As Week 16 of the NFL season kicks off, the playoff picture is starting to take a firm shape.
The biggest difference for this year’s postseason versus previous iterations? The absence of the Chiefs. Kansas City has been a fixture in the AFC throughout the 2020s and haven’t missed the playoffs entirely since 2014. Yet Sunday’s loss to the Chargers and Patrick Mahomes’s torn ACL sealed the Chiefs’ fate—and ensured, for the first time since 2017, that the AFC championship game would take place somewhere other than Arrowhead. Meanwhile, the Broncos seem fated for the top seed and a bye. The Patriots and Bills still must settle the AFC East after Buffalo’s exciting comeback win in New England. And the wild card scene remains quite chaotic.
