UPDATED NFL Playoff Picture: Broncos take control of 1-seed in AFC | Can the Bills win the AFC East?

on CBS and Paramount+. We inch ever closer. Time now for your Sunday Week 15 playoff picture review. Jonathan Jones, Joe Musso, Brian McFadden, Emory Hunt and fellas, as we look at the AFC, just as important as what you do see is what you do not. For the first time in a decade, the Kansas City Chiefs mathematically eliminated, bringing to an end their streak of three consecutive Super Bowls and seven consecutive AFC Championship games reached for those in their place that we’re used to seeing them. The one seed had an interesting day. Those near the top of the AFC. Mac. When you look at the Broncos and the New England Patriots Day relative to one another, one sort of gives you that confidence and one welcomes in a little doubt. What do you make of those two days? Well, let’s start the team. That kind of provided some doubt today. And not just because of them losing to the Buffalo Bills. And I’m talking about the New England Patriots and how they lost at one point in time. They were up 21 points in that ball game. And if you’re a video game player like I am, you get off, you put the sticks down. When you get down. 21 friendly quit, no question. You got to get off the sticks. But they allowed the Buffalo Bills, led by Josh Allen, to not only fight to get back into that ball game, but to win convincingly. And you were at home. So the way they lost that ball game, it’s a bit alarming because of that 21 point lead at one point in time and you’re at home and everything was working in your favor, but they still control their own destiny. But when you factor in the Denver Broncos, what they did today definitely gave all of us a sign of voters confidence in their ability to not only get the number one seed, but potentially take care of their business to get to San Francisco to participate in their Super Bowl. We know their defense has been heralded. They’ve been outstanding, lead the league in sacks, 58 sacks. Once again, they had three sacks on Jordan Love. But the most impressive thing that I watched in this matchup was the play of Bo Nix, arguably his best performance so far this season. Four touchdowns, over 300 yards. Super efficient. Any time green Bay was trying to fight and claw back into this ball game, he made the necessary plays. So we know what they’re fists can do. And I think the only question marks we had with Denver was the consistency of Bo Nix being able to sustain a high level of play. What we saw today, along with the coaching of Sean Payton, man, I mean, he really earned his keep in my opinion. And I like their chances. It was sort of those can you win the big one with this guy? And he showed here on Sunday that you might be able to win the big one because of this guy. Emery, I know you’re impressed with the accrued experience, not of just Bo, but this entire Denver Broncos team, right? They’ve played the same game all season long. This was the first time we saw the Patriots play a game like the Denver Broncos, where you’re going to go through some adversity. Can you fight back and can you come out on top? We haven’t seen that yet from this football team. And they got their lip blooded a little bit this week by the Buffalo Bills. But we saw them try to figure out a way to to get back. And they couldn’t. But for the Broncos especially with Bo Nix we saw him fight through adversity. We saw him on that fourth and three. Instead of trying to get the first down, he went for a touchdown. He took a shot down the sideline. Great throw to Courtland Sutton. Perfect throw. Accurate. And he was able to buy time in the pocket I thought he looked like a baby Josh Allen and how you can’t really rush him because he’s going to make things difficult for your coverage unit because he’s going to break contain someone downfield. So the Broncos showed today that they can do what they’ve done all season long versus a good opponent, the Patriots. This was the first time being tested and we saw how they failed that test. Moving off of that Patriots loss. It does delay the hats and the t shirts that were in the building for another week, maybe another two. But when you look at the full three week season ahead the remainder of this regular season, you can see a path to a Buffalo Bills divisional championship, preventing the Patriots from doing what they haven’t done since Tom Brady. You absolutely can, and it’s really not that crazy to see it okay, we see their remaining schedules right here. The easiest route for the Buffalo Bills more or less to get this AFC East crown that they’ve been wearing for some time now. They went out and the New England Patriots need to lose one game within the division. They have the Jets. They have the Dolphins left. Of course they still have the Ravens. That’s going to be a very difficult game next week. But because that game is not in the division because of tiebreakers, what you really need for them to lose is against the Jets or against the Miami Dolphins. We don’t think they’re going to lose to the Jets, but that Dolphins game, right, with a lot of pride on the line for Miami, and they could maybe spoil some things for the New England Patriots. That is one to look for. So the door is not closed at all. On the Buffalo Bills winning the AFC East, having a home playoff game in the final season there at Highmark Stadium, the New England Patriots having to go on the road when we were just talking last week about them being the number one overall seed and taking the first week off in the playoffs, that road is there for the Buffalo Bills, and it started today by getting that victory over the New England Patriots. The door is open, but Josh Allen is the one kicking it down. Well that bills team though they still have issues stopping the run. We saw Treveyon Henderson have a field day. So those two games against the Browns and also against the Eagles would worry me not just for this. Obviously it’s not an AFC East opponent, but once they get into the postseason, will they be able to stop the run? That’s going to be huge for them. I need to see some from them in these two games coming up. It’s a great point. Oliver definitely missing Ed Oliver in a big way. It’s a great point and one that we’re going to get the answer to over this three week sample size. Maybe, just maybe, in the coming weeks we will see a divisional champion in the New England Patriots. But there are other outcomes right there on the table as well. Let’s shift our focus to the South and the AFC guys because it’s not Sharpie season just yet for Indianapolis, but a fourth consecutive loss. Although an entertaining one here with Philip Rivers leading a drive. Not enough in the end if we’re calling it a two team race right now in the South match between the Houston Texans and the Jacksonville Jaguars, we saw a lot of good out of both of those teams, maybe specific to opposite sides of the ball for each. Which one do you offer your confidence to? To not just win that division, but maybe maybe make a little run deeper into the playoffs come that time? Before I answer that question, I’d be remiss if I don’t give Jacksonville Jaguars some praise. Trevor’s playing football. Yes, they’re playing some really good football, led by their quarterback in Trevor Lawrence. The most important thing that he’s doing now that they’re benefiting from is protecting the football. So that’s a big time sign for their growth and their ability to get into the playoffs and make some things happen. It feels like there’s a but coming. But but it is it is it is. And follow me here to answer your question, when you look at both teams that I believe are playoff caliber, I have more faith and more trust in the Houston Texans. Number one, they’ve already beaten the Jacksonville Jaguars. Remember they beat Jacksonville with the backup quarterback in Davis Mills. Remember they had to fight from behind I think they scored 19 points in the fourth quarter to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars. With Davis Mills now CJ Stroud is back in the fold. And he’s very very comfortable. He’s playing some of the best football that we’ve seen so far this season. Coming off of that injury and their defense. If you don’t love the Jacksonville Jaguars I mean the Houston Texans defense. You just don’t love defensive football. The way they attack the football, the way they hit you, the consistency in which they rush the opposing quarterbacks week in and week out. You they put fear in you. So when you factor that into the equation and the confidence they’ve established, they established a lot of confidence when their franchise quarterback was not in the lineup because they knew they had to put the team on their back. But then you look at everything else. Woody marks has run the football with confidence. Nico Collins is showing up. Christian Kirk, Dalton Schultz they got a lot of guys, the young rookie wide receivers from Iowa State, they got a lot of guys that have really upped their ante for them to be in this position, because think about it like this. Two months ago, the way they were playing, we probably felt like they have a shot to get to the playoffs. Something clicked and three start to the season. Oh, and three start. And it started with their defense. And the job that Demeco Ryans has done has been phenomenal in my opinion. So I like Jacksonville chances, no question. But if I had to pick one or the other in terms of which team can make a deeper run, I got to go with the Houston Texans. You call that a flipping tables? Moving chairs. You better believe it. More apt to flip and move are the Houston Texans in his eyes. Do you share that same opinion? I do, and it’s funny because when we look at this Houston Texans team, they sort of remind me of from a vibes perspective and how they’re winning these games. The 2017 Jaguars team that had the Leonard Fournette the Jalen their defense was great. And their offense was figuring things out with Blake Bortles. And they found some ways to win some games. They just were able to have success I think Houston’s offense is still trying to love their passing game. Their running game I think Jacksonville has a little bit more dynamic running ability and they’re getting their backs involved in the passing game. These guys are down there as downfield threats as receivers, but the defense is a separator here between Jacksonville and Houston. Houston has a dominant Super Bowl defense Jacksonville has good players. They’re playing good team defense. The offense I think, may be slightly better than Houston, but that defense is what put Houston over the top. You bring up the run game in Houston. It feels like we see Woody Marks in and out of football games for the better part of this month. We are one woody out and not back in. Away from maybe changing opinions or having an even bigger question of that run game for the good people of Duval. Yeah, look, I know that they’re probably going to get on us and on me. I’m also going to take Houston for the exact reasons that you guys just illuminated. But that, again, is with a healthy dose of respect for the Jacksonville Jaguars. I believe the Jags have a better offense. I think that playing at his peak, they have the better quarterback in a one game scenario. At least what we have seen this past year. And I also think that the Jacksonville Jaguars defense is pretty good. That’s a championship level defense over there with the Houston Texans. This is a pretty good defense led by a pretty good defensive coordinator. What they’re doing in Houston is otherworldly right. It’s Houston and it’s Denver and sometimes Seattle. So that is why when we’re talking about January football, you have a quarterback who’s not turning the football over. And CJ Stroud, an offense that is finally getting things together and a defense that will prevent you from scoring any more than 15 points in a given Sunday. That’s why you take Houston here. All right. Let’s pivot to the NFC here. Because happenings all over the place once again some shifting due to the bears win and the green Bay loss Chicago jumping back into the lead for the North. They will meet in week 16 in Chicago. So that’s from seven back up to two. But I want to go south here as well because man does anybody want the football. Do you want the football I don’t you don’t want to. Too much stress. Nobody wants the football right now in that NFC South losses again here by the Buccaneers and by the Carolina Panthers. Heartbreaking in both of their fashions. They will meet week 16 and week 18. But you feel a bit better about Carolina right now right. If you think about how we got to this point the Rams lose to Carolina. We’re feeling good about the Panthers, the Bucs. We felt good about that game going into Atlanta. They blow that ballgame. And now we say okay the Panthers got they got the Saints. They get the revenge. The Saints indoors blah blah blah. They lose that game to New Orleans. And now you have everything chaotic and everything all out of whack. Which makes now these two games between the Bucs and Panthers playoff games. The reason why I trust Carolina, I trust the fact that their passing game is starting to come alive. They got some dudes at wide receiver, not pound for pound, better than the Bucs, but the passing game just seems to be a little bit more in sync defensively. The secondary a little bit healthier. They make plays on the ball to turn the ball over so I could trust him a little bit more. So then the Buccaneers the run game. I like their run game better than Tampa Bay. It’s just about which team for either side is going to show up on game day. But we get two of those matchups. Somebody’s got to win it. I don’t trust either of these teams in the postseason, but man, based off the series of events, yeah, like I lean more toward Carolina. I’m glad you put it exactly the way you did. Someone’s got to win it. And someone’s going to play in the postseason. Which means someone gets to play one of them in the postseason. Mac, that that brings me to the five seed. How valuable in your eyes is that five seed in the NFC? Because when I look at the NFC playoff picture, I feel like I see six teams that deserve to win a division and teams in the in the South right now. How important is the five seed? That’s very, very important because if you’re the fifth seed, you get the winner of the NFC South. And to Emery’s point, it’s hard to trust either team in terms of the two teams that could win the NFC South, the Carolina Panthers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Now, granted, you would have to travel, but you like your chances. And as we see it right now, the fifth seed would be the Seattle Seahawks. So if they if the playoffs started today Seattle would play either Carolina or Tampa or Seattle already played Tampa earlier this year in Seattle. Remember Tampa took care of business a three point win, 3835. But that was a different Tampa Bay Buccaneers team compared to what we’re seeing now. Baker was playing better football. The offense and totality was playing better football. Defensively. They were very, very opportunistic. Right now, what we’re seeing from Tampa Bay is not the same team that we watched earlier in the year, face off against Seattle. And then of course Seattle will play Carolina towards the end of the season I think I don’t know if it’s the second to last week. Week 17. Yeah. Week 17. So we will see this matchup as well. So if you’re the fifth seed and you’re not able to win your division, but you’re in the tournament, you don’t want to choose who you play in the playoffs because there’s no easy way out. But if you had to pick and you look at all the divisional winners in the incentives, that’s what I’m saying. You want to go to Chicago? No. Do you want to go to green Bay if that flips? Nope. You don’t want to go to Philadelphia. You don’t want to go to Rams, right? You want to go. If you had to make give me Tampa or Carolina. And I think all of us as football fans would say Seattle would take the winner or whoever the NFC South winner is. So that’s why the fifth seed is. So the fifth seed is so important right now because you get the win of the NFC South. JJ we’re doing a lot of entertaining of those on the right side of the line right now in the hunt. The Panthers again we’ve outlined the head to head there. But the Lions and the Cowboys the only two we’re looking on the in the hunt side of the graphic here. The Lions there is a path there. The playoff percentage has gone down. You’re feeling like we’re not solidified in seeding. But in our seven I do I absolutely do think that we have our seven with of course the caveat that we’re figuring out the NFC South team. But look right here and we have our projections right here. I’m not for the Lions to get in the some collection of the Bears or Packers have to fall under. The Packers just had some injuries right. They didn’t have enough injuries to drop two plus games, which is what the Lions would have to make up there. Not that we’ve seen the injuries to the San Francisco 40 niners. It doesn’t matter how many injuries you throw at them, they’re still going to win double digit games this season, and they’re still going to make the playoffs. And the Chicago Bears, I think we all agree, are a legitimate team that will be playing in January. So I just don’t see a space for the Detroit Lions. I think, to borrow a phrase that Bmac likes, they play with their food a little bit too long. Maybe Dan Campbell should have taken over offensive play calling before he did, before he took it away from Johnny Moore. Maybe that was a mistake to begin with. And look, they lost to a top tier team in the Rams on Sunday. We saw the difference between those two teams and for that reason down the stretch, and because of what we saw earlier in the season where they play with their food, they wound up losing too many games early on. I think that the Lions are on the outside looking in. The Cowboys could be eliminated honestly and truthfully, mathematically before they even take the field. In week 16. And again, the winner of the NFC South will take care of itself. Who wants the ball? It’s a question that will be answered over the next three weeks of this playoff picture comes into clearer focus. A look at your Super Bowl odds following week 15 Sunday odds to win Super Bowl 60 the Los Angeles Rams with good reason. You’re wagering favorites next to them. A divisional opponent in the Seattle Seahawks. On the flip side of that coin, on the other side of the ledger, top pick right now belongs to the New York Football Giants, followed by the Raiders

Bryant McFadden, Jonathan Jones, and Emory Hunt join CBS Sports HQ to discuss the latest NFL Playoff Picture following the Sunday slate of Week 15 games.

[00:00:00] Broncos hold top seed in AFC over Patriots
[00:05:34] Team better suited for playoff run: Texans or Jaguars?
[00:10:11] NFC South race
[00:11:45] Importance of 5-seed in NFC
[00:15:18] Super Bowl odds + Updated 2025 NFL Draft order

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#nfl #nflplayoffpicture #nflplayoffs #patriots #bills #broncos #buccaneers #panthers

39 comments

  2. “It’s Houston and it’s Denver and it’s sometimes Seattle…” The Philadelphia Eagles continued disrespect has to stop. We have a top 3 defense in the league yo

  5. I love the "test" the Jags need to prove themselves in continuously… Texans were a test earlier this year, the Chiefs and the 49ers early on, then the "Super" Chargers and then Daniel Jones and the Colts, now we need to prove ourselves against the Broncos??? Like we lost to arguably the 2 best teams in football in the Hawks and Rams put up 20+ points on the NFLs #1 Defense 2 times in the Texans and won in San Francisco against a hot team who was winning ball games… It's all good though we love the "respectful" write-offs we keep getting

  7. Jags didn’t win the second game because the offense cousin get a first down. We had them beat until the 4th quarter. Jags have the edge imo they the offense clicking like it is in Duval co

  8. Weird how no one seems to be looking closely at the Niners but they're a sleeping giant. The Rams travel to Seattle on a short week this thursday. Just think about what happens if the Rams lose on Thursday night this week. San Francisco wins out against Indy, Chicago, and beats Seattle in Santa Clara week 18. San Francisco wins the division and the #1 seed in the playoffs. I got money on a Denver versus SF superbowl.

  15. The Jag’s right now are the strongest team in the AFC South. They will destroy Denver next Sunday and win out, the rest of the season. Our defense is still not getting enough respect, they had 3 interceptions this past Sunday we are the best takeaway team in the league! The Jag’s will beat Denver 28-17 next weekend. Go Jag’s!!!!

  18. Media when the jags win the AFC South. “Yes, the jags won the division BUT… the Texans as still better somehow 😂.

    Anyone can do media now a days.

  22. Texan fan here. Let's goooo Texans! Get y'all's sh!t together! If y'all can't score when making it to the 20 yrd line then y'all ain't going to make it far. Clean it up Texans! Let's go! 🤘🏼🏈🍻

  25. The Jags put up all those points on Houston the first 3 quarters when the Jags weren't even at their best yet. Houston was still a #1 defense then.

    The Jags are clearly a different team now and would put up all those points and then some today, still while Houston being a #1 defense.

  32. Literally, they're in the same division, and we beat c j Stroud while he was healthy and if it wasn't for a collapse by us, we sweep them, they sound crazy, lead the league in rushing defense plus turnovers

  36. I love it, the Patriots lose one, and now they are counted out and doubt it. Well, we’ve been in this position before. I like to remind you although, we scored 31 points, and we’re up by 21 to nothing. When we get all our warriors back on deck, it will be a completely new story. Ask the referees why the Patriots lost, that clear interception by Marcus Jones, pass interference? Well, we know the NFL needs to protect their investment in Josh Allen.

  39. Bo Nix would probably be in the MVP conversation if not for the echo chamber some national shows have built around him — and Nick Wright has been the loudest voice in it. We’ve seen this movie before (Cowherd → Baker).

    Nix just put up one of the most efficient rookie seasons in NFL history and is on pace to have more wins in his first two seasons than any QB ever, passing Andrew Luck.

    This year? His numbers are almost identical to Josh Allen’s. When Allen leads a late drive, he’s “Superman.” When Nix does it, he somehow gets criticized for needing the drive.

    Nearly identical stats. More wins. #1 seed.

    Bo Chapman Nix for MVP

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