Run vs. Pass, AFC South And Wild Card Playoff…

JJ Stankevitz: So let’s re-rack things here before I get into answering this. The Colts are 6-6 and the Titans are 8-4, and Tennessee has the AFC South tiebreaker over the Colts by virtue of winning both meetings this season. The Colts, then, have to be three games better than the Titans over the final five this season.

For example: If the Colts go 4-1, the Titans have to go 1-4 down the stretch for the Colts to win the division. Yes, the Titans are struggling after consecutive losses to the Houston Texans and New England Patriots – losses in which they managed just 13 points in each game.

Tennessee’s remaining schedule is: Bye (Week 13), vs. Jacksonville (Week 14), at Pittsburgh (Week 15), vs. San Francisco (Week 16), vs. Miami (Week 17), at Houston (Week 18). At a minimum, the Colts will need the Titans to lose three of those games to have a shot at the AFC South. It’s not impossible, especially not in this 2021 season loaded with parity and upsets, but Football Outsiders gives the Colts an 8.3 percent chance to win the AFC South.

Meanwhile, the AFC wild card race is completely up for grabs. The current wild card standings, with the top three non-division-winners making the playoffs, are:

5. Cincinnati Bengals (7-4)
6. Buffalo Bills (7-4)
7. Los Angeles Chargers (6-5)
8. Denver Broncos (6-5)
9. Las Vegas Raiders (6-5)
10. Indianapolis Colts (6-6)
11. Cleveland Browns (6-6)
12. Pittsburgh Steelers (5-5-1)
13. Miami Dolphins (5-7)

Once the Colts are through this weekend’s game against the Texans and then their Week 14 bye, we’ll have a clearer picture of how things are setting up. In the next two weeks, these other eight teams play:

• Bengals: Chargers, 49ers
• Bills: Patriots, Bucs
• Chargers: Bengals, Giants
• Raiders: Washington, Chiefs
• Broncos: Chiefs, Lions
• Browns: Bye, Ravens
• Steelers: Ravens, Vikings
• Dolphins: Giants, bye

After Week 14, every team will have played 13 games, too, so it’ll be a little easier to envision how things may set up from mid-December through early January.

But for now, the Colts’ sole focus is on themselves and this weekend’s upcoming game against the Texans. As Reich said on “Hard Knocks” this week: “We don’t know what to tell our wives as far as who to root for. In our family, my kids are texting me, who am I rooting for here, dad? I don’t know. The Colts. We just gotta keep winning. That’s all that really matters.”