AFC Playoffs: We take the same ones and start again!

Monday 13th January 2025 05:40 AM

NFL – For the second year in a row, the divisional round of the AFC playoffs will see the same teams face each other.

In history, the AFC playoffs have often experienced dynamics with teams gradually establishing a dynasty and almost systematically settling into the post-season for many years. This was the case, for example, of the New England Patriots version of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady who were in the playoffs, or even better, for 17 out of 19 years between 2001 and 2019!

A lack of recent renewal in the AFC playoffs

However, the novelty within the AFC playoffs remains that this hegemony no longer concerns a single team but a group of at least three franchises which have regularly found themselves in wild cards or even better in the Divisional Round for several seasons now.

Obviously, Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs are one of those teams that we have systematically found for almost ten years in the month of January and even very often on the Super Bowl poster. The Chiefs, who will enter the running in the AFC playoffs version 2024-2025 after several weeks of rest for the holders, are looking for a famous historic triple in the event of new success on February 9 during Super Bowl LIX.

But the most interesting thing remains that the Chiefs’ opponents in the playoffs are more and more the same over the years. For example, the meetings between Kansas City and Buffalo during the playoffs have become true classics in the AFC playoffs since the start of the 2020s! The presence of the Baltimore Ravens during the Divisional Round or even during the conference finals is also more and more frequent.

Perfect symbol of this “locking” of the AFC playoffs by a few teams, the presence during the Divisional Round of the current season of the same four teams as during the 2023 season. Last year, at this stage of the competition, the Chiefs had met the Bills while the Texans had rubbed shoulders with the Ravens. During the current season, the Bills will host the Ravens while the Texans will challenge the Chiefs! Not the same matches but always the same 4 teams!

A passing phenomenon specific to the AFC playoffs?

During this 2024 season, the franchises seemed to be divided into three distinct groups: a few teams that could claim the Super Bowl whether in the half of the table of the AFC playoffs or the NFC playoffs (Chiefs, Ravens, Bills, Lions, Eagles, …), teams contending for the first round of the playoffs but poorly equipped to go further and almost a good third of the franchises which struggled to reach 5 victories.

But if this distribution is true in both conferences, the locking of the Divisional Round only seems to concern the AFC playoffs. If we look at participation in the NFC, during the 2023 season, the four teams present in the Divisional Round were the San Francisco 49ers, the Detroit Lions, the Green Bay Packers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This season only the Lions will be present at the meeting. A Detroit franchise which was not present at this stage of the competition in 2022.

This is obviously not about blaming the brilliant teams in the AFC playoffs who manage to maintain a level of excellence year after year! However, some fatigue could begin to set in among NFL fans if this phenomenon continues for another year or two. But in the meantime, let’s enjoy the show with these excellent teams next weekend.