The 2025 NFL season is more than halfway complete with Week 10 in the books and Week 11 already upon us. The playoff picture isn’t finalized, but it’s certainly taking shape as we near the home stretch.
The AFC, in particular, is a complicated situation — not to mention a surprising one. (Raise your hand if you had the Denver Broncos, Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots pegged as the midseason conference heavyweights before the season began.) This is perhaps most evidenced by the crowded wild-card race, where preseason Super Bowl favorites like the Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs are angling to overcome uneven starts.
The AFC will send seven total teams to the playoffs, three of which will enter the dance as wild cards. So which teams are best equipped to make good on postseason promise? Which ones have too much ground to cover before the end of the regular season? Here, we’re sorting out each of the seven teams that we currently consider to be in the running for a wild-card berth:
Division leaders
Indianapolis Colts (8-2, AFC South)
Denver Broncos (8-2, AFC West)
New England Patriots (8-2, AFC East)
Pittsburgh Steelers (5-4, AFC North)
Unofficially out of it
Tennessee Titans (1-8)
Cleveland Browns (2-7)
Las Vegas Raiders (2-7)
New York Jets (2-7)
Miami Dolphins (3-7)
Wild-card contenders
7. Jaguars (5-4)
Is there anything about Jacksonville that screams