Originally Posted by
Joel
I'm more curious how we're 5th in the AFC despite this:
Division, conference and other tiebreaks aren't even a factor for the Texans and Steelers: We're a full game up on the Texans (AND hold the first tiebreak, since we beat them; only way they could be ahead of us would be in a three-way tie where someone else had a higher division/conference winning percentage, so we got eliminated before head-to-heads became relevant.) And even with Pitts bye, 6/8>4/7, so we're ahead of them, too (same applies to KC, despite their perfect AFCW record: That only counts as a TIEBREAK, and we're not tied, we're ahead.)
A lot could depend on whether Smith's actually concussed, and how long he's out if so (not to mention our injuries.) But I do agree with the assessment that it looks like the AFCW will come down to whoever wins the most games in the Denver-Oakland-KC round robin, so our visit to the Black Holes huge. One of my coworkers has had this game circled all year; rooted for Atlanta against us specifically so the Black Hole game could be for 1st place in the division (though I don't think he planned on losing to KC in the interim; that definitely complicates things, since they're only half a game behind both of us.)
Bottom line is that we host the Cheats and still have both games against KC and Oakland ahead of us, so we control our own destiny. For good or ill; there's no evidence our line will ever hold up this year, and much evidence our QBs and RBs can't hold up behind Swiss cheese any better than Manning, Oz, Anderson and Hillman did last year. That Thomas trade's looking better and better; can we trade for 5 of him?