The Cincinnati Bengals remain a long shot for the playoffs.
But the path exists.
That’s the big takeaway when looking at the remaining schedule and the rest of the conference. One of the most valuable resources in analyzing this is the playoff simulator from the New York Times, which currently has the Bengals with a 25 percent chance to make the postseason.
But given how bunched up the AFC is, who the Bengals play the rest of the way and how the schedule pits these teams against one another, things get interesting when users start punching in results.
For example, clicking the button that says the Bengals will beat the Vikings next weekend boosts their odds of making the postseason to 34 percent. Clicking that the Bengals will beat the Steelers in Week 16 raises their odds to 55 percent. Add a road loss to the Chiefs in Week 17 and a win over the Browns in Week 18, and the number jumps to roughly 78 percent.
Things go very south if adding a second loss in addition to the Chiefs, though. Losing to the Chiefs and Vikings drops it to 15 percent. Steelers and Chiefs, 6 percent. Or Browns and Chiefs, 13 percent.
For what it’s worth, if the Bengals win out, going 4-0 to close the season, it’s effectively a guaranteed spot.
Luckily for the Bengals, they should get some help the rest of the way. The Browns play the Texans, Jets and Cincinnati over their final four. The Steelers play the Colts, Cincinnati and Ravens. The Texans play the Titans twice, Browns and Colts.
Unfortunately for fans, the rooting interests in some of these games are impossible to say. Rooting for the Texans to win their division might actually give the Bengals a better chance because they happen to own the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Colts and Jaguars.
As we always knew, that miserable 0-4 AFC North and 3-6 AFC record could come back to bite the Bengals in a big way.
To boil it down, the Bengals need to win three more games — at least.
