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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

NFL Playoff Possibilities: Week Twelve

Week 12 of the NFL season is done, and we now have our first "eliminated" team: the Kansas City Chiefs can no longer make the playoffs. There are now 7 teams (up from 3 last week) that can no longer win their division. No team has yet fully secured a playoff birth (although Houston is very close).

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 nine teams that are guaranteed to win their division if they win their remaining five games:

  • Atlanta
  • Baltimore
  • Chicago
  • Denver
  • Green Bay
  • Houston
  • New England
  • New York Giants
  • San Francisco

Additionally, there are five teams that are guaranteed to make the playoffs if they win out (division winning percentage in parenthesis):

  • Cincinnati (31%)
  • Indianapolis (87%)
  • Minnesota (93%)
  • Pittsburgh (31%)
  • Seattle (67%)

Additionally there are two teams whose "making the playoffs percentage" rounds up to 100% (these team could miss the playoffs if they win out, but it's highly unlikely):

  • Tampa Bay (31%)
  • Washington (93%).

Next up we have the teams with an above 90% shot at making the playoffs if they win out (playoff making percentage followed by division winning percentage in parenthesis):

  • Miami (99%, 87%)
  • Dallas (98%, 80%)
  • St. Louis (94%, 28%)
  • New Orleans (99%, 9%)
  • San Diego (91%, 6%)

Following those teams are the teams that make the playoffs at least 50% of the time if they win out:

  • Tennessee (79%, 0%)
  • New York Jets (62%, 4%)
  • Buffalo (59%, 6%)

These next teams are more likely than not to miss the playoffs, but they aren't out of it yet:

  • Arizona (43%, 7%)
  • Detroit (37%, 0%)
  • Philadelphia (26%, 25%)
  • Cleveland (20%, 0%)
  • Oakland (19%, 0%)

And finally, the two teams that are pretty much dead but with a miracle could make the postseason:

  • Jacksonville (0.8%, 0%)
  • Carolina (0.2%, 0%)

As I mentioned at the top, Kansas City is the only team completely out of the picture.


Moving onto the numbers for teams that are starting to "lock up" a playoff spot (those teams that make the playoffs some percentage of the time when they "lose out"), there are ten teams now on this list, although four of those teams make the playoffs while losing out less than 1% of the time (so it's not very likely):

  • Houston (99.8%, 13%)
  • Baltimore (96%, 37%)
  • Denver (96%, 94%)
  • Atlanta (96%, 62%)
  • New England (36%, 16%)
  • San Francisco (29%, 16%)
  • Indianapolis (0.6%, 0%)
  • Chicago (0.3%, 0%)
  • New York Giants (0.2%, 0.2%)
  • Green Bay (>0.0%, 0%)

There's a good chance that there'll be at least a few teams locked in after week 13.


And finally, here's the data concatenated from all of the above simulations showing (in descending order) what percentage of the time 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:

 DivisionPlayoffsDiv ΔPO Δ
1.AFC SouthHouston Texans87.2%<100.0%1.7%0.8%
2.AFC WestDenver Broncos99.7%99.8%5.8%4.6%
3.AFC NorthBaltimore Ravens93.2%99.7%10.0%3.6%
4.NFC SouthAtlanta Falcons96.2%99.7%13.7%5.5%
5.AFC EastNew England Patriots87.5%94.9%6.1%6.1%
6.NFC WestSan Francisco 49ers87.4%94.8%15.2%10.6%
7.NFC NorthChicago Bears51.6%83.9%19.8%18.4%
8.AFC SouthIndianapolis Colts12.8%79.5%-0.9%19.1%
9.NFC EastNew York Giants67.2%78.5%17.8%18.3%
10.NFC NorthGreen Bay Packers33.8%66.7%-8.6%-5.5%
11.NFC WestSeattle Seahawks10.0%40.2%-12.4%-6.0%
12.AFC NorthPittsburgh Steelers3.7%40.0%-9.3%-14.3%
13.AFC NorthCincinnati Bengals3.1%36.3%-0.7%12.8%
14.NFC NorthMinnesota Vikings14.6%34.3%-10.8%-8.1%
15.NFC SouthTampa Bay Buccaneers3.3%29.3%-10.4%-9.4%
16.NFC EastWashington Redskins17.3%23.6%3.2%7.5%
17.AFC EastMiami Dolphins11.9%20.5%1.9%6.1%
18.NFC EastDallas Cowboys13.7%18.6%-17.2%-16.1%
19.NFC SouthNew Orleans Saints0.6%14.9%-3.3%-7.5%
20.AFC WestSan Diego Chargers0.3%9.7%-3.2%-8.8%
21.NFC WestSt. Louis Rams2.2%8.5%0.1%3.7%
22.AFC SouthTennessee Titans0.0%7.1%-0.8%-7.0%
23.AFC EastNew York Jets0.2%5.4%-5.6%-9.6%
24.AFC EastBuffalo Bills0.3%4.6%-2.4%-8.0%
25.NFC WestArizona Cardinals0.5%2.8%-2.9%-4.4%
26.NFC NorthDetroit Lions0.0%2.3%-0.3%-3.0%
27.NFC EastPhiladelphia Eagles1.8%1.9%-3.9%-4.0%
28.AFC NorthCleveland Browns0.0%1.2%0.0%0.2%
29.AFC WestOakland Raiders0.0%1.1%-2.4%-5.4%
30.AFC SouthJacksonville Jaguars0.0%>0.0%0.0%0.0%
31.NFC SouthCarolina Panthers0.0%>0.0%0.0%0.0%
32.AFC WestKansas City Chiefs0.0%0.0%-0.2%-0.2%

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