The odds certainly aren’t in the Indianapolis Colts’ favor, but even with their loss on Sunday to Denver, they still haven’t been eliminated from playoff contention.
So, if you’re still holding out hope that the Colts can end their playoff drought, how do they get there?
At 6-8 on the season, the Colts are two games behind the 8-6 Los Angeles Chargers for the AFC’s final wildcard spot–this is the team that Indianapolis will be chasing.
The Colts also share 6-8 records with Miami and Cincinnati but hold the tie-breaker over each team, having beaten the Dolphins head-to-head, along with having a better conference record than the Bengals.
Making the playoffs starts with the Colts winning their final three games against Tennessee, the New York Giants, and Jacksonville, which is certainly plausible given the struggles of those teams.
With the Chargers two games better than the Colts, at a minimum, Los Angeles has to lose two of their final three games. They finish the season at home against Denver and then on the road against New England and Las Vegas to finish out the season.
If the Chargers were to finish 1-2 and the Colts went 3-0, both teams would be 9-8 and the Colts would hold the tie-breaker in this scenario with the better conference record, finishing 7-5 in the AFC while Los Angeles would be 6-6.
Even with another loss from the Colts, there is still a possible path to the playoffs, but that if the Chargers were to go 0-3 to finish the season and Dolphins and Bengals were to lose another game as well–but let’s not go down that path.
NFL.com has the Colts’ playoff odds sitting at 10 percent heading into Week 16.
