But figuring out things like Buffalo's playoff chances are the very reason for our existence!Honest question: what's wrong with us that we spent as much time and effort as we just did to figure out what, if any, path to the playoffs are held by the 2016/17 Buffalo Bills? Seriously, I could have been out volunteering, or finishing The Sound and the Fury, or catching up on episodes of Westworld.
Here's the definitive book on Buffalo:
1st off they need to win out and have Miami lose out so they both finish 9-7/1-1/3-3/7-5/6-6 so the tiebreaker for 2nd in the AFCE goes to SOV.
Required games to get there:
Wk 16: BUF/mia
Wk 17: nep/MIA, buf/NYJ
This gives them:
- Head-to-head (best won-lost-tied percentage in games between the clubs). (both 1-1)
- Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the division. (both 3-3)
- Best won-lost-tied percentage in common games. (both 7-5 vs NE, NYJ, Pit, Bal, Cin, Cle, Sea, Ari, LA and SF)
- Best won-lost-tied percentage in games played within the conference. (both 6-6)
- Strength of victory.
The remaining 9 games relevant to SOV are:
Week 16: NEP v nyj, HOU v cin, JAX v ten, CLE v sdc, PIT v bal
Week 17: IND v jax, PIT v cle, SDC v kcc, CIN v bal
For reasons I'll get into later, either cin must beat HOU or JAX must beat ten (or both) in Wk16 for BUF to have a chance so they will pick up at least 1 game there. Additionally, Baltimore must lose out (also addressed below) so each gains another win there. That means Buffalo's SOV against its 3 teams will be 22.5 to 25.5 wins vs Miami's 19 to 23 wins. In other words all 7 of the remaining games must go Miami's way to prevent Buffalo from advancing as the AFC East's 9-7 team.
i.e. as long as Buf beats Mia and NYJ and Mia loses to NE, the only way Buf doesn't get the 2nd place slot in the East and a shot at the #6 seed is if all of the following happen:
Week 16: nyj/NEP, sdc/CLE and at least 1 of (HOU/cin or ten/JAX)
Week 17: IND/jax, PIT/cle, SDC/kcc
So Buf makes it into the pool of other potential 9-7 teams for the final wild card (KCC/OAK non-division winner gets the 1st WC). Now it gets harder for the poor dears...
They can't win any tie-breaker with an AFC North team since both Pit (9-5) and Bal (8-6) already have 7 conference wins. Since if Pit were to lose out they would be 9-7, this means Buf needs Pit to win the division and Bal to lose out (or a loss and a draw).
It's a bit more complicated vs the AFC South teams but Buffalo doesn't fare well against any team that might finish 9-7 there. Hou is the easiest to explain - they are 8-6 and 6-4 in the AFC so by going 1-1 against Cin and @Ten to get to 9-7 they'd finish with a 7-5 conf record and be ahead. So they either need to win the division or lose out and finish 8-8.
Ten is also 8-6 but are 5-5 in the AFC so they could finish 9-7 / 6-6 as a 2nd place team in the AFCS. The problem there is if they finish 9-7 by beating Jax this weekend they would be 4-1 vs common opponents (Mia(W), Cle(W), Jax(WW), Oak(L)) vs the Bills 3-2 (Mia(LW), Cle(W), Jax(W), Oak(L)) but even if it skipped common opponents because of a 3-way tie at 9-7 with Denver (need to have min. of 4 common opponents - there would only be 2) or if Ten got to 9-7 by losing to Jax and beating Hou, they would still be miles ahead of Buf on SOV (mostly because the NFC Central have way more wins than the NFC West - esp. since we don't count Sea since the Bills lost that one. The other 3 NFCW teams are a combined 10-31-1). Buf having Cle (0-14) and Jax (2-12) in their vanquished column doesn't help.
Similarly, Buf would lose both a multi- and a 2-way tie to Indy if they were to beat Oak and Jax and finish 9-7. They too would be 6-6 in conference and they common opponents for a 2-way would be (NYJ(W), Pit(L), Jax(LW) and Oak(W)) for 3-2 whilst the Bills would be 2-3 with losses to NYJ, Pit and Oak. For the same reasons as Ten, Indy's SOV is uncatchable for the Bills.
All of this means that Buf can't have the 2nd place team in the South finish 9-7. Since the two 8-6 teams play each other in Week 17, that means that whomever will eventually lose that match must also lose in week 16 (both losing would be fine). Finally, Indy must lose one or both of their remaining games (@Oak and v Jax).
That leaves Denver (8-6) as the only other possible 9-7 team. Buffalo doesn't match up with them if it comes down to SOV, but if it's just a two-way tie (which it must be since they can't have a AFCS or AFCN team at 9-7 per above) then they first have common opponents to decide it. For Buf and Den the CO's are NE, Cin, Jax and Oak. Buffalo is 3-2 vs this bunch whilst Den only gets to 3-2 if they beat Oak at home in week 17. Thus oak/DEN becomes another required game for Buf and the Den@KC matchup is irrelevant (if Den loses they're 8-8 - if they win they lose the common opp breaker anyways).
So for Buffalo the path to the playoffs is now clear(ish). The following games are required:
Week 16..............Week 17
BUF/mia...............buf/NYJ
PIT/bal..................CIN/bal
(either JAX/ten......hou @ TEN loser must have lost wk16
or cin/HOU).........oak/DEN
(either OAK/ind or jax/IND)
.............................nep/MIA
and one of:
NEP/nyj.................cle/PIT
CLE/sdc.................kcc/SDC
...............................the jax/IND game above
both of the JAC / cin games above
Simple really.