With six weeks to go in the 2012 NFL season, all of the teams are still alive in the playoff hunt (although a couple are just barely) and only three teams have been eliminated from their divisional race.
As a reminder, these numbers are generated by "playing" out the rest of the season using the following logic: one team is chosen to win out while another is chosen to lose out and the rest of the games are decided at random. I do a number of simulations for each auto-winner/auto-loser combo and report back the results here.
Starting off with the "win out" playoff percentages, there are ten teams that are guaranteed to win their division if they win their remaining six games: Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Green Bay, Houston, Minnesota, New England, New York [Giants], and San Francisco. That number is down three from last week. Interestingly, both of the team currently not leading their division that appear in that list are in the NFC North. There are four additional teams that are guaranteed to make the playoffs if they win out: Seattle (who would win their division 97% of the time), Tampa Bay (93%), Indianapolis (93%), and Pittsburgh (83%). There are seven team whose "making the playoffs" percentage rounds up to 100% (these team could miss the playoffs if they win out, but it's highly unlikely): New Orleans (49% division winner), Dallas (98%), San Diego (33%), Washington (96%), Cinncinati (46%), Tennessee (14%), and Miami (92%). Those teams were listed in order of highest "making the playoffs" percentage to lowest although the likely margin of error probably negates any value of looking at that order.
The remaining eleven teams are in danger of seeing their playoff hopes slip away although some much more than others. The top tier (>90%) of those teams and certainly still alive are Buffalo (99% making the playoffs; 33% winning the division), New York [Jets] (98%, 52%), and Arizona (94%, 45%). The next tier (>75%) and most likely still in it are Oakland (86%, 28%), St. Louis (84%, 36%), Detroit (84%, 8%), and Philadelphia (78%, 74%). Cleveland is next with a 22% chance of making the playoff although they have no hope of winning the division. Kansas City's only hope of making the playoffs is to win the division, and they'll only do that 3% of the times that they win out. Jacksonville is eliminated from winning the AFC South and only makes it as a wild card in 1% of the simulations that they win out. But at least they are not Carolina: Carolina can't win the NFC South and their wild card chances round down to 0%. The Panthers are still technically alive, but not by much.
Next we'll look at the "lose out" playoff percentages. A team that still makes the playoffs even if they lose the rest of their games is one that is in the process of "locking up" a playoff position. No team has fully locked up a playoff position yet, but six are on their way towards that goal.
At the top of the list is the Texans who made the playoffs in 84% of the simulations where they lost out. The majority of those was as a wild card as their division winning percentage when they lose out was 4%. Houston is likely just a win away from being a playoff lock. The Broncos are next on the list at 43% for both making the playoffs and winning their division (there is a fractional difference in percentage between the two). The Ravens are next making the playoffs 35% of the time if they lose out from here, and they capture their division crown 7%. The Falcons are the first NFC team on the list. Atlanta will make the playoffs 11% of the time if they lose out and win the division 2%. The Patriots will make the playoffs and win their division (again a slight difference between the two) 2% of the time if they lose out. And finally, the 49ers have the ability to win the NFC West while losing out although it happened in less than 1% of the simulations.
Using the data from all of the above simulations, I've created a table (in descending order of making the playoffs) of what percentage each team makes the playoffs and wins their divisions along with the change since last week. This shows relatively who's most and least likely to make the playoffs/win their division and who is improving/decreasing their odds:
| Division | Playoffs | Div Δ | PO Δ | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | AFC South | Houston Texans | 85.5% | 99.2% | 10.7% | 3.1% |
| 2. | AFC North | Baltimore Ravens | 83.2% | 96.2% | 17.8% | 6.9% |
| 3. | AFC West | Denver Broncos | 93.9% | 95.2% | 20.6% | 15.6% |
| 4. | NFC South | Atlanta Falcons | 82.5% | 94.2% | 2.0% | 3.8% |
| 5. | AFC East | New England Patriots | 81.5% | 88.8% | 8.8% | 8.9% |
| 6. | NFC West | San Francisco 49ers | 72.2% | 84.3% | 13.7% | 9.8% |
| 7. | NFC North | Green Bay Packers | 42.5% | 72.2% | 14.2% | 12.1% |
| 8. | NFC North | Chicago Bears | 31.8% | 65.5% | -12.8% | -11.4% |
| 9. | AFC South | Indianapolis Colts | 13.7% | 60.4% | -10.2% | -10.8% |
| 10. | NFC East | New York Giants | 49.3% | 60.2% | -4.6% | -3.4% |
| 11. | AFC North | Pittsburgh Steelers | 13.0% | 54.3% | -18.4% | -10.5% |
| 12. | NFC West | Seattle Seahawks | 22.3% | 46.2% | -4.2% | -3.2% |
| 13. | NFC North | Minnesota Vikings | 25.4% | 42.4% | 2.1% | -3.6% |
| 14. | NFC South | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 13.7% | 38.7% | -0.5% | 8.3% |
| 15. | NFC East | Dallas Cowboys | 30.9% | 34.7% | 7.6% | 8.1% |
| 16. | AFC North | Cincinnati Bengals | 3.7% | 23.6% | 0.7% | 9.1% |
| 17. | NFC South | New Orleans Saints | 3.9% | 22.4% | -1.2% | 5.2% |
| 18. | AFC West | San Diego Chargers | 3.6% | 18.5% | -16.1% | -13.5% |
| 19. | NFC East | Washington Redskins | 14.1% | 16.1% | 3.3% | 4.0% |
| 20. | AFC East | New York Jets | 5.8% | 15.0% | 0.3% | 4.5% |
| 21. | AFC East | Miami Dolphins | 10.0% | 14.3% | -8.5% | -10.4% |
| 22. | AFC South | Tennessee Titans | 0.8% | 14.1% | -0.5% | 0.8% |
| 23. | AFC East | Buffalo Bills | 2.7% | 12.6% | -0.6% | 4.0% |
| 24. | NFC West | Arizona Cardinals | 3.4% | 7.2% | -5.5% | -8.2% |
| 25. | AFC West | Oakland Raiders | 2.4% | 6.6% | -3.8% | -3.7% |
| 26. | NFC East | Philadelphia Eagles | 5.7% | 5.9% | -6.3% | -6.5% |
| 27. | NFC North | Detroit Lions | 0.3% | 5.3% | -3.5% | -8.5% |
| 28. | NFC West | St. Louis Rams | 2.1% | 4.7% | -4.0% | -5.4% |
| 29. | AFC North | Cleveland Browns | 0.0% | 1.0% | -0.2% | -2.0% |
| 30. | AFC West | Kansas City Chiefs | 0.2% | 0.2% | -0.7% | -0.9% |
| 31. | AFC South | Jacksonville Jaguars | 0.0% | >0.0% | 0.0% | -0.8% |
| 32. | NFC South | Carolina Panthers | 0.0% | >0.0% | -0.3% | -0.9% |
I'm still not convinced that this information tells us much, but I'm thinking it does show relative difficulties of making the playoffs between various teams. Meaning that the lower a team is on the list, the more things that have to fall correctly into place for that team to make the playoffs.
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