The 2024 NFL season has produced a different sort of wild-card race in the AFC. In past years, the seven-team playoff has seen races with most of the conference involved until the final weeks of the season. In each of the past four years, on average, 11 of the 16 teams in the AFC had at least a 10% chance of advancing to the postseason as they entered Week 14, per ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI). With four spots going to the division winners, that leaves an average of seven teams with realistic hopes of landing the three wild-card slots.

But as we enter Week 14 in 2024, nearly half of the teams in the AFC have been eliminated. Just eight have a 10% or better chance of landing a postseason spot. Seven are above 75%, an eighth is at 27.4% (Colts) and there’s a ninth team just short of the 10% cutoff at 8.6% (Dolphins). Unless the Bengals (1.8%) win out and get a bunch of help, the AFC hunt is pretty clear with five weeks to go. This is a race with four, maybe five, teams competing for three spots.

Subscribe: ‘The Bill Barnwell Show’

There’s still plenty to play for, though. Three of the four division titles are up for grabs. Seeding among the various wild-card spots could prove to be essential if teams want to avoid the Chiefs or Bills in the opening round of the postseason. And of course, even prohibitive favorites to advance still have enough time to play their way out of the race. This time last season, the Jaguars had a 94.7% chance of making the playoffs. They thought they might be home during the wild-card round because they were going to claim a first-round bye; yet after losing four of their final five games, Doug Pederson’s team was at home because it missed the playoffs altogether.

Let’s take a closer look at the five teams competing for the three wild-card slots in the AFC. How secure are their spots? What do they need to do to lock in a playoff berth? And what do their playoff scenarios look like? I’ll go in diminishing order of each team’s FPI playoff odds, starting with a deeper dive into a team still trying to find its identity after 13 games.

Jump to a team:
BAL | DEN | IND | LAC | MIA

Baltimore Ravens (8-5)

FPI chance to make playoffs: 97.3%

For the first two months of the season, it looked as if the Ravens were going to thrive through their offense. Quarterback Lamar Jackson and running back Derrick Henry were viable MVP candidates and the most productive players at their respective positions. The oft-dominant Ravens defense, meanwhile, was struggling to live up to expectations after losing coordinator Mike Macdonald, linebacker Patrick Queen and others from the league-best 2023 unit.

Over the past three games — a stretch which has included losses to the Steelers and Eagles — the strength of the team has flipped:

While Henry has still been a valuable back, the big plays that were marking his spectacular start to the season have unsurprisingly slowed down. When I wrote about Henry and Saquon Barkley after Week 7, Henry’s big-play rate was approaching astronomical heights. Ten of his 137 carries had produced gains of 20 yards or more, yielding a 7.3% big-play rate — nearly double his best percentage as a pro. Since then, Henry has four gains of 20 or more yards on 106 carries, which is back down at 3.8%. And after runs of 51, 81 and 87 yards during the first seven games of the season, Henry doesn’t have a single run topping 40 yards over the past six games. He has been an efficient, effective back, but he hasn’t been as spectacular as he was earlier in the season.

Jackson, meanwhile, hasn’t been as consistent sustaining the offense as a passer. Through Week 10, Jackson was converting 44.4% of his pass attempts into first downs, which was the best mark in football and the fourth-best mark by any QB through 10 weeks in any season since 2007. While Henry’s big plays had already begun to slow down, Jackson’s remarkable efficiency as a passer meant that teams simply couldn’t get the Ravens off the field. But over the past three weeks, that number has dropped to 28.6%, which ranks 30th out of 33 passers.

Sure, the Ravens have played a trio of great defenses in the Steelers, Chargers and Eagles, which obviously goes a long way in impacting those numbers. But Jackson has been hurried and more inconsistent as a passer. Teams have been able to sack Jackson at a much higher rate; despite only a modest increase in pressure rate, Jackson’s sack rate has jumped from 3.9% through the first 10 weeks to 5.9% over the past three games. That’s two extra sacks, and while that might not sound like much, the Ravens score touchdowns on 37% of the drives where Jackson doesn’t take a sack and have just one touchdown on the 17 drives where Jackson has been sacked (5.9% rate).

And then, perhaps owing to the added pressure, the degree of difficulty or just random variance, Jackson has been less accurate as a passer. His off-target rate has jumped from 12.6% (sixth-best mark in the league) to 20.2% (25th). ESPN has a metric called precision pass rate, which measures how frequently quarterbacks hit their receivers in stride near the torso. Jackson was hitting those passes at the 10th-highest rate in football through Week 10, but that has fallen to 30th over the past three games.

These are narrow margins over a small sample. Look at some of Jackson’s missed third-down attempts on Sunday. Mark Andrews was rerouted slightly on a crosser to start the game, and Jackson’s throw was narrowly too high for a leaping catch on a throw that could have produced a touchdown. Jackson missed more severely on a flat route to Zay Flowers that should have yielded a first down early in the second quarter. And the reigning MVP then hit Nelson Agholor in the hands on a deep corner route 45.8 yards downfield in the second half, but the former Eagles wideout wasn’t able to bring the catch in. Justin Tucker then missed a field goal.

Tucker, of course, is in the middle of a nightmarish season. The legendary kicker, who had hit 90.2% of his field goals before this season, missed two and an extra point on Sunday, costing the Ravens dearly in a game they would eventually lose by five points. He has now hit just 70.4% of his field goals this season, missing a career-high eight field goal attempts with five games still to go.

Is the once-automatic Tucker broken? I’m not sure even the future Hall of Famer knows the answer to that question. At 35, Tucker’s getting to the point where we would expect drop-off at virtually every other position, but we know kickers can continue to perform at a high level into their 40s. As I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, Tucker had already begun to decline some last season by advanced metrics, though he was still significantly better than he has been in 2024.

Should the Ravens move on from Tucker right now? Unless there’s something behind the scenes (like an injury or mental block) that we’re not aware of, I’m not so sure that’s a great idea. For one, the Ravens would be signing a kicker off another team’s practice squad. Although kickers can excel coming from out of nowhere — as John Parker Romo has for the Vikings so far this season — we can’t say with any sort of confidence that the Ravens would feel better having a replacement-level kicker line up for a key field goal in the postseason than they would with Tucker.

We’ve also seen other legendary kickers go through a disastrous season and come out of it on the other side looking fine. As a 30-year-old in 2002, Adam Vinatieri led the league in field goal percentage, hitting 90% of his kicks. The following season, Vinatieri was 25-of-34 (73.5%) on his kicks, even while attempting just one kick over 50 yards all season. During the playoffs, Vinatieri went 7-for-10 on field goal tries, but he was 5-of-5 in a 24-14 win over the Colts and hit the game winner from 41 yards out against the Panthers in the Super Bowl. He led the league with a 93.9% conversion rate on field goals in 2004.

What the Ravens could instead do, though, is adjust their expectations for Tucker appropriately. The best teams have models for game management and decision-making that are adjusted for the quality of their offense, opponents and kickers. The Ravens, one of the most analytically inclined teams in the league, are surely among them. Until Tucker proves otherwise, the Ravens can’t assume that he is the 90-plus-percent kicker he was at his best. Treating him as a more generic kicker would encourage the Ravens to be more aggressive on fourth downs, which would then also impact their third-down playcalling.

For instance, Jackson threw deep on that third-and-7 attempt to Agholor on Sunday; if the Ravens don’t trust Tucker from 53 yards, maybe they’re more inclined to run the ball on third down and set up a fourth-and-short for the offense.

The only good news for the Ravens is that the defense is showing signs of life after wholesale changes. The Ravens were 29th in yards per pass attempt and 30th in third-down conversion rate on defense through the first 10 games of the season. Over the past three weeks, their pass defense has come to life. They’ve been third in yards per attempt allowed and third in third-down conversion rate. Their sack rate has jumped from 14th to third.

Those improvements have come alongside personnel changes, especially over the past two games. Up front, 2022 second-round pick David Ojabo has been phased out of what had already been a modest role, as the Michigan product has played just eight defensive snaps over the past three games. Yannick Ngakoue, signed in midseason, was released and joined the Patriots. Tavius Robinson, who has 3.5 sacks and 12 knockdowns this season, has carved out a larger role.

At linebacker, the Ravens haven’t really been able to solve the departure of Patrick Queen. Trenton Simpson was given first crack at taking the job, but he has moved into a part-time role over the past two weeks, with longtime special-teamer Chris Board getting regular defensive snaps for the first time this season. We’ve also seen more Malik Harrison in a hybrid role.

The big changes, though, have come at safety, where the Ravens were simply allowing too many big plays. Veteran Eddie Jackson, who had played about half of the defensive snaps, was released by the team. And big-ticket free agent signing Marcus Williams, who had been benched for a game earlier this season before returning, is out of the lineup again. He has played just one snap over the past three games and was a healthy scratch against the Eagles.

Williams’ descent from useful player to unplayable at 28 years old has to be concerning for the Ravens. He has allowed a staggering 148.4 passer rating in coverage this season and looked lost at times in Zach Orr’s defense. Williams has no guaranteed money after this season, which makes him a likely candidate to be released next spring, but he has the sixth-largest average annual salary on the roster, just behind receiver Diontae Johnson — who has one catch in four games with the team since joining before the trade deadline. (Johnson was suspended for one game this week for conduct detrimental to the team.)

There’s a version of this team that could be absolutely spectacular, where the Ravens combine the offense we saw during the first 10 games with the defense we’ve seen firm up over the past three. That’s essentially what the Ravens had a year ago, when they went 13-4 and posted one of the best point differentials in recent memory.

On bye right now, the Ravens can get into the postseason without needing to pull any upsets. A road win over the Giants in Week 14 and a home victory over the Browns in Week 18 would all but clinch a playoff spot for the Ravens, even if they lose their two remaining games against potential playoff opponents in the Steelers and Texans. Finishing as the No. 5 seed would allow the Ravens to face the Texans again in a potential playoff rematch, and Houston would seem to be the most beatable of the likely division winners.

Then again, if the Ravens can win their rematch with Pittsburgh, they could find themselves in position to win the AFC North again, given that the Steelers still have games against the Chiefs and Eagles.

Los Angeles Chargers (8-4)

FPI chance to make playoffs: 94.8%

Get Jim Harbaugh, start winning. That’s been a formula for teams to spring quick turnarounds over the past 15 years. The 49ers hadn’t posted a winning season in eight years before hiring Harbaugh in 2011, when they immediately went 13-3 and made the AFC Championship Game. In 2015, Michigan hired Harbaugh after a five-win season and one 10-win campaign in the previous eight years, and he jumped the Wolverines to 10 wins during his first season. Harbaugh is the master of the immediate turnaround.

What he’s doing in Los Angeles is every bit as impressive as his prior swings. He took over a 5-12 team, albeit one whose underlying performance was better than its record a year ago. The Chargers have gone 8-4, with their four losses coming against the Cardinals, Chiefs, Ravens and Steelers. A team that was known in perpetuity for blowing games it should have won has beaten all the teams it was supposed to beat this season, with the road loss to Arizona as perhaps the lone exception.

To add to the hot start, Harbaugh has done this with limited time from some of his best players. Asante Samuel Jr., the team’s top cornerback, hasn’t played since Week 4, while offseason addition Kristian Fulton was in and out of the lineup with injuries for a month. Edge rusher Joey Bosa was injured for most of the first half of the season and has played 31.5% of the defensive snaps. Khalil Mack, the team’s other top pass rusher, went down just as Bosa began to ramp up and missed the better part of two-and-a-half games. After Week 1, Sunday’s win over the Falcons was just the second time all season Bosa and Mack were on the field together for more than 16 snaps. The Chargers have allowed a stifling 19.4 QBR when both have been present this season.

Even without Bosa and/or Mack for stretches, L.A.’s defensive turnaround has been wildly impressive. It has jumped from 28th in the league in EPA allowed per play a year ago to fifth this season. Coordinator Jesse Minter’s defense has allowed 1.42 points per drive this season and stopped opposing teams from scoring on 72.5% of their possessions, both marks that lead the NFL. That’s with a roster spending just $77.6 million in cash on the defensive side this year, which ranks 26th.

As was the case for former Michigan colleague Mike Macdonald in Baltimore last season, what’s really telling about Minter’s success is how many players who were either unheralded or underappreciated are thriving in Los Angeles. The Chargers have gotten by starting a pair of rookie fifth-rounders for long stretches of time at corner in Cam Hart and Tarheeb Still, the latter of whom made headlines with his two-pick day against the Falcons. Still has allowed a 63.3 passer rating in coverage.

Players who were already in the league are playing better here. The Chargers have gotten great work from a low-cost rotation at defensive tackle, with well-traveled veterans Poona Ford and Morgan Fox making splash plays. Nose tackle Teair Tart came up with a strip sack of Kirk Cousins last week. Bud Dupree has helped shore up the edge amid the injuries to Bosa and Mack. With safety Alohi Gilman out last week, the Chargers turned to Tony Jefferson, who had played meaningful defensive snaps in a game one time since 2019. He looked comfortable playing a full workload.

Second-year players Daiyan Henley and Tuli Tuipulotu have grown into expanded roles and responded accordingly; they both look like long-term starters. And Derwin James, the one star who has been healthy for most of the season, looks revitalized. Prone to overaggressiveness at times over the past few years, Minter has found ways to get him attacking the line of scrimmage and impacting games in key moments. James blew up two third-and-1 runs from the Falcons last week:

Derwin James blew up a pair of third-and-1 runs for the Chargers last week. Both just ridiculous plays. pic.twitter.com/CMzukOf5ip

— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) December 4, 2024

The offense hasn’t been as impactful. Justin Herbert has just one interception all season, which has gone a long way to raising the offense’s floor. At the same time, the passing attack has been inconsistent, as his 39.7% success rate ranks 31st in the league, and his 8.7% sack rate is well below league average. I’d put most of that on who’s around Herbert, although rookie Ladd McConkey has emerged as a viable receiver in the intermediate level and the yards-after-catch player this offense needs. I wish they had added one more wideout during the offseason so the offense wasn’t as reliant on Quentin Johnston and Joshua Palmer, both of whom have been a step down relative to McConkey.

The biggest disappointment has been the rushing attack. Offensive coordinator Greg Roman has a well-earned reputation at finding ways to make the run game work, and J.K. Dobbins hit a few big plays early in the season, but the Chargers rank 28th in success rate when they’ve run the football, and even that has been buoyed by Herbert becoming a more successful scrambler.

I wonder if we’ll see the Chargers lean more into bigger groupings and more multiple tight end sets. They’re still playing 11 personnel nearly 58% of the time, but they’ve been more reliable and efficient when replacing that third wideout with fullback Scott Matlock or one of the team’s backup tight ends. We’ve seen the Chiefs lean into bigger personnel groupings and still manage to create success in the passing game by attacking base defenses; that seems like a way for L.A. to make life easier for Herbert, too.

As it stands, the Chargers probably need only one more win to lock up their playoff hopes. Doing so by beating the Chiefs this week could reopen the AFC West. Realistically, one win over the Bucs or Broncos at home and a victory against either the Patriots or Raiders on the road would get Los Angeles back in the postseason. Not bad for a team that was losing by 42 points to the Raiders around this time a year ago.

Denver Broncos (8-5)

FPI chance to make playoffs: 74.8%

While Monday night wasn’t close to the Broncos’ best defensive performance of the season, the big plays they made in key moments against the Browns helped keep them on track for an unexpected return to the postseason. Cleveland was driving to get in position for what would have been a field goal to take the lead before Ja’Quan McMillian‘s pick-six, which sealed a 41-32 Denver victory and allowed it to enter the bye as favorites to advance to the postseason.

The defense, fueled by a handful of stars, has driven the Broncos’ success. Patrick Surtain has been a Defensive Player of the Year candidate when healthy, both suppressing targets and creating incompletions and interceptions when teams have thrown in his direction. He has essentially been a perfect cornerback and should be an easy All-Pro selection if he doesn’t miss any more time.

Having a cornerback like Surtain allows coordinator Vance Joseph to make aggressive choices with the rest of this defense. Knowing Surtain can give help to McMillian in the slot and Riley Moss on the outside, the Broncos play man coverage at the NFL’s highest rate, lining up a league-high 56.5% of the time. They’re playing single-high coverages at the seventh-lowest rate, which allows Joseph to more easily get his safeties in the run fit and attack the line of scrimmage. The defense is allowing opposing rushing attacks to succeed on 36% of their carries, the fourth-best mark in football.

And as is the case with most Joseph-coached defenses, the Broncos are blitzing and thriving. They rank in the top five in sack and pressure rate and were able to trade edge rusher Baron Browning to the Cardinals without skipping a beat. The edge duo of Nik Bonitto and Jonathon Cooper have combined for 19 sacks and 33 knockdowns across 13 games, but my favorite player to watch has been interior lineman Zach Allen, who has been even better than the guy we saw break out next to J.J. Watt with the Cardinals two years ago. He has been able to impose his will on opposing guards and centers this season.

There has been growth from rookie quarterback Bo Nix, who struggled mightily earlier. Through the first five weeks, he ranked 28th in QBR, and his 20.6% first-down rate was the league’s worst mark, trailing even Deshaun Watson, who was in the middle of one of the worst seasons we’ve ever seen.

Since then, Nix ranks ninth in QBR and 19th in first-down rate. Coach Sean Payton has found ways to play up his mobility. He was creating big plays as a scrambler before teams grew wary of his prowess and began to spy him more often, but he has grown comfortable in the boot and naked game. Nix has been able to extend plays and find receivers off-schedule, and when he can get his feet underneath him, his arm strength allows him to hit tiny windows accurately and effectively.

It’s clear Payton already trusts Nix. The third-and-11 throw where Nix hit Marvin Mims for a 93-yard touchdown was Nix’s best play as a pro, with the Oregon product recognizing Tampa 2 coverage and quickly getting to the seam route. His perfectly weighted throw lured in the safety and created a YAC opportunity for Mims to take the pass to the house. It’s also a spot in which most NFL teams, even ones with veteran quarterbacks, would typically call a draw or a screen and live to fight another day without running the risk of a turnover. Payton trusting Nix in that spot speaks volumes about the 24-year-old’s progress.

There are still issues for Nix. His ball placement can be great, but it’s more erratic than Payton would like; even since Week 6, he ranks 24th in precision pass rate. In the Browns game, there were plenty of throws in the first half in which Nix’s ball placement either required more difficult catches than should have been required or limited YAC opportunities. As he grows more comfortable with the speed of the pro game and develops more consistent footwork, his ball placement should improve.

Nix attempts a lot of deep throws, but most of those passes are low percentage lobs that don’t land in a catchable location. Again, since Week 6, his 66.4 QBR on deep passes ranks 24th. More than 47% of those passes have been thrown off-target, which ranks 29th. It feels like Troy Franklin has spent most of his rookie season looking up in the air trying to track down Nix deep balls like he’s an outfielder.

Nix has also taken too many huge sacks. His desire to extend plays is admirable and leads to some big moments, but he still needs to strike the balance of when to get rid of the football and move on. He’s tied for the league-lead with six sacks losing 12 yards or more. Late in the blowout loss to Baltimore, he turned down an obvious throw to the sideline and then to the pylon on a bootleg near the goal line, continued to scramble and ran out of bounds untouched for a sack. He took another 13-yard sack on a third-and-1 from the one-yard line earlier in the game. Experience at the NFL level should hopefully help to take those sacks out of Nix’s game, although that’s no guarantee; Carson Wentz was a quarterback who was supposed to get improve but never did.

The game against the Ravens looms as an ominous sign for Nix. His success over the past six weeks has generally come against subpar defenses in positive or neutral game scripts. When he had to throw trailing by multiple scores against the Ravens or faced a good Browns defense, he was much more inconsistent. This version of Nix is playing well enough to win, and that’s a great sign after his struggles earlier in the season, but there’s still work to be done.

What makes the rest of the schedule so compelling for the Broncos is the schedule they’ll face after returning from the bye. Every one of their remaining games is against a team they’re competing against for a potential playoff berth. That starts with the Week 15 matchup against the Colts, who will have a huge say in this playoff battle. Per The Upshot’s model, a victory over Indy will raise Denver’s playoff hopes to 91%, while a loss will drop it to a 50/50 proposition. A Broncos win, meanwhile, will drop the Colts’ chances below 10%.

Afterward, the Broncos have road games against the Chargers and Bengals before finishing with a Week 18 tilt against the Chiefs. Denver fans typically don’t want to root for their longtime rivals in Kansas City, but it would behoove them to cheer on the Chiefs in the weeks to come. If the Chiefs win their next four games and the Bills lose one of their next four contests, Patrick Mahomes & Co. will clinch a first-round bye before Week 18. Andy Reid has shown a willingness in the past to sit his guys with nothing to play for, meaning the Broncos could be facing Wentz in Week 18. Beating Kansas City’s backups and winning one other game will probably get Denver back into the playoffs for the first time since winning Super Bowl 50 in February 2016.

Indianapolis Colts (6-7)

FPI chance to make playoffs: 27.4%

The Colts’ chance to make the playoffs could have been even smaller if they hadn’t managed a last-minute comeback victory over the Patriots on Sunday. They converted three different fourth downs on their final drive, including a fourth-and-goal touchdown pass from Anthony Richardson to Alec Pierce, then picked up the game-winning 2-point conversion on a power read concept, with Richardson smashing through the goal line for a season-extending win.

Richardson looks better than he did before he was benched in late October, although his numbers aren’t drastically different. His off-target rate, a league-worst 24.4% before the injury, is down, but to 23.7%. His precise pass rate is up, from 32.8% to 37.8%. He is completing more passes, which is leading to a better first-down rate, but because those passes aren’t traveling as far, he is averaging fewer yards per dropback (6.2) than he did during the first eight weeks of the season (6.8) as a passer.

While Richardson ran higher than normal drop rates before and after his benching, I’d argue the drops have hurt more since his return. The Colts would have been in position to try to kick a long field goal before halftime against the Jets if not for a drop by Michael Pittman Jr. During the two-minute drill against the Patriots to win the game, both Kylen Granson and Adonai Mitchell were unable able to bring in passes that would have set up first-and-goal situations.

One big positive so far? Richardson has stopped taking sacks. His 5.9% sack rate before the benching wasn’t necessarily a huge problem, but the Jets, Lions and Patriots sacked him twice across 84 dropbacks, a 2.4% rate. That would be elite if he can keep it up, and it’s a way for the Colts to avoid the obvious passing situations in which he is most vulnerable. If Indianapolis fans are still eyeing those Josh Allen comps, one of the biggest strides Allen made in his breakout 2020 campaign was cutting his sack rate nearly in half, where it has stayed for most of the ensuing five seasons. If a quarterback doesn’t get sacked, his team goes for it on fourth downs, and he’s a terror in short yardage, it’s going to be extremely difficult to get the offense off of the field.

It’s clear that coach Shane Steichen has leaned back into the designed run element of the offense to help get Richardson back on track and create more uncertainty for opposing defenses. Leaving scrambles, sneaks and kneel-downs out of the equation, Richardson averaged three designed runs per game before his benching. That’s up to seven per game since his return. He still has a maddening habit of attempting to run through defenders, even when there’s space to either side of them or room to slide, but those runs are making the offense more complete. His designed runs over that stretch are averaging 0.24 EPA per play, which is excellent.

I’m hoping we see more consistency from the running game. Jonathan Taylor‘s success rate has generally been above average, ranging between 48.4% and 55.4% during his All-Pro campaign in 2021. This season, he’s at 40.3%, which ranks 43rd out of 46 backs. Trey Sermon actually had a better success rate, although he has offered virtually no ability to explode and create more than what was blocked.

Perhaps Taylor’s issues owe to injuries and absences up front. Indianapolis’ starting five linemen were set heading into the season: Bernhard Raimann and Braden Smith at tackle, Quenton Nelson and Will Fries at guard and Ryan Kelly at the pivot. Those five have combined to play 150 of 747 offensive snaps, which is right at 20%. The Colts have averaged 5.4 yards per rush attempt with all five on the field, falling to 4.2 when at least one is missing. Kelly and Smith have slipped from where they were at their best, but Nelson is still wrecking defenders and is one of the most fearsome players to see pulling across the line in the game. He bowled over Christian Barmore on the Richardson 2-pointer that won the game.

The defense is average in most ways, which is a compliment for a unit that lacks for star power after DeForest Buckner and lost key contributors Samson Ebukam and JuJu Brents by the end of Week 1. It ranks 13th in EPA per snap and 17th in points allowed per possession. If anything, it has been a little unlucky, given that it is ninth in EPA per play on first and second down and 26th on third downs.

Coordinator Gus Bradley generally has needed to rush four and avoid blitzing to protect a secondary that has battled injuries and wasn’t deep on paper to begin the season. The Colts play zone at the league’s fifth-highest rate, which makes sense given their personnel. It’s not all great: I catch them getting lost looking into the backfield or missing assignments more than most defenses, opponents are completing more than 70% of their passes this season, and they force three-and-outs at the third-lowest rate of any team.

The Colts have a better postseason shot than you might think because they’re in the middle of the easiest run of opponents of any team. After facing the Patriots before their bye, their schedule ranks 31st in the league moving forward, with only the Jaguars projected to face an easier slate. Over the final four games, they travel to face the Broncos, host the Titans, visit the Giants, then finish at home against the Jags in Week 18. The Denver game is the most difficult of the bunch, but as mentioned, it’s also the most rewarding: If the Colts can beat their direct rivals for a wild-card spot next week, their playoff odds turn into a coin flip.

Miami Dolphins (5-7)

FPI chance to make playoffs: 8.6%

Let’s finish with the Dolphins, who barely squeak into the conversation. I’m including them because ESPN’s FPI might be underestimating their chances of winning their final five games with Tua Tagovailoa, who has unsurprisingly been a major upgrade on backups Skylar Thompson and Tyler Huntley. Miami also faces a number of teams that might be falling apart down the stretch: In between a home-and-home against the Jets, Mike McDaniel’s team gets the Texans, 49ers and Browns.

Finishing with the Browns and Jets on the road would give the Dolphins a chance to overcome the evidence they’re not the same caliber of team on the road in cold and/or bad weather, which they weren’t able to do in last week’s loss against the Packers. What was curious about that game is what went wrong. Tagovailoa and the offense were usually blamed as the culprits when the team struggled in the cold, but he went 37-of-46 for 365 yards with two touchdowns. Much of that came in the second half with the Dolphins trailing by multiple scores, but the weather doesn’t get any warmer later in games.

Instead, the defense struggled to find ways to slow down Green Bay’s passing attack. The Dolphins have generally been good against the pass, although they’ve also played a relatively easy slate of quarterbacks; the gap between their team-adjusted QBR and unadjusted QBR is one of the largest in the league. It’s difficult to reconcile how excited Miami players publicly were with the departure of Vic Fangio with the legendary coordinator’s immediate success in molding the Eagles back into an elite defense, but they’ve been fine with Anthony Weaver taking over this season.

There were real concerns about how the Dolphins were going to rush the passer, owing to the injuries suffered in December by Jaelan Phillips and Bradley Chubb. Things got worse when Phillips suffered another season-ending injury in September. While it had been a pass rush by committee, they have gotten an excellent season from the ageless Calais Campbell, who leads the team with four sacks and nine tackles for loss. Chop Robinson has flashed as a rookie, and I’d expect the Dolphins to expand his role later in the season, especially if Chubb doesn’t return from his ACL tear. Miami opened up his 21-day window to return Tuesday, although it could choose to let him spend the rest of the season on the sideline if it isn’t in playoff contention.

My favorite pass rusher on this team has been an unlikely player: Jalen Ramsey. Rushing the quarterback twice as often as he has in any other season, the cornerback has delightfully turned into a player capable of tormenting opposing quarterbacks and blowing up plays with his rushes. He forced four quick pressures (under 2.5 seconds to the quarterback) in five pass rush snaps against the Colts earlier this season. Moved from an outside corner on one side of the field a year ago into something closer to a full-time slot role this season, he has been much-needed help in the pass rush.

Another unlikely player has figured into a key role in the offense, as Jonnu Smith has stepped up as a viable third receiver alongside Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. While Hill and Waddle are on the field more often, Smith has actually been a more efficient receiver than either of his fellow wideouts, averaging 2.3 yards per route run to 1.9 for Hill and 1.7 for Waddle. We think of older tight ends as safe pairs of hands, but this is the tight end Bill Belichick once described as the best yards-after-catch guy in the league. Smith has been able to stretch the field and hit chunk plays against overmatched linebackers and safeties, something that should create more space for the other playmakers in the offense.

Hill’s figure has to be considered concerning, given that he posted an astronomical 4.0 yards per route run a year ago, one of the best marks in league history. After going for 130 yards in the opener, he has failed to top 100 yards or even make it as far as 85 yards in each of his 11 subsequent starts, his longest stretch without a 100-yard game since 2020.

Should that be concerning? I’m not sure. Hill’s median top speed during routes, per the NFL’s Next-Gen Stats, is 15.3 mph. Comparing it to what he was doing through the first 13 weeks of seasons past, that’s down from 15.4 mph in 2022 and 15.5 mph in 2023, but it’s ahead of most of his seasons in Kansas City. I’m not sure that extra one-tenth mph is making a huge difference.

On the other hand, Hill hasn’t quite hit blistering peaks as often this season. He has topped 20 mph on 3.1% of his routes in 2024, which is down from 5.6% in 2022 and 6.6% in 2023. That’s still ahead of the 2.9% rate he hit in 2020 with the Chiefs, but it’s also fair to suggest the routes he’s running in 2024 with the Dolphins have more in common with what he was running in 2022 and 2023 than what he was doing with the Chiefs in 2020.

So much with the Dolphins comes back to Tagovailoa. Some of the data on their declines late in previous seasons is misleading, spun by a late run in 2022 in which Tagovailoa was unavailable or impacted by concussions. This is his chance to turn that story around. Per The Upshot’s model, winning out would give Miami an 88% chance of making it to the postseason. Middling tiebreakers and a loss to the Colts probably squeezes it out of the postseason if it wins nine games, so the goal has to be five straight wins down the stretch. We know the Dolphins can get unstoppably hot for stretches of time on offense, but can they do that in the cold of December and January?