Buffalo Bills (9-4) at Pittsburgh Steelers (8-5)

Rooting for: Bills

While Baltimore has beaten both Buffalo and Pittsburgh and those two teams don’t have a shot of dethroning the Ravens for a playoff seed, you might think this is purely out of spite. But this is the time of the year where we start looking at potential playoff matchups and I’d much rather Baltimore didn’t have to try to take down a division opponent for a third time in a season.

There’s no guarantees that a loss this week by Pittsburgh would ultimately kick them out of the postseason but it doesn’t hurt to still root for it. A loss and Tennessee Titans win would have the Steelers fall out of the playoffs at this time, forcing them to hope for some help in the final two weeks of the season to get back in.

Meanwhile, a Buffalo win and Patriots loss would tie those two teams for the top of the AFC East and make Week 16’s game between them arguably the most important pre-playoff game in the AFC. Seeing New England potentially lose their division stranglehold and have to fight through the wild card round would put a dent in their Super Bowl hopes.