There are three weeks left in the 2022 NFL season, and little has been decided in the AFC. We know the Chiefs have won the West and the Bills have clinched a postseason spot. Everything else is up for grabs. There are 13 teams that can wake up Thursday morning with realistic hopes of making it to the playoffs.
Four of those teams are leading their respective divisions. There are nine competing for three AFC wild-card spots. Let's talk about that race and the teams outside of first place that have the best postseason shot. After a week in which games took stunning turns at halftime, on the final snap of the game and in overtime, we should remember that so much can change over these final three weeks.
With that said, I'm going to focus on the six teams whose chances of advancing into the postseason are at least 10%, per ESPN's Football Power Index. In doing so, I have to leave out three 6-8 teams:
The Pittsburgh Steelers (FPI projected playoff odds: 0.1%) won their third game in four weeks to keep their slim postseason hopes alive, but those wins have come against the Colts, Falcons and Panthers, who are a combined 14-27-1. With a 2-7 record in the AFC, Pittsburgh is hamstrung by a key tiebreaker in the wild-card race. Per The Upshot, the Steelers could win out and still have only a 4% chance of advancing to the postseason. They would need to have multiple games go their way each week to stay alive.
The Cleveland Browns (0.4%) followed in Pittsburgh's footsteps with their own win, taking advantage of a Tyler Huntley-led Ravens offense to win Deshaun Watson's first home start. Watson has struggled for consistency since rejoining the team after his suspension, but the bigger problem is the losses they racked up with Jacoby Brissett at quarterback. They would lose head-to-head tiebreakers to the Jets, Chargers, Patriots, Dolphins and Bills, making a wild-card berth at 9-8 nearly impossible.
The Las Vegas Raiders (3.8%) salvaged their season with an incredible come-from-behind victory against the Patriots, with Derek Carr converting a fourth-and-10 to extend the contest and finding Keelan Cole for a tying touchdown before that famous "pitchy pitchy woo woo" finish in Las Vegas. The 2021 Raiders were on the ropes at 6-7 before winning their final four games and making it into the postseason, sparking hope they could again ride a hot streak in the final month of the season into a playoff berth.
Anything is possible with the Raiders, who seem to play a game that either traumatizes themselves or their opponents each week. There's also a slim chance the Chiefs have nothing to play for in Week 18 and sit their starters, which would turn a difficult matchup into a much easier contest. Even if the Raiders win out against the Steelers, 49ers and Chiefs, though, they would still have only about a 60% chance of advancing to the postseason. Every other team ahead of them is essentially a lock to get in if they win out.
Let's run through the six remaining wild-card teams by increasing playoff odds:
Jump to a team:
Chargers | Dolphins | Jaguars
Jets | Patriots | Ravens
6. New England Patriots (7-7)
FPI playoff odds: 13.8%
The Patriots have nobody to blame but themselves. Holding a 24-17 lead on the Raiders with 1:54 to go, New England was a fourth-and-10 stop away from getting the ball and dropping into victory formation. The Patriots had forced six consecutive incompletions from Derek Carr and rallied their way back from a 17-3 halftime deficit to a commanding position. At 8-6, the Patriots would have been in great shape to make a return trip to the postseason.
You know what happened next. Carr hit Mack Hollins on a curl against Marcus Jones to extend the game. He completed three straight passes and then found Keelan Cole for a 30-yard touchdown pass to tie the game. The Patriots got the ball back and picked up 20 yards before stalling out. On a third-and-10 with three seconds and 55 yards to go, with a quarterback Bill Belichick admitted after the game isn't capable of throwing a Hail Mary from that distance into the end zone, things went from frustrating to absurd.
We've already had plenty of coverage of the now-famous "pitchy pitchy woo woo" play, but I keep coming back to what happened beforehand. If the goal of the play was for Rhamondre Stevenson to run forward, get down and get the game to overtime without any incidents, why were they running a play at all when Mac Jones could have simply kneeled?
The possible upside from running a draw (a rushing touchdown or a Raiders penalty setting up a winning field goal try) are way less likely to occur than the downsides (a fumble or, as you saw, a mental meltdown). I've been harping on this for a decade or so now.
Belichick doesn't typically make those sort of mistakes. Does Matt Patricia? It might be unfair to lump in the curious third-down call with the other criticism being levied toward the former Lions coach, but the Patriots seem embroiled in a weekly controversy on offense. Every quarterback gets frustrated, and Tom Brady spiked a tablet or two in his day, but the cameras spot Jones hollering and ranting after nearly every failed series in December.
Since returning from his high ankle sprain in Week 7, Jones ranks last in the NFL in QBR by a considerable margin. His 29.1 mark is eight points below that of Russell Wilson. Benched passers like Marcus Mariota, Matt Ryan, Zach Wilson and Davis Mills have all been better. Jones is flailing and furious, and it doesn't seem ike the Patriots have any answers. Against the league's worst pass defense this past Sunday, Jones started 11-of-26 for 65 yards.
My friend Nate Tice, a former quarterback himself, likes to talk about the "easy button" and what passer-friendly options a coordinator is providing to his signal-caller. For some teams, that can be a star receiver who wins most one-on-one matchups and gives his quarterback an option on contested catches. The Patriots don't have that guy on the roster, so that's not a solution. Jones was forced to throw those passes up to guys like Nelson Agholor and Jakobi Meyers on Sunday, and they didn't do him many favors.
One easy button is to use run-pass options (RPOs). It's particularly relevant with Jones given his college background. At Alabama, Jones lined up in the shotgun on virtually every snap, as just 11 of his 579 dropbacks came from under center between 2019 and 2020. Just under 20% of Jones' pass attempts were charted as RPOs, and the 24-year-old completed more than 91% of those throws. RPOs shouldn't be your entire offense, but they can be a source of high-percentage completions for a young quarterback.
According to the charting at Pro Football Reference, Jones has just seven pass attempts on RPOs all season. Jones is throwing RPOs on about 2% of his passes, down from 6% a year ago. The only quarterback in the NFL who has thrown a lower percentage of his pass attempts as RPOs is the Saints' Andy Dalton.
OK, maybe the Patriots just don't like RPOs. What about play-action? Quarterbacks on the whole are about eight points of QBR better when they run a play fake as opposed to throwing the ball on a standard dropback. Play-action has to fit into the offense and make sense, but the Pats ran the same play-action pass concept successfully with Brady for about 20 years.
Play-action isn't a significant part of the New England offense this season. Just 19.5% of Jones' pass attempts have come off play-action this season, a percentage that ranks 25th out of 31 passers. Jones hasn't been great on play-action, posting a QBR of 37.0, but that mark is still just under 10 points better than his QBR without play-action involved. The Patriots have been effective running the ball with Stevenson, so even with Jones preferring to work out of the shotgun, they should be able to build a play-action game off their rushing attack.
Instead, with limited receivers, a struggling group of tackles and little confidence in their quarterback, the Patriots' offense mostly relies upon quick game, something Jones expressed frustration with earlier this season. Unfortunately, Jones' 27.1 QBR on quick game is the worst in the league by more than 14 points. His completion percentage on those throws is 72.8%, but even that mark is 6.1% below what an average passer would expect to produce on those same attempts, per NFL Next Gen Stats.
I could keep going. Jones' QBR on throws outside the numbers is 32nd in the league, ahead of only Baker Mayfield and 11 points worse than Mills in 31st. He jumps to 31st on deep passes, but Jones has thrown interceptions on six of his 64 downfield throws this season. Jones is completing just under 91% of his screens, but his 9.5 QBR on those throws is 27th in the league. It is difficult to identify what Jones does well right now, and you can tell Jones is enduring those same doubts.
In the bigger picture, perhaps Belichick is thinking about simply minimizing the harm Jones can do to his team's chances of winning. The Patriots lead the league in EPA per defensive snap since Week 4. Stevenson is averaging 5 yards per carry. When the Patriots don't turn the ball over more than once, they're 7-4. The Patriots drafted Jones with the hopes he could lead them to victory. Right now -- or until Belichick can reassess their offense in the offseason -- their best chance of making it to the postseason is probably by hiding Jones and carrying him along for the ride.
5. New York Jets (7-7)
FPI playoff odds: 15.5%
In his return to the lineup, Zach Wilson looked a lot like ... Zach Wilson. Facing a Detroit pass defense ranked 22nd in the league by DVOA, Wilson went 18-of-35 for 317 yards with two touchdown passes and an interception. Wilson did make a very nice throw on the first of his two touchdown passes to C.J. Uzomah, but as was the case earlier in the season, many of Wilson's biggest completions were passes that required the receiver to win at the point of the catch or dangerous throws that are likely to result in interceptions against better defenses.
Take Wilson's biggest play of the game, his 50-yard completion to Jeff Smith with 25 seconds left in the first half. Working out of a reduced split, Smith runs by outside cornerback Jeff Okudah, who has no safety help over the top. With a very good throw, this would have been a 81-yard touchdown for the Jets before the break. Instead, with a totally clean pocket, Wilson's throw hangs in the air and forces Smith to come to a complete stop before bringing the throw in. The drive ended up producing a field goal, but the four extra points a touchdown would have produced would have been very valuable in a game eventually decided by a field goal.
Zach Wilson's 50-yard completion to Jeff Smith at the end of the first half. pic.twitter.com/cBEhIEL2NK
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) December 20, 2022
Jets coach Robert Saleh backed the 2021 second overall pick after the game. "The frustrating thing," Saleh said, "is that this kid's going to be a good quarterback. The NFL and this new instant coffee world that we're in just does not want to give people time." Saleh has a point about the outside world passing judgment on players too quickly, but it seems a little disingenuous given that Saleh benched Wilson a month ago.
Saleh has his own second-year hiccups to deal with. In a winnable game at home against a Lions team that might be the mirror image of their counterparts in New York, the 43-year-old cost his team a better chance at tying up the game on that final drive with subpar clock management.
The key decision was choosing not to use a timeout when Garrett Wilson caught a pass on the Jets' 48-yard line to move the chains. With 49 seconds to go and three timeouts in his pocket, Saleh didn't use a timeout and let 18 seconds come off the clock before the Jets ran their next play. The Jets eventually got in position for a 58-yard field goal attempt with one second left, but Saleh ended up using only two of his three timeouts, leaving one in his pocket. The Jets likely cost themselves a couple of plays to march the ball closer to the end zone by not using their timeouts efficiently.
Saleh will get better at managing the clock, and he has done an excellent job of molding his defense into something special. Without defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, who has played at an All-Pro level the season, the Jets still held their own against one of the league's hottest offenses. The Lions scored just six points on three trips to the red zone, including a fourth-and-goal stop at the 1-yard line and a field goal on a drive that started on the Jets' 15 after a Wilson interception.
Unfortunately, the Jets blew a coverage on the final drive of the afternoon, with tight end Brock Wright taking a fourth-and-inches catch to the house for a 51-yard touchdown. It was a rare misstep for a Jets defense that has wiped away the big play; the game winner was the first play of 40 or more yards the Jets had allowed since Week 9 and just the third they had allowed since Week 4. Over the past 12 weeks, the Jets rank second in the NFL in EPA per play allowed, trailing only the Patriots.
Thursday, they get the surging Jaguars, who represent a uniquely difficult matchup for Saleh's defense. The strength of the New York secondary is on the outside at cornerback, where Sauce Gardner and D.J. Reed have formed one of the league's best one-two punches. Saleh typically leaves his cornerbacks on their own sides of the field without having them follow a player around.
As we've seen with Evan Engram and Zay Jones posting monster games in consecutive weeks, the Jaguars are willing to spread the football around. They also attack the slot -- 39.5% of their passing yardage this season has come on throws to players who started the play working out of the slot, which is sixth highest in football. Given their cornerbacks, the Jets unsurprisingly are the league's second-best pass defense by QBR on throws to players lining up outside, but they're 14th against throws to receivers lining up in the slot.
At 7-7, a loss Thursday would leave New York's playoff hopes in dire straits. The Jets would subsequently lose any head-to-head tiebreaker with the Jaguars. They also lose tiebreakers against the Bengals, Ravens and Patriots, having lost four combined games to those teams. This will also be their final home game of the season, as they'll finish on the road against the Seahawks and Dolphins.
The Jets are in if they win out, barring a terrible confluence of events. (They could still miss out with three wins if the Patriots win out, the Chargers beat the Colts and Broncos, and the Ravens lose two of their final three games.) They would be favorites to sneak in if they can beat the Jaguars and Dolphins and finish 9-8, although they would need one of their rivals to slip up.
For a team that hasn't made the playoffs since 2010 and wasn't expected to be in the mix in 2022, being in the race is a victory. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the future of this franchise, even with questions about the quarterback. What happens with Wilson over the next three weeks, though, will both decide the Jets' season and determine what sort of taste this fan base has in its mouth heading into the offseason.
4. Jacksonville Jaguars (6-8)
FPI playoff odds: 44.0%
While the Jags are a game behind the Patriots and Jets in the standings, their path toward winning the AFC South gives Jacksonville a much better chance of advancing into the postseason. To win the division, the Jags need to win one of their next two games, have the Titans lose one of their next two, and then beat Tennessee at home in Week 18 to clinch the South. Both the Jags and Titans get matchups with the Texans over the next two weeks, but while the Jags face the Jets, the Titans host the 10-4 Cowboys.
At midseason, I wrote about the league's luckiest and unluckiest teams. The Jags fell into the latter category. Despite playing well deep into games and performing like one of the league's better teams on early downs, the Jags were coming up short late in games and inside the red zone. They had been favored to win in eight different fourth quarters during the first half of the season, a mark they shared with teams that went a combined 27-5. The Jaguars were 3-5 in those same games.
Have they done a better job of closing out games? Not really. Since that column was written, the Jaguars have been favored to win three times in the fourth quarter. They won one, beating the Titans handily in Week 14. In the other two, the Jaguars' defense blew a lead inside the final four minutes, only for the offense to save the day.
That offense has started to carry their success in low-leverage situations to the money downs and in the red zone. Through their first 10 games, the Jaguars were fifth in the league in EPA per play on first and second down, but that mark fell to 20th on third and fourth downs. Given that teams see more first and second downs than the other two, the former is usually a better judge of how they'll perform moving forward, even if third and fourth downs mean a lot more in terms of winning games.
Unsurprisingly, Trevor Lawrence & Co. have aligned with that idea. The Jags have been better on third and fourth down, where they're eighth in EPA per play, than they've been on first and second down, where they've been 12th. Facing one of the league's most difficult defenses last Sunday, the Jaguars went 8-for-12 on third down against the Cowboys, including conversions on all four fourth-quarter attempts.
Likewise, the Jags had been effective outside the red zone but struggled with both effectiveness and takeaways after getting there. Through Week 10, the Jaguars were the sixth-best team in the league in EPA per offensive snap outside the red zone but fell to 25th in EPA per play once they got inside the 20.
Over the past month, that gap has disappeared. Like the down splits, the Jags have taken a step backward outside the red zone, where they rank 12th across their past four games. Inside the red zone, they're now 11th in EPA per play. History tells us the Jags would get better in those situations, and that's exactly what has happened over the past month.
If you're looking for a more tangible difference in what has changed, look at Lawrence's decision-making inside the red zone. Through the first 10 weeks of the year, Lawrence and the Jacksonville offense turned the ball over four times. Lawrence threw three interceptions, while Travis Etienne Jr. lost a fumble against the Giants. Etienne dropped a would-be touchdown in the opening-week loss to the Commanders, while Lawrence missed his Clemson teammate for what would have been a second score in that same game. Sloppy play in key situations doomed the Jaguars.
Over the past month, the Jaguars have no giveaways in the red zone. The Cowboys game was the first time since Halloween that the Jaguars have turned the ball over more than once, a sign their habits are improving. Their victory over Dallas despite turning the ball over three times was a sign of how the ceiling has been raised by this offense, too; the last time the Jaguars won a game in which they turned the ball over three or more times was in Week 4 in 2018.
As for Lawrence, the accuracy issues he was exhibiting earlier this season have faded. During Jacksonville's five-game losing streak in October, Lawrence threw more than 21% of his passes off target, the league's highest mark. His receivers were dropping too many passes, but that off-target figure doesn't include those drops.
Since returning from London after the Week 8 loss to the Broncos, the Jaguars have gone 4-2. Lawrence has thankfully been a much more accurate quarterback, as his 12.5% off-target rate is sixth best in football. He is completing nearly 71% of his attempts and posting a positive completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) while throwing 14 touchdown passes against one pick. He's fourth in the NFL in QBR over that stretch, trailing only Patrick Mahomes, Justin Fields and Jalen Hurts.
Lawrence playing like a superstar makes a lot of things possible. This defense is still ailed by the same high-leverage issues that plagued the offense earlier this season, as they rank 29th in third-down conversion rate allowed and 28th in red zone touchdown rate allowed. The Jags rank 16th in pressure rate, but when they do get on the opposing quarterback, they're the league's second-worst team at converting pressure into sacks.
Like the Jets, it's easy to be excited about where the Jags are heading, regardless of what happens over the next few weeks. Unlike the Jets, that excitement is a product of a quarterback as opposed to being in spite of that quarterback. With the Titans flailing and losing more players to injury with each week, the Jags might just have enough in the tank to turn Week 18 into a play-in game.
3. Miami Dolphins (8-6)
FPI playoff odds: 72.7%
While the Dolphins weren't enthused to lose Saturday night in Buffalo, there were some positives to take away from their performance. The running game gashed the Bills, with Raheem Mostert averaging 8.0 yards per carry. The steady rhythm of big plays that had been missing from the losses to the 49ers and Chargers began to reappear, as Tua Tagovailoa averaged 7.8 yards per attempt and didn't turn the ball over.
I'm still not sure we saw as many adjustments as I might have expected to how teams have chosen to defend Miami's devastating downfield attack. We saw the 49ers and Chargers get more aggressive at the line of scrimmage and play more press man coverage while taking away the middle of the field. The 49ers do this by habit and talent, while the Chargers did it more deliberately by scheme. Los Angeles dared Tagovailoa to hit shots outside the numbers against them, and outside of the long touchdown pass to Tyreek Hill, he didn't take advantage.
There are lots of things the Dolphins can do to address those concerns if Tagovailoa executes. Going vertical down the sidelines, as they did for scores to Hill in consecutive games, is a way to scare teams off press man coverage. Picks and rubs can create throwing lanes and yards-after-the-catch opportunities. If corners are going to play tight and with inside leverage to try to take away the middle of the field, the back shoulder becomes utterly indefensible. Motion, which the Dolphins use plenty already, can screen receivers from contact at the line of scrimmage and get them a running start. The Dolphins have to hit more of these, because teams recognize how deadly Miami's RPO game and middle-of-the-field passing attack can be when Tagovailoa is in rhythm.
What has been most concerning for me with this offense, though, is pass protection. Prior to Terron Armstead's pectoral injury roughly halfway through the Week 12 win over the Texans, Tagovailoa had been sacked eight times in eight games. The Texans then sacked him four times in the second half before Tagovailoa was pulled from the game, and the 49ers got him three times the following week.
Armstead has played through the injury over the past couple of weeks, but over the past three and a half games, Tagovailoa has been sacked 11 times. The Dolphins can hit big plays when Tagovailoa is under pressure and finds the right receiver, but he becomes much less accurate. Tagovailoa's CPOE under pressure is minus-6.7%, which ranks 24th in the NFL. He's still pretty solid by the reduced baseline of quarterbacks under pressure, but we've seen how limited Tagovailoa can be when he doesn't trust his offensive line and wants to get the ball out as fast as possible. The 2022 Dolphins don't want to live through that.
The good news for Miami's defense is that Bradley Chubb has added significant bite to its pass rush. The on/off splits with Chubb in the mix are significant. The Dolphins are allowing 6.0 yards per pass attempt with Chubb on the field this season, down from 7.5 yards per attempt without him. Quarterbacks are completing just 63% of their passes with the former Bronco in the mix, down from 70.2%. Their off-target rate is up to 18.4% from 13.5%.
Most directly, the Dolphins are getting much better pressure and sack rates with Chubb on the field. Their 8.2% sack rate with Chubb would rank fourth in the NFL this season over the full campaign. Josh Allen and Justin Fields were able to create big plays with their legs, but there are no particularly mobile quarterbacks left on the regular-season schedule for the Dolphins.
Wins over the Patriots and Jets would get the Dolphins into the postseason for the first time since 2016, the first year of the Adam Gase era. Beating the Packers and one of those two AFC East rivals would get the Dolphins most of the way there; they would miss out only if the divisional team that beats Miami wins out and the Ravens and Chargers also clinch spots.
The Dolphins can lose both AFC East games and find their way into the postseason, but they would have to beat the Packers, see the Patriots and Jets lose their non-Dolphins games, and have the Raiders lose one of their final three contests. Mike McDaniel and the Dolphins will get in any way they can, but losing five of their final six wouldn't augur much optimism about Miami notching its first playoff win since 2000.
2. Los Angeles Chargers (8-6)
FPI playoff odds: 94.1%
For years, the book on the Chargers has been that they've been brutally unlucky. There have been exceptions, with 2018 the most notable example, but the Chargers typically leave the country wanting more. They appeared in my preseason list of the teams most likely to improve three seasons in a row, and while they improved each time, they made a major leap only in that third season. Naturally, that was in 2018, when they overperformed their point differential and then fell way below it again the following season.
This Chargers team is lucky! It has gotten fortuitous bounces in its favor, made big plays (at times) when it needed and outperformed its point differential. The Chargers are 8-6 despite a minus-28 point differential. They are 7-4 in games decided by seven points or fewer, which has been the margin of each of their seven games since the Week 8 bye. A quick reminder of what has happened in several of their victories:
The Chargers beat the Falcons in Week 9 on a last-second field goal in a game in which Austin Ekeler fumbled the ball away with 46 seconds to go, only for the Falcons to fumble away that recovery 19 yards later. Justin Herbert then hit Joshua Palmer to get back in field goal range.
Trailing 24-17 to the Cardinals in Week 12, Herbert led a touchdown drive and scored a touchdown with 18 seconds to go. Brandon Staley then went for two to win the game, and the Chargers converted on a slant to Gerald Everett.
The Chargers' defense blew a 14-7 lead over the Titans with 48 seconds to go this past Sunday, and despite employing Derrick Henry against one of the league's worst run defenses, Mike Vrabel chose to kick the extra point. Herbert, who had struggled for consistency against an injury-hit Titans pass defense for most of the day, woke up and fired a howitzer to Mike Williams to get in range for a winning field goal from Cameron Dicker.
By Chargers standards, having a kicker hit a winning field goal qualifies as extraordinary. Herbert deserves credit for pulling off those drives and many others, but leaving the game to be won until the final minute (and then fumbling) is usually a very unsustainable way of maintaining a winning record, let alone doing so as the Chargers.
The reality is this offense hasn't been very good for the vast majority of the season. The Chargers are 14th in points per game but 24th in DVOA. The gap owes to a few factors. According to Football Outsiders, Staley's team has played the easiest slate of opposing defenses. It has been able to run 150 offensive possessions, ninth most of any team. The league's seventh-worst red zone offense has been bailed out by excellent kicking, as three kickers have combined to go 26-of-28 on field goal tries. Opposing kickers have hit just 78.1% of their tries, sixth worst in football.
Chargers fans will rightfully point out there's an element in which their team has been both quite unlucky and aligned with its ominous past. Injuries have devastated this team. Free agent addition J.C. Jackson and star left tackle Rashawn Slater are out for the year. Edge rusher Joey Bosa has been on injured reserve for two months. Keenan Allen missed most of the first half of the season, while Williams was sidelined for the better part of five games. Corey Linsley has been in and out of the lineup, while Derwin James Jr. has sat for two weeks because of a quad injury. Herbert played through fractured rib cartilage.
There's a Super Bowl core of talent here. The good news is that most of it could be back for the postseason. Allen and Williams have finally been back on the field together the past couple of weeks, joining Linsley on offense. Bosa and James should be back by the end of the season. It won't be a complete roster, but if the Chargers can get close, that could be enough to elevate their level of play beyond what their point differential suggests.
Having won three of their past four to get to 8-6, the Chargers have done most of the hard work already. If anything, they should look like one of the league's hottest teams heading into January given their upcoming schedule. Herbert & Co. finish their season with games against the Colts, Rams and Broncos, who are all eliminated from postseason consideration. Winning all three games would make the Chargers prohibitive favorites to land the No. 5 seed, which would likely mean a first-round game against the Jaguars or Titans. Even winning the two AFC games should get Los Angeles in the postseason for the first time since 2018, which would feel like a victory after last season's ignominious ending.
1. Baltimore Ravens (9-5)
FPI playoff odds: 99.4%
The Ravens are nearly over the playoff line. They were in first place in the AFC North until this past weekend, when they lost to the Browns and the Bengals came back to beat the Buccaneers. Winning one more game against the Falcons, Steelers or Bengals would be enough to clinch a playoff spot for John Harbaugh's team.
Even if the Ravens were somehow swept, the Upshot still thinks the Ravens would be favorites to get in. It would take a trio of losses, three straight wins from the Browns and a little more help for the Ravens to miss the postseason for the second consecutive season.
Having said that, would you blame Ravens fans for being nervous? They were 8-3 a year ago and lost six straight to end the season amid an injury to Lamar Jackson. In 2017, needing to beat the 6-9 Bengals (or have the Bills or Titans lose) to clinch a spot, Joe Flacco and the Ravens blew a fourth-quarter lead and allowed Andy Dalton to throw a 49-yard touchdown pass on fourth-and-12 with 44 seconds to go to miss the postseason.
For the second year in a row, Jackson is injured with an uncertain recovery timetable. The Ravens were able to pull out a 10-9 victory over the lowly Broncos after Jackson went down in the first quarter and topped the Steelers 16-14 the following week, but on a day when Tyler Huntley threw an interception in the red zone and two Justin Tucker kicks failed to reach their intended destination, the Ravens lost 13-3 to the Browns.
The Ravens have scored two touchdowns in nearly three full games since Jackson went down. One came on a short field after a 17-yard Steelers punt. The other, a 17-play, 91-yard drive to win the game against the Broncos, required two fourth-down conversions and 15- and 17-yard penalties against the Denver defense. Baltimore is 27th in offensive EPA per play over that stretch.
But if we're being honest, the Ravens' offense wasn't playing very well before Jackson went out either. After a three-game outburst to start the season, Baltimore is 21st in EPA per play on offense. It's 26th over that stretch in touchdowns per possession on offense, ahead of only some truly broken offenses in the Texans, Commanders, Rams, Patriots, Broncos and Colts.
The Ravens don't need to have a dominant passing attack, but they need to be able to scare teams by hitting shots downfield. Since Week 4, they have only eight completions on passes traveling 20 or more yards in the air, which is tied with the Falcons, who seem to throw the ball only four or five times per game. The only team with fewer deep completions over that stretch is the Giants, who simply don't attempt deep passes.
As with the Chargers, injuries explain some of the problems. Rashod Bateman, who caught long touchdown passes in each of the first two weeks of the season, got hurt in Week 4 and never got right before hitting injured reserve. Mark Andrews, the team's star tight end, suffered knee and shoulder injuries in midseason, missed a couple of weeks and hasn't been the same since.
Andrews averaged 2.5 yards per route run through Week 6, right in line with the 2.5 mark he posted a year ago. As the focal point of Baltimore's passing attack, he was averaging 76 receiving yards per game. Since getting injured against the Bucs in Week 8 and returning, Andrews has averaged just 1.5 yards per route run and 41 receiving yards per contest. Given how incredible his connection was with Huntley a year ago, you can't blame Andrews' struggles on missing Jackson, either.
The one saving grace for the offense might be the running back who has been missing for most of the past two seasons. J.K. Dobbins doesn't have his last gear of acceleration back after tearing his ACL in training camp a year ago, but he has been the sole big-play threat for Baltimore. Dobbins has runs of 37 and 44 yards over the past two weeks while averaging nearly 9 yards per carry. It's an extremely small sample, but Dobbins' 109 rush yards over expectation (RYOE) and five first downs over expectation (FDOE) over the past two weeks are the most in football.
If you're the Ravens, though, what do you do? With the playoffs all but clinched, do you expand Dobbins' role, rush Jackson back into the mix and get everyone on board to try to win the North? Or do you try to get everyone healthy for the postseason, sneak a win over the final three weeks to clinch your spot and run the risk of facing the Bills or Chiefs in the first round? Given how dramatically they've collapsed in years past, I wonder if they'll be more aggressive than most.