Levitan: Week 18 Motivation

Last Updated: January 5th at 2:08pm ET

Week 18 (formerly Week 17) is annually one of my favorite slates because there are a lot of soft skills needed. Not only do we need to do our usual work on injury fallouts and depth chart changes, but we also need to be aware of motivation. Some teams are locked into their playoff seed, others don’t care what seed they get, some are still fighting for the playoffs, some were just eliminated from the playoffs and others are in evaluation mode.

Note that this year is again bit different as seven teams will qualify for the playoffs rather than six. The biggest difference is that the No. 2 seed in each conference no longer gets a bye.

The purpose of this article is to identify where teams are at for Week 18 and highlight some specific personnel situations. I will update it as more news comes out later in the week.

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AFC
1. Titans (11-5)
SITUATION: Must win to clinch No. 1 seed and bye.
OUTLOOK: The Titans will likely be all-out to win Sunday at Texans. Assuming the Chiefs beat the Broncos on Saturday, the Titans must win to clinch home field throughout the AFC playoffs. Even if the Chiefs get upset on Saturday, the Bengals or Patriots could still catch the Titans for the AFC’s top spot.

2. Chiefs (11-5)
SITUATION: Must win to have chance at No. 1 seed and clinch No. 2 seed.
OUTLOOK: Andy Reid historically loves to rest his starters in the final week. But I don’t think that’s an option this week. A win on Saturday gives the Chiefs a chance at the first-round bye. And even if they don’t get that, winning the No. 2 seed guarantees two games at Arrowhead to start the playoff run. 

3. Bengals (10-6)
SITUATION: Only a 4% chance to earn the No. 1 seed and unlikely to get the No. 2 seed either.
OUTLOOK: Joe Burrow, Joe Mixon, and other key players are expected to sit out Sunday’s game at Cleveland. Expect the second-stringers for most or all of the game.

4. Bills (10-6)
SITUATION: Must win to clinch AFC East title and ensure Round 1 home game. 
OUTLOOK: I expect the Bills to go all-out to win vs. Jets Sunday. They want the Wild Card game (likely vs. Patriots) at home and they still can move up in seeding. The range in seeding is really wide — the Bills can get as high as the No. 2 seed and can drop as low as the No. 7. 

5. Patriots (10-6)