Jets hold top AFC wild card as AFC East currently has four playoff teams

Your eyes do not deceive you. If the playoffs started this week, the entire AFC East would be heading to the playoffs.

The New York Jets remain as the top wild card in the AFC coming out of their bye week at 6-3, followed by the Buffalo Bills at 6-3 and the New England Patriots at 5-4. The Miami Dolphins are now atop the AFC East at 7-3 after their win over the Cleveland Browns coupled with the Bills losing to the Minnesota Vikings. If the playoffs were this week, the Jets would have a rematch with the Ravens, this time in Baltimore.

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The Jets have a big opportunity in Week 11. With the Miami Dolphins on their bye this week, if the Jets can defeat the Patriots on Sunday, they would move into first place in the AFC East and put themselves in the mix for possibly the No. 2 seed in the conference. A win would also put them at 6-3 in conference play, which would be a huge boost to their playoff hopes in general.

The AFC is starting to look like nine teams for seven spots. The teams currently in are the Chiefs (7-2), Dolphins (7-3), Titans (6-3), Ravens (6-3), Jets (6-3), Bills (6-3) and Patriots (5-4). Then you really have just two teams on the outside that could make a run in the 5-4 Chargers and 5-4 Bengals — unless you believe the Colts will start making some noise at 4-5-1.

Of those teams, only the Jets, Dolphins and Titans have already reached five conference wins, which will help in the case of some tiebreakers or even multi-team tiebreakers. In terms of head-to-head, the Jets have beaten the Dolphins and Bills and have lost to the Ravens, Patriots and Bengals. Rematches with all three division opponents — including this week against the Patriots — are the only remaining games for the Jets against teams in that group. Their only other AFC game remaining outside of those three is Week 16 against the Jaguars.

The bottom line is the Jets control their own destiny to play deeper into January and now cannot count out the possibility of a home playoff game. They just need to keep taking care of business and that starts Sunday in Foxboro.