Update (11\/2): Patriots inch closer to No. 1 seed in the AFC after beating Falcons<\/p>\n
After the early window of games on Sunday, the New England Patriots found themselves down a spot in the AFC playoff picture. An inferior strength of victory tiebreaker meant that they lost the No. 2 seed to the Denver Broncos.<\/p>\n
That change was only a temporary one, though. With the Buffalo Bills beating the Kansas City Chiefs in the afternoon window, the Patriots\u2019 SOV tiebreaker received a boost again. Moving from .328 to .333 it now barely edges out the Broncos\u2019 .331 again.<\/p>\n
With only the Sunday and Monday night games missing, the updated AFC playoff picture therefore now looks as follows:<\/p>\n
Indianapolis Colts (7-2)New England Patriots (7-2)Denver Broncos (7-2)Pittsburgh Steelers (5-3)Buffalo Bills (6-2)Los Angeles Chargers (6-3)Jacksonville Jaguars (5-3)<\/p>\n
On the bubble: 8. Kansas City Chiefs (5-4), 9. Houston Texans (3-5), 10. Baltimore Ravens (3-5)<\/p>\n
Not technically eliminated but let\u2019s be real here: 11. Cincinnati Bengals (3-6), 12. Las Vegas Raiders (2-6), 13. Cleveland Browns (2-6), 14. Miami Dolphins (2-7), 15. New York Jets (1-7), 16. Tennessee Titans (1-8)<\/p>\n
Outside of the Patriots and Broncos switching places again, the biggest change compared to the early window is the Chiefs falling out of the top seven again. Thanks to their loss and the Jaguars holding off the Raiders\u2019 comeback bid in overtime, the reigning conference champions are now on the outside looking in again.<\/p>\n
Original story (11\/2): Patriots drop a spot in AFC playoff picture despite beating Falcons<\/p>\n
Even though there is plenty of room for improvement, the New England Patriots kept their win streak alive against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 9. Their 24-23 victory was their sixth in a row and improved their overall record on the year to 7-2 \u2014 tied with the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos for best in the AFC.<\/p>\n
And yet, they fell down a spot in the playoff picture from the second to the third seed. Why? Because Denver managed to defeat the Houston Texans 18-15 to draw even with New England and its 4-2 conference record. The difference in the Broncos\u2019 favor at the moment is the strength of victory tiebreaker, with their .331 narrowly beating the Patriots\u2019 .328.<\/p>\n
The full AFC playoff picture after the early window of games on Sunday looks as follows:<\/p>\n
Indianapolis Colts (7-2)Denver Broncos (7-2)New England Patriots (7-2)Pittsburgh Steelers (5-3)Buffalo Bills (5-2)Los Angeles Chargers (6-3)Kansas City Chiefs (5-3)<\/p>\n
On the bubble: 8. Jacksonville Jaguars (4-3), 9. Houston Texans (3-5), 10. Baltimore Ravens (3-5)<\/p>\n
Not technically eliminated but let\u2019s be real here: 11. Cincinnati Bengals (3-6), 12. Las Vegas Raiders (2-5), 13. Cleveland Browns (2-6), 14. Miami Dolphins (2-7), 15. New York Jets (1-7), 16. Tennessee Titans (1-8)<\/p>\n
There is potential for more change depending on the outcome of Chiefs vs. Bills and Jaguars vs. Raiders in the late window on Sunday. Regardless of those games, however, the Patriots continue looking good in their quest for returning to the playoffs for the first time since the 2021 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Update (11\/2): Patriots inch closer to No. 1 seed in the AFC after beating Falcons After the early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[6255,75372,349,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-268765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-around-the-nfl","9":"tag-new-england-patriots-analysis","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}