Welcome to The Athletic’s 2025 NFL Playoff Simulator, where you’ll find everything you need to know about all the ways your favorite team’s season could end, from a No. 1 playoff seed to the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.

Included is our best guess for the final playoff picture, along with a view of the standings if the season ended today:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/nfl-playoff-picture/2025/

31 comments
  1. As much as I hate to say this, it might be better for us to miss and get a better draft selection. We really need young, cheap talent.

  2. Don’t know why everyone is so desperate to limp into the playoffs with no pass rush or left tackle when we could draft a difference maker with a high pick

  3. Don’t care about the percentages, don’t care about the playoff picture or ways to sneak in, if we lose this game we’re missing the playoffs. If we can’t take home a W in the biggest must-win game we’ve seen in the Mahomes era AT ARROWHEAD, then this team just doesn’t have what it takes to win down the stretch.

  4. that’s 11% more than i would give them. To win the SB this year the chiefs would have to win 9 straight games. That isn’t happening with our defense. I’d prefer to just fade away rather than get bounced by the Broncos or Pats in the first round.

  5. And if we win against the Texans, Chiefs have a 57% chance to make the playoffs. It’ll be hard without Simmons, but we’re very much still in it.

  6. Genuine question – what’s the fanbase’s feelings on Veach and Andy? Like who’s to blame for the chiefs underperforming this year?

    The bills fanbase wants beane and mcdermott’s heads (which I can kind of understand for beane) but I think the bills’ coordinators are dog water. Seems like both teams are similar insofar as being in cap hell with underperforming players.

  7. If you want some positive thinking, we’re 5-1 at home, and our 3 hard games remaining Texans/Chargers/Broncos are all at home. Titans/Raiders should be guaranteed wins as we’ve blown out bad teams all year.

    If the Jags beat the Colts this weekend, they’ll have a strong hold on the division, and we’ll have tiebreakers over the Colts/Texans and things start looking pretty good.

  8. so there is still a chance? I don’t have the heart to watch this OL against THAT DL.

  9. 11% is still better than the Raiders 0%. We’ve been lucky for a decade. Time to let the Patriots play the Cowboys in the SB to make Trump happy. So it goes.

  10. Lmao 11%. Bro if we lose to the Texans why would we remotely even think we had a shot at the playoffs. Even beating them we need help.

  11. Chiefs beat the Texans. Ill hate-watch and doom post the whole time….. but i still believe!

  12. Its already a narrow path if we win out. A loss will unofficially eliminate us from the playoffs. We are already 2 back of all the current WildCard teams with 2 of them owning the tiebreaker vs us

  13. If we win all the rest of the games, the new york times playoff model gives us a 98 percent chance of making a playoffs. Of course, that is of right now.

  14. If they lose to Houston, they should go full tank mode and improve the draft slot. Mahomes- done for the year along with about 10 other “key to the future” players.

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