With some help, the Indianapolis Colts playoff hopes are still alive after their Week 16 win over the Tennessee Titans.
Now at 7-8, the Colts are still the eighth seed in the AFC playoff race. They are also tied with Miami and Cincinnati, both of whom are 7-8 as well. The Colts, however, hold the tie-breaker over each, having won the head-to-head matchup against Miami, along with having a better conference record than the Bengals.
Currently, the sixth seed in the AFC are the LA Chargers at 9-6, and the seventh seed is the 9-6 Denver Broncos.
As you can imagine, more help is needed for the Colts if they’re going to catch either one of those teams and make the playoffs.
In one scenario, they need to win out, and the Chargers need to lose their remaining two games. Los Angeles’ last two games do come on the road, but are against New England and Las Vegas.
In order to catch the Broncos, the Colts have to win their final two games against the New York Giants and Jacksonville, and the Broncos have to lose their final two games. Denver finishes the season at Cincinnati and then at home against Kansas City.
But in addition to Denver losing out, the Colts also need either the Bengals or Dolphins to win out. The reason being is because in that instance, there would be a three-way tie for the final playoff spot, so the Broncos head-to-head tie-breaker over the Colts would no longer apply.
Instead, the tie-breaker would go to which team has the better AFC record, which in this scenario, would be the Colts.
Obviously, the odds of either scenario playing out a slim, with NFL.com having the Colts’ playoff chances at just 15%. But nonetheless, heading into Week 17, there is still a chance.