With one more week to go in the NFL regular season, the Chiefs are playing for the No. 1 seed in the AFC.
Though the circumstances are unfortunate, the Chiefs’ path to the No. 1 seed has become much easier with Week 17’s Bills-Bengals matchup ruled a no-contest by the NFL. This ruling means the Chiefs just need a Week 18 win to earn a bye; however, several scenarios still exist for the Chiefs to play in the wild-card round.
I put together a spreadsheet that notes all 128 AFC scenarios for Week 18, with the Texans-Colts game not included since its outcome has no effect on seeding. Here is a list of who the Chiefs could play in the wild-card round:
| Opponent | # of scenarios | Probability* |
| Bye | 96 | 82.99% |
| Dolphins | 16 | 8.85% |
| Jaguars | 4 | 0.98% |
| Patriots | 4 | 2.78% |
| Steelers | 8 | 4.41% |
A bye is the most likely outcome for the Chiefs, but there are quite a few different scenarios that lead to that outcome. Let’s break that down and analyze how the Chiefs could face the other opponents listed above.
*Probabilities based on predictions from FiveThirtyEight.com.