The Kansas City Chiefs clinched the No. 1 seed in the AFC on Christmas Day, and now they get to sit back and enjoy the spoils of their success with a bye on Wild Card Weekend.
Meanwhile, the other six teams in the AFC playoff bracket are fighting it out for three spots in the Divisional Round, with one of them having to go into Arrowhead and face the Chiefs.
Now that all three AFC playoff games are over, we know who the Chiefs will host this coming weekend.
Who Do the Chiefs Play in the Divisional Round?
With the Ravens (3 seed) defeating the Steelers (6 seed) and the Texans (4 seed) defeating the Chargers (5 seed), the Chiefs will host the Texans in the Divisional Round.
We do not yet know what day or time the game will take place, which will be announced before Monday Night’s game between the Rams and Vikings is over.
Here is the most updated playoff bracket following the Bills-Broncos game.
Entering Sunday, What Were the Kansas City Chiefs Playoff Scenarios?
Following the Texans’ win over the Chargers and the Ravens’ win over the Steelers, the Chiefs had just two potential opponents out of the remaining teams on Wild Card Weekend: the Texans and Broncos.
That’s because they cannot face either the Buffalo Bills or the Baltimore Ravens until the AFC Championship Game at the earliest because the NFL playoff bracket reseeds on each side after each round.
Essentially, that means the highest remaining seed will always face the lowest remaining seed. As the No. 1 seed, the Chiefs are guaranteed to be the highest-remaining seed in the AFC and, therefore, will always play the lowest remaining seed in the Divisional Round.
MORE: NFL Playoff Bracket: Divisional Round Schedule, Playoff Seeds, Matchups
With that logic, it was impossible for the No. 1 seed to face either the No. 2 (Bills) or No. 3 (Ravens) seeds in the Divisional Round. Since they both won, they were guaranteed to be the second and third-highest remaining seeds of the four teams in the Divisional Round bracket.
That left us with just two teams that the Chiefs could face entering Sunday. Based on our win probabilities, the order of likelihood for these matchups was as follows:
- Texans (4) at Chiefs (1) – 61.8%
- Broncos (7) at Chiefs (1) – 38.2%
Following Saturday’s playoff action, the two scenarios were simple. If the Bills were to beat the Broncos on Sunday (which they did), the Texans would travel to Arrowhead. If the Broncos pulled off the upset (which they did not), they would travel to Kansas City to take on their division rivals for the third time this season.
As you can see above, the PFN NFL Playoff Predictor gave the Broncos just a 38.2% chance of knocking off the Bills in Buffalo on Sunday.
The intriguing thing with the AFC bracket is that we could not know anything about the Divisional Round until after the final AFC game of the three on Sunday. The Bills and Broncos matchup in Highmark controlled the entire fate of the Divisional Round.
In terms of looking into the future, if the Chiefs win in the Divisional Round, they are guaranteed to host the AFC Championship Game. As the No. 1 seed, the Chiefs cannot go on the road in the playoffs until the neutral site game at the Super Bowl in New Orleans.