At 8-6 after their impressive Saturday night win over the Patriots, the Colts are more than spoilers. But they spoiled everything for their conference with that 27-17 result.
Coming into Week 15, 28 teams remained in playoff contention, and no team has yet clinched a postseason berth. That’s only the third time it’s happened since 1990 (it happened in 1993 and 2014) as well, and for the Patriots and Titans to punch their tickets to the playoffs, the Colts had to lose.
Which… did not happen. So, every AFC team will have to wait until Week 16 to get a bit closer to their playoff reveal. That’s how tight things are in that conference.
How did this happen? Well, the Patriots needed a win outright to clinch a playoff berth, and that didn’t happen. And the Titans could have clinched the AFC South if the Colts lost, and Tennessee beat the Steelers on Sunday. It would be good for the Titans to win, obviously, because the Colts seem to be in everybody’s rear-view right now, having won five of their last six games.
The NFC holds more possibilities, as you can see below.