AFC Playoff picture: With the Chiefs eliminated, which team has the edge?

You can't say Week 15 of the NFL season didn't deliver on drama. From Atlanta's improbable one-point victory over Tampa Bay on Thursday, to a chaotic Sunday slate, much has changed in the course of a few hours. Especially in the AFC.

The Kansas City Chiefs are done for the season and Patrick Mahomes has a torn ACL. The New England Patriots fell out of the No. 1 seed with a brutal loss to the division-rival Buffalo Bills. Philip Rivers made his triumphant return, but couldn't quite help the Indianapolis Colts make up ground. The Baltimore Ravens kept their playoff hopes alive (and ended Cincinnati's) with a dominant win, looking more like the Ravens of old.

Here's how it all shakes out.

AFC Playoff picture after Chiefs are eliminated, Bills topple Patriots

No matter how you slice it, the AFC postseason race figures to come down to the wire. Even as the field thins out, there is so much left unsettled heading into the final three weeks of the campaign.

The top three teams in the AFC South are all within 2.0 games of each other. Jacksonville's 48-20 drubbing of the Jets on Sunday afternoon was mighty impressive. Trevor Lawrence scored a career-high six TDs. But even after five straight wins, the Jags have Houston and the NFL's No. 1 defense on their heels — with Philip Rivers' Colts still in the mix, too.

Buffalo toppled New England on Sunday, ending the Patriots' impressive 10-game win streak. It was a hard-fought battle, and Patriots fans needn't sound the alarm bells. But the loss does move Josh Allen and a far more experienced Bills team within a game of the division lead. Buffalo and New England split the season series, so the tiebreaker could get messy if it comes to that.

Baltimore's blowout win over the Bengals keeps them very much alive in the AFC North (and removes any hope of a Cincinnati Cinderella run, officially nixing Joe Burrow's 2025 postseason hopes). Pittsburgh currently holds the half-game lead (and the season series edge) ahead of their Monday night showdown against Miami in the snow. If the Steelers win, Mike Tomlin's squad will be in a favorable position. But a Week 18, head-to-head season finale between Pittsburgh and Baltimore could end up determining which AFC North team punches its postseason ticket.

In the hunt

The Colts remain in the fray. I'm not sure Philip Rivers has enough in the tank to drag Indianapolis across the finish line, but Sunday's performance was proof that he can at least do the bare minimum. If the Colts' run game and defense come up large, never say never.

Baltimore deserves a ton of credit for Sunday's takedown of the Bengals. Cincy still had faint postseason odds to play for this offense, especially with Joe Burrow, can still find a spark. But that speak did not occur on Sunday. This was the best Baltimore's defense — once considered the class of the AFC — has looked, really all season. Lamar Jackson continues to underperform, but Derrick Henry made the most of his touches. If the defense performs like it did on Sunday, that's all the Ravens need to end Pittsburgh's preposterous postseason streak.

Miami heads into Monday's game against Pittsburgh with a less than one percent chance of making the playoffs. It would essentially require a perfect sequence of events, including for the Dolphins to end the campaign on a seven-game win streak, which feels... improbable. It doesn't help that Tua Tagovailoa and this Miami offense almost never performs well in the snow. The odds are stacked dramatically against the Dolphins.

What comes next for the Chiefs?

The Chiefs fell to 6-8 with Sunday's loss to the Chargers. As a cherry on top of an extremely disappointing season, Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL in the final seconds and could miss significant time next season, too. The Chiefs are eliminated from postseason contention.

What began as a hopeful campaign has turned into an abject nightmare for the Chiefs, but the question on everyone's mind is: what's next? Gardner Minshew is currently in line to open the 2026 season under center, barring a medical miracle with Mahomes' recovery. Travis Kelce probably retires, too. This Chiefs core has gotten much early, and it's clear this supporting cast as is can't support Mahomes — much less Minshew or a different second-rate replacement.

It's too early to proclaim this Chiefs dynasty as "dead," but man, it sure is on life support. The Chiefs have a full year now to reshape the roster so that Mahomes returns to a more suitable environment, but it's hard to see exactly how Kansas City can navigate its inflated cap sheet and deteriorating core.

Mahomes is a source of light — hope in the darkness and whatnot — but even if he's still one of the very best at his position post-injury, there's a long way to go before the Chiefs are considered serious Super Bowl threats again. These next couple years will be Mahomes' biggest test and absolutely critical in shaping the narrative of his career.

Who is the favorite to come out of the AFC?

The Chiefs have won the AFC Championship Game in five of the last six years. Their lone slip-up came against Joe Burrow and the now-eliminated Bengals. So this will be a season of change for the conference. A new champ will be crowned, and as of now, it's unclear which teams exactly are favored.

The Denver Broncos advanced to 12-2 with Sunday's win over Green Bay, becoming the first AFC team to officially clinch a postseason berth. The Patriots' loss also moved Denver into sole possession of the No. 1 seed, for now.

But is Denver classically constructed like a Super Bowl champ? Not really. Bo Nix is a second-year quarterback who has largely underwhelmed relative to expectations. He's a smart signal-caller and he has plenty of big-game experience dating back to his loooooong college career, but the NFL postseason is a whole new beast.

Defense carries Denver on a weekly basis. In many ways, the best comp for this Broncos team — at least as far as past Super Bowl champs are concerned — would be the 2016 Broncos, who rode a shutdown defense all the way to a Lombari Trophy, despite a dink-and-dunk offense. But Peyton Manning was Denver's quarterback in 2016. He was long removed from his prime, but he was still Peyton Manning. Nix doesn't exactly have the same postseason résumé to lean on.

Buffalo has struggled with depth, but Sunday's win over the Patriots brought them to 10-4. Josh Allen is still the best quarterback in the NFL, which goes a long way in the playoffs. He doesn't have a great supporting cast, but Buffalo has been knocking on the door for years. Their great postseason bugaboo, the demon in need of exorcism, was the Chiefs, who no longer stand in their way.

The Patriots are still 11-3 and currently the No. 2 seed in the AFC. The Pats won 10 straight prior to Sunday's hard-fought loss to Buffalo. Drake Maye is only in his second NFL season, but unlike Bo Nix, he has made a pronounced leap — from a pleasantly surprising Pro Bowl rookie to potential NFL MVP frontrunner.

Mike Vrabel is a great coach and New England executes at a high level across the board, but the inexperience factor looms large. Maye has never played on the postseason stage. This is a younger team, just beginning to understand its full potential. Maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe it even plays into their hands — fresh legs, hungry mindset, and immense confidence. But New England is less proven than Kansas City, Buffalo and the standard AFC contenders in recent years.

Those feel like the three most obvious candidates, but the AFC is quite crowded. The Chargers beat Philadelphia and Kansas City, last season's Super Bowl teams, back-to-back to advance to 10-4. The Texans are red hot and, statistically, own the NFL's best defense. CJ Stroud inspires a bit confidence than Bo Nix, if we're comparing 2016 Broncos facsimiles.

Even the Baltimore Ravens, if they manage to pull out an NFC North title, bear mentioning. Lamar Jackson has been working toward his postseason moment for so long and that roster is as talented as any in the AFC. Both Harbaugh brothers — in L.A. and Baltimore — have been here and done that.

if asked to pick the "favorite" in a wide open field, I'd probably err on the side of recent history and predict that Buffalo finally breaks through. But really, truthfully, this is a coin flip and there is no clear wrong answer. Even Jacksonville has developed an absurd clutch gene under Liam Coen. Anything is possible.