AFC South & Playoff Race, Kyler Murray, Michael…

JJ Stankevitz: The Colts are treating every game as a must-win, of course. The short answer to your question is, though, this game is not a must-win for the team’s chances of making the playoffs. A loss to Arizona drops the Colts’ chances of making the playoffs from 89 percent to 80 percent.

But a loss to Arizona coupled with these results would lower the Colts’ playoff odds to 66 percent:

• Browns beat Packers
• Bills beat Patriots
• Chargers beat Texans
• Raiders beat Broncos
• Steelers beat Chiefs

That’s the worst-case scenario, though (interestingly, the Ravens-Bengals game doesn’t really affect the Colts – someone’s gotta win the AFC North, after all).

The best-case scenario for the Colts’ chances of making the playoffs, though, is the reverse of those results. If the Browns, Bills, Chargers, Raiders and Steelers all lose – and the Colts win – Indy’s playoff odds jump to 98 percent.

Also, while we’re in deep in the weeds talking about playoff odds, a quick explainer about tiebreakers. The Colts are currently the AFC No. 5 seed with an 8-6 record despite losing to the Ravens, who also have an 8-6 record.

That’s because, entering Week 16, five teams are 8-6: The Colts, Ravens, Bengals, Bills and Chargers.

The Bengals currently have the AFC North tiebreaker, so they’re the No. 4 seed. So with four teams tied for three wild card spots, head-to-head tiebreakers do not come into play (unless one of those teams beat each of the other three, which has not – and will not – happen this season).

That means the next tiebreaker is conference record. The Colts, by virtue of their 7-3 record against AFC opponents, own that tiebreaker over the Chargers (5-4), Bills (5-5) and Ravens (5-5).

And the good news is the Colts, if they beat the Raiders and Jaguars, would have the AFC record tiebreaker over every team in the conference except the Patriots – who, of course, the Colts have the head-to-head tiebreaker over.

Anyways, after all that – to paraphrase Kenny Moore II’s mom, I need a Tylenol.