The Buffalo Bills still have the chance to prove that they’re the real deal, although a loss to the Ravens hurt that mission.
How the Bills could end up with the AFC’s No. 1 seed in the NFL playoffs. Yes, really
Even if the Bills win out to finish 13-3, they still need a little help to get out of the wild card slots.
Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
This year, the defense has consistently shut down opponents, while quarterback Josh Allen has shown improvement in his second year. The Bills are 9-4, and a little over a week removed from their best win of the season, which came on Thanksgiving against the Cowboys. That momentum couldn’t carry them to a home win over the AFC-leading Ravens, however — and that’s going to make Buffalo’s run to home field advantage this postseason pretty difficult.
But not impossible.
12-4 is still on the table for the Bills, but even that might not be enough. So what can they do to secure the No. 1 seed? The first step is winning their division.
The Bills need the Patriots to lose at least two more times
Buffalo hasn’t won the AFC East since 1995. For that matter, the Dolphins’ 2008 crown is the only time in the last 16 years that a team other than the Patriots claimed the division.
New England will probably win it again in 2019. Even if the Bills manage to snap a six-game losing streak against the Patriots in Week 16, that still isn’t enough. The tiebreaker for the division title would still belong to the Patriots.
The divisional tiebreakers are as follows:
- Head-to-head
- Divisional record
- Record in common games
There are more rules to break a tie, but that’s as far as we need to go to figure out the AFC East. The Bills can even up the head-to-head record by beating the Patriots. Then, if both teams win in Week 17, they’d each finish 5-1 in divisional play.
That’d bring us to tiebreaker No. 3: win percentage against common opponents. New England beat the Browns and Eagles; the Bills did not. Both teams lost to the Ravens. Buffalo also needs to take down the Steelers, who lost to the Patriots earlier this season, in Week 15. That won’t be enough to secure that tiebreaker unless the Patriots lose again, though.
That means the Patriots losing to either the Bengals or the Dolphins, and, well, that’s awfully unlikely.
Buffalo could then take the top seed from the Ravens
The tiebreaker with Baltimore isn’t difficult to figure out. The Ravens won in Week 14, so they’d stand tall over Buffalo if each team finished the season as division champions with equal records. The Bills are going to have to stand alone atop the AFC at 12-4 in order to earn the conference’s top seed.
With that, here’s the Bills’ path to the top seed in the AFC:
And that’s all there is to it.
Of course, this is all moot if it turns out the Bills aren’t very good after all. A Week 5 win over the pre-Ryan Tannehill Titans is Buffalo’s only victory against a team that currently owns a winning record. Even the win over the Cowboys doesn’t look all that impressive after Dallas lost to Chicago in Week 14 to fall to 6-7.
Still, we’ll find out very soon if the Bills are for real. Even if they are, landing the top spot in the AFC will require some help.
