncos, New England Patriots and Raiders. In that case, Kansas City could still prevail by beating the Browns or Steelers – but in this scenario they would have to win the Week 18 game in Denver. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

How the Chiefs can get a bye in the first round

Kansas City still controls its own destiny for the top seed. Winning the last five matches will do it.

The biggest contenders for first place (and the bye week that comes with it) are the 10-2 Bills – who face the Los Angeles Rams, Lions, Patriots and New York Jets (twice) in the last five weeks – and the 9th seed -3 Steelers, who will finish the season against the Browns, Philadelphia Eagles, Baltimore Ravens, Chiefs and Cincinnati Bengals.

Since the Bills beat the Chiefs, the tiebreaker is between them – meaning that for every game Kansas City loses, Buffalo must also lose a game. Otherwise, the Bills have the advantage for first place. So the Chiefs can win the top seed with just four wins – but only if the Bills lose another game. Kansas City can prevail with just three wins – but only if the Bills are defeated twice and the Steelers lose once. (Fortunately, the Chiefs can accomplish this by beating the Steelers themselves).

Therefore, it is still possible for Kansas City to wrap things up before the final game of the season. A single Bills loss would be enough – assuming the Chiefs won the previous four games.

The end result

Despite less positive results in Week 13, Kansas City is still in control of its postseason fate. The AFC West is theirs. It’s even possible for the team to relax briefly before reaching the mountain top – but only if they keep winning.

Via The New York Times Playoff Calculator

The calculator starts with an Elo rating (and betting market information) for each NFL team. This data is used to determine the relative strength of each team. This, in turn, is used to determine the probability of each team winning each of their remaining games. The rest of the season is simulated tens of thousands of times – and the results of these predictions give us the probabilities mentioned in this article.