I was in the same boat going into the season, because every AFC team has an extra home game this year, so I figured 11-6 would be this year's 10-6 (which would get you in most years). If it were a year where every AFC team had an extra road game, I might think 10-7 is the new 10-6.
Through the first six weeks though, things feel really muddied, like there's a lot of teams just kind of hovering around the .500 mark and we're not sure who's going to break out and go on a run. It still might take 11 wins, but here's one thing we've got going for us that I would wager most 2-4 teams in history don't: three of our losses are against the NFC. We still have games left against Tennessee, Cleveland, LA, and Indy, who all could be in that wildcard mix too, not to mention four more games in the division. They have to win them, of course, but their fate is very much in their hands with the opportunity to win against direct playoff competition.
It's an interesting side note to remember about 2008, the Matt Cassel year. They went 11-5 that year, which gets you 99 times out of a 100. But 4 of their 5 losses were to AFC playoff teams, including a loss to Miami that would have given them the division in the end. Losing games is never good, but if you have to pick games to lose, the out of conference ones are the least impactful.
