Week 18 Playoff Picture Breakdown by DVOA

With just one week to go in the 2023 season, 20 teams remain alive for the Super Bowl.

That’s not quite historically unprecedented, but it’s close. In the DVOA era, it’s tied for the second-most teams still alive entering the final week of the season. The only year with more was 1982, where the player’s strike cost the league half the season and they went to an emergency 16-team playoff format. From that perspective, the 14-team playoff format is an unbridled success from the NFL’s perspective – more fans than ever before have something to hope for, even as the season winds to a close. So what if there are only 14 teams with a positive DVOA – and one of them has already been eliminated? Drama entering the last week of the year is good for business, and we can clear out the riff-raff in the Super Wild-Card Round.

All kidding aside, having drama in every window of Week 18 makes it my favorite weekend of the year. If you’re lucky enough to get simultaneous close games going with stakes, the back-and-forth tug of war can give you some of the best moments of the year.

This year’s scenarios aren’t that complicated, historically speaking. Sixteen teams still are fighting for their exact seeding, but everyone outside of Pittsburgh has a basic understanding of what happens if they win or lose. But with thousands of possible permutations of results possible – millions, if you include the unlikely but not impossible possibility of ties – taking a look at the whole picture can sometimes be a bit daunting.

So for fans of eliminated teams, or teams already resting up for the postseason, or Rob Loweian fans of the league as a whole, here’s a rooting guide for Week 18.

BEST DVOA SCENARIO

• Texans d. Colts
• Jaguars d. Titans
• At least one of Ravens d. Steelers OR Bills d. Dolphins
• Seahawks d. Cardinals
• Bears d. Packers
• Either Buccaneers d. Panthers OR (Panthers d. Buccaneers AND Saints d. Falcons)

It is not possible for all 13 alive teams with a positive DVOA to make the playoffs – eight of them are in the AFC. I suppose we could give one of them false mustaches and Groucho Marx glasses and pretend they’re a new NFC South team, as it’s not like anyone has paid much attention to that division this season. 

Barring that, we can do what we can to get the teams with the highest DVOA into the playoffs – maximize the quality of the playoff teams to give us the best possible January. That’s what the scenario above gives us.

In the AFC South, that means pulling for the Texans over the Colts on Saturday night. While what Shane Steichen has done with the Indianapolis offense after losing Anthony Richardson for the year in September has been impressive, we’re not giving extra brownie points for degree of difficulty here. Houston has the higher overall DVOA (3.4% to -3.2%) and weighted DVOA (2.9% to -6.7%), and the gap in the latter increases if you adjust for the return of C.J. Stroud (our playoff odds give Houston an adjusted weighted DVOA of 4.9% instead). The Colts have the lowest DVOA of any team with a winning record this season; they’re not doing it with smoke and mirrors like, say, last year’s Vikings, but they’re a cut below Houston, especially when Houston’s healthy. With Stroud, the Texans have an offensive DVOA of 4.1% and a passing DVOA of 28.6%. Without him, that falls to -19.4% and -11.4%, respectively. Send the Rookie of the Year to the postseason.

Mind you, both Houston and Indianapolis trail the other three AFC playoff contenders in DVOA, and there are only three slots up for grabs. We could min-max our playoff field by having the Texans and Colts tie and having both Jacksonville and Pittsburgh win. That would see the Jaguars, Steelers and Bills all get to 10 wins, ahead of the 9.5 for Indianapolis and Houston, and have all three of them go through. Short of that, you’ll be unsurprised that Pittsburgh (5.8%) has the lowest DVOA of the remaining three teams, despite how highly they’ve ranked throughout the year. Even a late-season swoon by Jacksonville hasn’t shaved enough off of their lead to allow the Steelers to catch up. 

There are a couple ways to get Buffalo and Jacksonville through at Pittsburgh’s expense. The easiest is listed above. A Jaguars win puts them through as your AFC South champs. Pittsburgh would win the tie at 10-7 over Buffalo thanks to their better conference record, so we then need either the Steelers to lose to the Ravens’ reserves or Buffalo to knock off Miami in Game 272 to get the Bills a full game ahead. Alternatively, we could have the Jaguars and Steelers both lose… coupled with, of all things, a Broncos loss. If the Jaguars and Steelers tie at 9-8, there’s no issue – Jacksonville beat Pittsburgh back in Week 8 and would go through on the head-to-head tiebreaker. But if already-eliminated Denver also climbs to 9-8, that head-to-head victory gets thrown out the window, and Pittsburgh would slide through on strength of victory, thanks in large part to victories over Baltimore and Cleveland early in the year. Broncos-Raiders, being an integral part of tiebreaking scenarios in Week 18. What a weird league.

The NFC side of the story is easier to parse. There is one wild-card slot left, and the Seahawks beat the rest of the field in both total DVOA (0.6%) and weighted DVOA (-0.5%). Seattle needs to win and have Green Bay lose to leapfrog the Packers and their superior strength of victory, so for the second year in a row, an NFC North rival would have to beat Green Bay at Lambeau. As for the NFC South champs, pick your poison. The Saints have the best season-long DVOA of the trio at -0.8% to Tampa Bay’s -1.5%, but the Buccaneers have been stronger down the stretch, with a 0.3% DVOA to New Orleans’ -1.2%. Before the Saints’ 23-13 win over Tampa last week, the choice would have felt rather clear – the Baker Mayfield rejuvenation season, the duo of Mike Evans and Chris Godwin still stretching the field, a defense with scattered useful pieces. Now it’s more of a toss-up, which means we should probably root for Tampa over Carolina. The gap between the Buccaneers and Saints is negligible. The gap between them and Atlanta (-16.8%) is ponderous. No one wants the Atlanta Falcons in the playoffs. 

Well, almost no one.

WORST DVOA SCENARIO

• Panthers d. Buccaneers
• Falcons d. Saints
• Cardinals d. Seahawks
• Bears d. Packers
• Vikings d. Lions
• Steelers d. Ravens
• Dolphins d. Bills
• Jaguars d. Titans
• Colts d. Texans

If you’re a fan of the Ravens or 49ers, you’re fairly confident that you’re coming out of your conference – but wouldn’t you feel a little more confident if a few live draws like Buffalo or Seattle were slid out of the equation? If you’re a fan of a clinched team lower in the standings, like the Browns or Chiefs, wouldn’t you prefer to see the likes of C.J. Stroud replaced with Mason Rudolph? No one’s going to remember 20 years from now who you beat on your way to a title, just that you won. So why not make the road as easy as possible?

 In the AFC, that mostly means getting rid of the Buffalo Bills. Buffalo sits third in DVOA entering Week 17, albeit with the third-highest variance in the league. Their status as the ‘team no one wants to play’ is a little overblown – they struggled to put away the Patriots this week despite forcing four turnovers, after all – but when they’re clicking, they’re a threat to knock off anyone. Being able to do that for four straight weeks seems unlikely, but they only have to beat your favorite team once. So we need Buffalo to lose, Pittsburgh and Jacksonville to win, and the Colts and Texans not to tie, and Josh Allen and company will be watching the playoffs from home. The Steelers and their backup quarterback bonanza slide into the seventh seed instead, a relief to the No. 2 seed Dolphins and anyone else who might see them along the way. Adding in a Colts win over the Texans and giving the Chiefs an easier first-round matchup is almost an afterthought after that.

But where we can really do damage is in the NFC. The Falcons are so, so far below the Saints and Buccaneers in DVOA that sliding them into the playoff picture makes everything dramatically worse. Sure, the Eagles or Cowboys will be favored over the NFC South winner whoever it is, but you can imagine Mayfield and Evans taking advantage of a depleted Philadelphia secondary. Arthur Smith will dial up some kind of option pass to a third-string tight end with the game on the line, with Bijan Robinson standing on the sideline, Kyle Pitts staying in to block and Drake London faking an end around. Lock them in as the fourth seed and make that 4-5 matchup almost unwatchable.

And speaking of wheels of backup quarterbacks, the Vikings are still alive! Technically! Even after the Josh Dobbs rocket exploded and Jaren Hall snapped under pressure and Nick Mullens tried to find every way humanly possible to throw an interception, Minnesota can still slip into the seventh seed with a -5.5% DVOA. They need the Packers, Seahawks and either Saints or Buccaneers to lose, but they have strong tiebreakers should that happen. Their 7-5 conference record would slip them past the Seahawks, Packers and Buccaneers or Falcons, and they’d beat the Bears on common games thanks to the Dobbs-led win over the Saints back in November. This would make the Vikings the fourth team in DVOA history to make the playoffs with a negative DVOA in consecutive years, after the 1995-96 Indianapolis Colts, the 2015-16 Houston Texans and the 2020-21 Tennessee Titans. Making the playoffs only to get destroyed by Dallas or Detroit, and thus ruining their draft pick in the process, may be the worst of all possible worlds for the Vikings at this point.

It would make for a good story, though. The Week 18 longshots, needing everything to go just right, anxiously watching from the locker room as Justin Fields and Kyler Murray lead upset bids in the late afternoon window. Get a camera in the locker room on RedZone, and watch them live and die as games go down to the wire? See Vikings fans reactions as their season comes down to a Hail Mary from a terrible Cardinals team, 20 years after Josh McCown to Nate Poole? Yeah, I could get behind that.

In fact…

MOST DRAMATIC WEEK 18 SECENARIO

• Steelers d. Ravens
• Jaguars d. Titans
• Vikings d. Lions
• Either Saints or Buccaneers lose

The NFL does its best to put relevant games together, to prevent things from getting clinched or locked up before kickoff. You can’t make everything work, though, so let’s give them some help by upping the drama wherever possible.

The league is taking a small risk by putting Bills-Dolphins on Sunday night rather than Texans-Colts. No matter what happens elsewhere, the winner of the AFC South matchup will always make the playoffs and the loser will always be eliminated. Not so with Buffalo-Miami; while the AFC East title and a home game will always be on the line, the Bills could clinch a playoff berth before kickoff if the Steelers or Jaguars lose, ramping down the stakes significantly.

But if Pittsburgh and Jacksonville both win, Buffalo will be in a rather unique situation – win and be the second seed or lose and stay home. No team has been in that situation since at least the league expanded to 12 playoff teams; it’s a function of the AFC being so tight and Buffalo’s tiebreakers being so bad that has put the Bills in this awkward situation.

Pittsburgh winning on Saturday also eliminates the backdoor wild-card opportunity for Jacksonville, making that Sunday game a strict win-and-in for the Jaguars. We lose the possibility of Raiders-Broncos mattering with a Steelers win, but the effects on Buffalo and Jacksonville are worth that sacrifice.

We’re also incorporating Minnesota’s last-gasp playoff run into the equation. Having a Minnesota win in the early window turns Green Bay-Chicago into a must-win game for the Packers; they have a backdoor if all the relevant NFC contenders lose, so an early Vikings win increases the stakes there. It also means that the Cowboys and Eagles would be fighting for the second and fifth seeds, eliminating the chances of Dallas falling into the third seed and thus making winning the division have ever-so-slightly greater guaranteed significance. Minnesota needs that win and at least one negative result in the NFC South to stay alive into the late window, and I think the Vikings watching in dismay in the late window after a win is more enticing than the Saints doing the same. However, if you prefer your anxiety Cajun style, substitute New Orleans and Tampa Bay both winning, locking the Buccaneers into the fourth seed and putting the Saints on the Seattle-Green Bay hot seat.

You can get a little crazier with ties, but not without hurting things elsewhere. A Buccaneers-Panthers tie could see them fall to the seventh seed, but that swaps them for Minnesota on the NFC seventh-seed watch. An Eagles tie could see them win the third seed rather than the second if the Cowboys lose, but those games are happening at the same time anyway. A Colts-Texans tie would throw a spanner into various Steelers and Jaguars scenarios, but it would also clinch a Bills playoff spot 24 hours in advance of Sunday Night. No, if you want maximum drama in Week 18, you’re a Steelers, Jaguars and Vikings fan.

However, if you want to maximize drama in Week 19…

BEST WILD-CARD MATCHUPS SCENARIO 

• Ravens d. Steelers
• Texans d. Colts
• Titans d. Jaguars
• Raiders d. Broncos
• Dolphins d. Bills
• Buccaneers d. Panthers
• Rams d. 49ers
• Packers d. Bears
• Cowboys d. Commanders

Hey, finally a use for Raiders-Broncos!

This scenario eliminates much of the drama from Week 18 in efforts to give the best matchups for the Wild-Card round – the round that needs storylines the most of the playoffs, as overall team quality is a bit lower. The AFC results are strict; they’re the only possibilities that get you the ideal outcome. The NFC results are a little looser, but it’s the easiest path to good matchups.

Your highlight result from these matchups would be the No. 3 Lions hosting the No. 6 Rams, with Matthew Stafford making his return to Detroit just in time for the Lions’ first home playoff game in 30 years, and Jared Goff facing off against the team who thought they couldn’t win a Super Bowl with him. Outside of maybe Joe Flacco returning to Baltimore, which can’t happen in the first round, this may well be the juiciest potential matchup the playoffs as a whole could see. This could play as either the 2-7 or 3-6 matchup, but 3-6 is more likely and sets up the Lions returning to the scene of Eligible Receivergate…

…if the No. 2 Cowboys can get past the No. 7 Packers. This wouldn’t be the first time Mike McCarthy faced off against his old team (the Cowboys lost 31-28 in November of last year), but even without the novelty, a Super Bowl-winning coach facing his old team in the playoffs is worth a couple column inches. That leaves the No. 4 Buccaneers against the No. 5 Eagles, picked partially because it would be a rematch of the 2021 Wild Card game where Jalen Hurts threw two interceptions in a 31-15 loss, partly because the Baker Mayfield return to adequacy storyline is better than anything else the NFC South can cook up, but mostly because if I have to watch any more Taylor Heinicke or Derek Carr I may rip all the hair out of my head.

In the AFC, we’re highlighting things with the No. 3 Chiefs against the No. 6 Bills. You don’t pass up on Patrick Mahomes versus Josh Allen, even if Mahomes’ receivers can’t catch. Buffalo has proven, this season, they can beat Kansas City. Now, they’d have to do it in the playoffs, where they’ve failed their first two attempts against Mahomes. Also, we may hear a thing or two about offensive offsides. Just possibly.

No. 4 Houston versus No. 5 Cleveland would be a little more exciting if the stadiums were reversed, but it’s still former Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud taking on an Ohio-based team. Cleveland thumped Houston 36-22 on Christmas Eve. Houston didn’t have Stroud then, though how Stroud would have helped stop Amari Cooper from picking up 265 yards receiving is unclear at this point. That leaves us with No. 2 Miami against No. 7 Jacksonville, picked in part because it’s a Florida bragging rights match and in part because neither team plans on starting Mason Rudolph.