Sport outcome: The Chiefs beat the Texans 27-19 to enhance to 14-1. The Chiefs now wait to see the Payments-Patriots sport on Sunday. If Buffalo lose or tie towards New England, Kansas Metropolis will clinch the No. 1 seed within the AFC.
The Texans drop to 9-6 and stay in fourth place within the AFC. That is the bottom they’ll drop within the standings. If the Steelers beat the Ravens, Houston is all however sure to complete with the No. 4 seed. If the Ravens beat the Steelers, it opens the door for the Texans to maneuver as much as the No. 3 seed with their head-to-head matchup towards the Ravens developing subsequent week.
Saturday soccer is again — a minimum of quickly — and it will get underway with a matchup between the AFC-leading Kansas Metropolis Chiefs and the AFC South-winning Houston Texans. With the injured Patrick Mahomes anticipated to play and seeding nonetheless up within the air for each groups, this one issues with each groups playoff-bound.
The sport is about for 1 p.m. ET on Saturday from Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas Metropolis. The Chiefs are 3.5-point favorites regardless of that home-field benefit, which is probably going because of the excessive ankle sprain that Mahomes is coping with on high of Houston’s robust play in current weeks. That line comes courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook.
Texans playoff image
Not like the Chiefs, the Texans don’t have an opportunity to earn the highest seed and home-field benefit all through the playoffs. However they’re nonetheless within the operating for seeds two via 4 as a division winner. Proper now they’re sitting at fourth, and being a sport again of the Pittsburgh Steelers in third and two video games again of the Buffalo Payments in second, they’ve bought to maintain profitable to enhance their seeding.
As they’re enjoying on Saturday, all Houston will know in the event that they beat the Chiefs is that they doubtlessly helped themselves. Whereas they management the fourth seed, they’ll want the groups above them to lose some video games so as to enhance that seeding. Going ahead, they’ll want the Payments to lose two of their closing three and Pittsburgh to lose a minimum of as soon as whereas profitable all of their video games to safe the second seed. For the third seed, they might simply have to win out coupled with a Pittsburgh loss or two Payments losses.
Chiefs playoff image
Once more, issues are quite simple for the Chiefs proper now. Because the lone group sitting at 13-1, all they should do is win yet another sport whereas the Payments, at 11-3, lose yet another sport. The Chiefs will then clinch a first-round bye and home-field benefit via the championship spherical of the postseason. They will additionally clinch this week within the unlikely occasion that they tie and the Payments lose, or in the event that they win and the Payments tie.
Tiebreaker implications
Whereas each groups are assured a spot within the postseason, there are nonetheless tiebreakers to contemplate. The AFC is mostly fairly separated in terms of general document, with every of the highest 4 groups holding completely different data, with ties primarily coming into the equation within the wild card spots.
That signifies that convention document could possibly be the primary issue right here, because the fourth tiebreak down the checklist that would come into play. The Chiefs sit alone at 8-1 within the AFC, whereas all three groups that could possibly be vying for the second seed — Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Houston — sit at 7-2 throughout the convention. Such a tiebreak comes into impact after head-to-head, divisional matchups, and data in frequent video games.
