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.
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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: