The Kansas City Chiefs clinched the No. 1 seed in the AFC on Christmas Day, and now they get to sit back and enjoy the spoils of their success with a bye on Wild Card Weekend. Meanwhile, the other six teams in the AFC playoff bracket will fight it out for three spots in the Divisional Round, with one of them having to go into Arrowhead and face the Chiefs.
Let’s break down the potential scenarios for the Chiefs in the Divisional Round and what the likelihood is that they will face each of the other teams.
What are the Kansas City Chiefs Playoff Scenarios?
The Chiefs have four potential opponents out of the six playing on Wild Card Weekend: the Houston Texans, Los Angeles Chargers, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Denver Broncos. They cannot face either the Buffalo Bills or the Baltimore Ravens until the AFC Championship Game at the earliest.
The NFL playoff bracket reseeds on each side after each round. Essentially, that means the highest remaining seed will always face the lowest remaining seed. As the No. 1 seed, the Chiefs are guaranteed to be the highest-remaining seed in the AFC and, therefore, will always play the lowest remaining seed in the Divisional Round.
With that logic, it is impossible for the No. 1 seed to face either the No. 2 (Bills) or No. 3 (Ravens) seeds in the Divisional Round. Assuming they both win, they are guaranteed to be the second and third-highest remaining seeds of the four teams in the Divisional Round bracket.
That leaves us with the four teams that the Chiefs can face. Based on our win probabilities, the order of likelihood for these matchups is as follows:
- Broncos (7) at Chiefs (1) – 36.8%
- Chargers (5) at Chiefs (1) – 25.4%
- Texans (4) at Chiefs (1) – 19.8%
- Steelers (5) at Chiefs( 1) – 18.0%
It may seem odd that the lowest seed has the highest likelihood of facing the Chiefs, but that is because four possible outcomes out of the eight combinations on Wild Card Weekend would result in the Broncos heading to Kansas City. A win for the Broncos in Buffalo will see them heading to Kansas City, regardless of the other results.
The Chargers have the second-highest likelihood of making the trip to Kansas City. That is because they are favored to beat the Texans in our win probabilities. If the Chargers win and both the Broncos and Steelers lose, then we will see a third edition of Chargers vs. Chiefs this season.
The Texans’ scenario for heading to Kansas City is essentially the same as the Chargers. If they beat Los Angeles and both Pittsburgh and Denver lose, Houston will be playing in Arrowhead Stadium in the Divisional Round.
If the Steelers are to head to Kansas City, they need to spring the biggest upset of the AFC Wild Card bracket, and then Denver lose in Buffalo on Sunday. The Steelers have just a 28.5% win probability by our projections, which is the lowest win probability for any of the 12 Wild Card teams.
The intriguing thing with the AFC bracket is that we will not know anything about the Divisional Round until after the final game of the three on Sunday. The Bills and Broncos matchup in Highmark will control the entire fate of the Divisional Round. Until that game is decided, the Chiefs will not know who they are facing in the Divisional Round.
In terms of looking into the future, if the Chiefs win in the Divisional Round, they are guaranteed to host the AFC Championship Game. As the No. 1 seed, the Chiefs cannot go on the road in the playoffs until the neutral site game at the Super Bowl in New Orleans.