NFL Playoff Picture: Thanksgiving, Black Friday impacting standings

The Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs lead the NFC and AFC, respectively, and both are playing over the course of Thanksgiving and Black Friday. There are also ways the Lions, Chiefs, and Buffalo Bills can clinch a playoff spot this week, and the outcomes will play major roles there, too.

The Lions beat the Chicago Bears early, then the Dallas Cowboys knocked off the New York Giants without playoff implications, before the Green Bay Packers slammed the Miami Dolphins.

On Friday, the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Las Vegas Raiders, barely hanging on. They became the first team to clinch a playoff spot this year.

Here are the standings as of right now:

1. Kansas City Chiefs (11-1)
2. Buffalo Bills (9-2)
3. Pittsburgh Steelers (8-3)
4. Houston Texans (7-5)
5. Baltimore Ravens (8-4)
6. Los Angeles Chargers (7-4)
7. Denver Broncos (7-5)
8. Indianapolis Colts (5-7, win over MIA)
9. Miami Dolphins (5-7, loss to IND)
10. Cincinnati Bengals (4-7)
11. Cleveland Browns (3-8, 3-3 AFC)
12. New York Jets (3-8, 3-5 AFC, win over TEN)
13. Tennessee Titans (3-8, 3-4 AFC, loss to NYJ)
14. New England Patriots (3-9)*
15. Jacksonville Jaguars (2-9)
16. Las Vegas Raiders (2-10)*

1. Detroit Lions (11-1)
2. Philadelphia Eagles (9-2)
3. Seattle Seahawks (6-5, win over ARI, win over ATL)
4. Atlanta Falcons (6-5. loss to SEA)
5. Minnesota Vikings (9-2)
6. Green Bay Packers (9-3)
7. Washington Commanders (7-5)
8. Arizona Cardinals (6-5, loss to SEA)
9. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (5-6, 5-3 NFC)
10. Los Angeles Rams (5-6, win over SF, 3-5 NFC)
11. San Francisco 49ers (5-6, loss to LAR)
12. Dallas Cowboys (5-7)
13. New Orleans Saints (4-7)
14. Chicago Bears (4-8)*
15. Carolina Panthers (3-8)
16. New York Giants (2-10)* eliminated

Teams with an asterisk have been eliminated from their divisional races.

With 11 wins, the worst record KC could end up with is 11-6. With eighth place and below all having seven losses or more, the Chiefs clinched a playoff spot on Black Friday.

The Bills can clinch the AFC East in Week 13. Buffalo has nine wins to the Miami Dolphins’ five, but the Bills have the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Dolphins thanks to two wins. With Miami’s loss, the best they can finish is 10-7. The Bills win any tiebreaker at 10-7, so Buffalo getting to 10 wins by coming out on top on Sunday gets them over the finish line to a home playoff game and their fifth straight AFC East title.

With the Detroit Lions at 11-1, you might expect easy clinching scenarios like in the AFC, but that’s not the case. The second-place Minnesota Vikings are only 1.5 games behind the Lions in the NFC North, so they can’t win the division for a while.

In the Wild Card race, the Cardinals are 6-5 and three teams sit at 5-6. A disaster for the Lions could see them fall to 11-6, so they need multiple games to go their way to clear hurdles.

49ers loss/tie PLUS one of these:

With their Thanksgiving Day loss, the New York Giants dropped to 10 losses on the year and have officially been eliminated from the playoff race. They are the first team to be out in 2024.

The Miami Dolphins at 5-7 pretty much need to run the table to make the postseason at 10-7 in a packed AFC. They only face one team the rest of the way with a winning record, so it’s doable, but they have lost their margin for error.

The NFC North is continuing to stay very crowded, with just two games separating first and third. There are still multiple division contests to be played, adding to the intrigue, and the Lions face the high-flying Buffalo Bills in a couple weeks and a potentially desperate 49ers squad in Week 17. This is far from over.