AFC Playoff Picture after Week 12
 

As we enter the final month of the season:

1. Denver (9-2)
2. New England (8-3)

3. Indianapolis (7-4)
4. Cincinnati (7-4)
5. Kansas City (9-2)
6. Tennessee (5-6)

And in order:
Pittsburgh 5-6
Baltimore 5-6
San Diego 5-6
NY Jets 5-6
Miami 5-6
Oakland 4-7
Cleveland 4-7
Buffalo 4-7

Only 5 teams have a winning record, but 14 of the 16 AFC teams are within one game of a playoff spot.

For the likes of us and the Donkeys scenarios should be coming soon to officially clinch a spot.

I think we can say after tonight that New England is once again the best team in the AFC, and Denver is securely in second. We are a distant third, and nobody else will probably be a factor.

I don't want to go on the road against the Bengals.

You haven't seen the Bengals play this year then....

There is no best team in the AFC. There appear to be a few good-yet-highly-flawed teams, and the rest are mediocre to piss awful

I think the ideal situation has to be Indy.

After that I'm thinking Cinci or New England. That was a good game by the Pats tonight but I don't think they're unbeatable. I'd almost take Cinci though since I don't think we could cover Gronk and Brady would probably tear us a new asshole. At least with Cinci you have a good chance that shitty Dalton shows up.

Denver is the last team we want to face, in my opinion.

We could probably push the Pats shit in on the ground though..

Yeah that's hard to say. If New England doesn't make that comeback they are the 4 seed right now... and a Colts team that has been destroyed twice in the last three games would be the 2 seed.

But NE won, so this is what we've got. Denver is clearly not unbeatable though... they've now lost to both Indy and NE. Last year they lost to almost every upper tier team they played too. I don't know what to make of any of it.

The only thing to make of it is to not try to make anything of it.

There is no consistency.

For all the shit we take for not beating good teams (well, now we've beat two winning teams in Dal and Phi), Denver hasn't done much better. Their only quality wins were against Dallas, Philly and us.

AFC Playoff Picture after Week 12
 

And going back to last year the only good team they beat was Baltimore who they would end up losing to in the playoffs.

Excellent points and I agree that Indy is our best shot. Inside dome would help the pass rush and punish the QB when he gets sacked on that hard concrete.

If we go to Cinci and have to play the "boy wonder" Dalton then we are going to have a long day. He has an accurate and powerful arm with lots of targets. But yeah, we don't want to face Denver a third time in one season.

The homer in me reads this as "if the Chiefs play defense like they did at the start of the year they can make the super bowl"

You mean play 2nd and 3rd string QBs?