Playoffs?

[Patrick76777]

Let’s take a VERY early look at the playoff race.

It looks from here that Miami, Oakland and Indianapolis will be division winners! Some team will win the AFC North at 9-7, probably Baltimore.

Denver looks like they are in good position for one of the wild cards, but with 2 loses already that’s not guaranteed.

So although it’s VERY early and MUCH can change over the next 11 weeks, as of right now, 6 teams look like the favorites for the 2 wild card spots.

1. New England – in the midst of a 3 game slide with a home game against Denver next. Following that is a 3 game road trip with stops in Buffalo, Chicago and Oakland. But they are the defending Champs, so we can’t count them out.
2. Jacksonville – Far and away the easiest schedule of all 6 teams. They play Houston twice, Dallas, Cincinnati and the Giants. Of course, I don’t think this team is spectacular but they will be in the thick of things at the end.
3. KC – All O and no D. This team look familiar. But they have Denver Twice, Oakland Twice, San Francisco, St. Louis and Buffalo. That’s doesn’t look too good.
4. Den – Had a huge meltdown last year. Not a terrible schedule. They should be right in it.
5. SD – They go to Oakland this week and then they get the Jets after that they have, at St Louis, SF, at Miami, Denver, Oakland, at Buffalo and at KC and finish against Seattle. It helps that they have 5 wins under their belt, but it will be tough to win 5 more games in this bunch.
6. Buffalo. First the bad news. Because we lost to Denver, we don’t have that Tiebreaker. The Good news? We have 4 games left with these 5 teams. The two NE games, the SD game and the KC game will be our biggest games of the season. All 4 will have major playoff tiebreaker implications. If we can somehow win those 4 games, beat Detroit, Cincinnati and the Jets, we should be able to make the playoffs.

But like I said, it’s very early and all of this will change every week.



P.S. I’m not counting out winning the Division. We have a good chance against the Miami M.A.S.H unit this week. That would put us one game out. And if Miami decides to have another December swoon, we could take the division.

[Novacane]

I still think we can make the playoffs too. Will be difficult if our D does not at least pick it up a little bit.

I think the Broncos are better than the Raiders and will overtake them for the division.

[WG]

And I still think I can fly...

I suppose, if every team's top 2 players drop out each week we may have a chance.

Don't forget, that the strength of the Phins is their rushing game and their D. Neither Chambers or Gadsen has done much this year overall. We first need to get past Miami.

In any case, you simply don't make the playoffs w/ a defense that is giving up 34 points a game. I don't think it's ever been done w/ anything close to that. Even the Chargers when they had no D were only 10-6 and they gave up 390 points. We're on pace for almost 600.

The playoffs are a pipe-dream this season. I would say that a successful season at this point would be one in which we improve our D to the extent that over our last 7 games say, after the bye week, that we lower our PA avg. to the mid-low 20s.

Offensively, if Henry plays 7-8 of our last 10 games very well and contributing in each of them w/ 2 or fewer fumbles from here on out. That would be considered progress.

I can fully appreciate the enthusiasm, but let's also remain somewhat realistic here. Teams w/ defenses like ours are simply lucky to be .500. If you think that we'll make the POs on that, then it may be slightly realistic. Otherwise, let's just hope for some progress.

Beating a bunch of teams b/c their starters are out if we were to get that lucky, merely masks the problems that we really have as a team. We need to correct those so that we are well-positioned to come out of the gates next season at 5-0!!!

[clumping platelets]

Party pooper

[Novacane]

And I still think someone can only look at the negatives.



BTW...................where are all the Travis Henry sucks threads this week?

[BlackJohn]

The 2000 rams made the playoffs with a 10-6 record and the last playoff spot while scoring 540 and allowing 471 ... thats about 29.5 pts ppg allowed

Now were not going to make the playoffs if we allow 500 pts but we'd have a chance if we end up giving up a little over 400 and can still put up 30 pts per game

[Earthquake Enyart]

All Pat is saying is that if all the planets are in alignment, and everything falls just right, their destiny is in their own hands.

Stranger things have happened.

[ublinkwescore]

One thing that we've got going for us is that ... Nah, I'm not gonna say anything - I don't wanna jinx us. Let's just hope it keeps happening to other teams - I think you guys know what I'm talking about - just don't mention it. It starts with an I. And it's obviously got nothing to do with interceptions.

[WCoastFin]

Originally posted by BledsoeTOreedfor6
I still think we can make the playoffs too. Will be difficult if our D does not at least pick it up a little bit.

I think the Broncos are better than the Raiders and will overtake them for the division.

I totally disagree....I just dont see you makeing a Playoff run...you not only have to compete with us for the Division ,but you got NE whos still in second place also, not to mention these tough teams who will be drooling for a wild card...San Diego,Oakland or Denver.....Like they say its still early but i just dont see it happening now.

[DraftBoy]

If NE loses this week, and we squeak out a win against the Phins then the scenario is turned, because we still gotta play NE twice, which you gotta think that Bledsoe is gonna come up big and Miami has to play us in Buffalo on Dec.1 if we take 3 out of 4 of those we could take the division

[BillsNYC]

i want to see how we play the phins first before i even consider any of this stuff.

[DraftBoy]

Pessmist

[RedEyE]

Unfortunately, I tend to agree with Wys on this one. The Bills chances of going to the playoffs this season are thin. The only way they can get a wild card birth is to severly beat NE and Miami in 3 out of 4 games. IMO, this is next to impossible with the performance of the current Bills D. Additionally, it used to pay to be a part of a competitive division, but this season their will defintly be an unearned playoff birth handed to a team in the AFC North.

[BillsMan80]

I disagree...for my opinion, I think New England, has a great chance to be staring at 3-6 after their game with us. KC's offense is similar to us and their defense is EVEN WORSE. Jacksonville looks like they just aren't good enough IMO, so it will come down to us, SD, and Denver IMO.

[casdhf]

We're 3-3...we've got just as good a chance as every other 3-3 team