Afc West:

There are plenty of division rivalry games in Week Nine. The November schedule starts with Atlanta at Tampa Bay on Thursday 11/3. The Bucs shocked the Falcons 31-24 back in Week One at Atlanta. The Falcons rebounded to win four straight – including back-to-back victories over last season’s Super Bowl participants – but have lost their last two games.

Elsewhere Pittsburgh is at Baltimore for their biannual AFC North slugfest

On the undercard for the highly anticipated prime time game between the Patriots and Arizona Cardinals are a handful of interesting matchups. The Jets host Cincinnati early on CBS and Green Bay travels to Jacksonville on FOX for the best early games

Most of the focus in the mid-west is on Andy Reid mismanaging the clock – but only a minority recognized the reality that the Patriots outplayed the Chiefs. Forget the time issues for a moment; was Reid lulled into an improper game plan based on New England’s final game(s) of the season?

Thanks to the epic meltdown by the Cincinnati Bengals on Saturday, the Pittsburgh Steelers advance in the NFL playoffs – and the New England Patriots will host the Kansas City Chiefs rather than Cincy in the division round of the 2015-2016 post-season.

NFL wild card weekend kicks off Saturday afternoon as the Kansas City Chiefs travel to Houston to take on the AFC South champion Texans. Both clubs overcame the common obstacle of extremely unsuccessful starts to the 2015 season; Houston did not win their second game of the year until Week 6, and KC did not get their second victory until the following week. To accomplish that rare feat both teams leaned heavily on their defenses, both of which ranked in the top ten in the league in points allowed. After a five-turnover debacle against Denver in Week 2, the Chiefs gave the ball away just ten times over the next fourteen games, and finished with a plus-14 turnover differential – second best in the league this year. On December 27 the Texans lost to the Patriots to drop to 6-7 and their playoff chances appeared bleak. Houston’s defense forced ten turnovers over the next three games to carry the team to an improbable comeback, and into the post-season.

One nice thing about the final week of the season for football fans is that two networks televise both an early and late game, plus restrictions that prohibit another game being televised while the local team plays a home game are lifted. There was a time when this was actually standard operating procedure: the AFL would televise two games on NBC, and the NFL would televise two games on CBS. Once the two leagues merged that ended though, and now pro football fans are forced to either pay big bucks or watch crappy games between losing teams far too often.

While NFL Week 15 did not do much to the playoff picture other than end the misery for a handful of teams by officially eliminating them from post-season play, it did bring genuine contenders one step closer to clinching scenarios in Week 16. Eighteen teams still have at least a mathematical chance at a playoff spot with two weeks to go; that is surely something that Roger Goodell’s parity-driven Park Avenue league office that strives for participation banners is surely proud of.

In both conferences the race for the number five seed is nearly as meaningful as getting a first round bye. Both of the number five seeds will most likely be playing against a team with a .500 (or losing record). On the other hand the number six seed will have to go on the road against a ten or eleven-win club.