The captain kicked off the big Week 15 to the NFL’s playoff picture with a thrilling 34-28 extra-time win over the Chargers on “Thursday Night Football.”
Here’s a result that makes sense for both teams’ playoff chances, with Kansas City improving to 10-4 and Los Angeles dropping to 8-6 in the AFC West rankings:
THAN: Scheduled playoff matches for AFC, NFC brackets for Week 15
NFL playoff images: AFC West
With the victory of the chiefs…
The captains moved closer to winning their sixth consecutive AFC West championship. They increased their lead to two games against Los Angeles, while Denver (7-6) and Las Vegas (6-7) blew their big chances away by losing to Kansas City in the previous two games. The captains can hold on to the division with one more win and one more loss to the Chargers in the final three weeks of the new 17-game schedule.
The Chargers still hold the 5th and top wildcard positions in the AFC, but are now just ahead of the Colts (7-6), Bills (7-6), Browns (7-6) half-time, Bengals (7-) 6) and Broncos (7-6), opening the wholesale shake-up once Week 15 is complete. However, they have important head-to-head wins against the Browns, Bengals and still have one more game against the Broncos to split that series in half.
While the Captains finished with the Steelers, Bengals, and Broncos with the last two games on the way, the Chargers finished with the Texans and consecutive division games with the Broncos and Raiders. There’s no doubt Kansas City will end up in business in this division, but Los Angeles also has a good chance of wiping out the rest of the games to secure at least the 7th seed.
Kansas City also improved to over .500 in the AFC game 5-4. They still need help from the Patriots (9-4) and/or the losing Titans (9-4) to rise from 3rd place after Week 15, but the Chiefs should sit pretty well to at least stay and hold a duel. -playing card. Winning the squad is the only real question for the Captains as their playoff probability is close to 100% by Week 15. Now their chances of repeating in the AFC West are close to 90%.
Even if the split is already out of reach, the Chargers still have an 80% chance of making it to the knockout round.
