After the Cincinnatti Bengals stormed in 2021 as AFC champions no one had been able to dethrone the Kansas City Chiefs who last year were crowned again, the "Chiefs" have been the representatives of their conference in 3 of the last 4 championship games Can they repeat or will some other team achieve the Bengals' feat ?
Fight for the first seed
After 5 weeks Kansas is again positioned as the main candidate in the conference, after the Super Bowl year and although the Lions surprised them in week 1 during the Kickoff, they accumulate 5 consecutive victories to place themselves with the best record in the Americas with a mark of 5-1 and it seems that without having a rival in the division they depend on themselves to rest in the first week of playoffs.
Among the teams that could compete for that "Seed 1" are the two AFC East contenders Bills and Dolphins who despite holding 4-1 and 3-2 records will see their chance to catch the Chiefs as their meeting is scheduled for Weeks 10 and 14. In addition, Buffalo and Miami will have an internal fight for the division where, although Mike McDaniel 's squad has the lead, the Bills won the first round.
Divisional champions
The fight to find the divisional champions in the North division is almost as close as the fight to find them in the South division, because although none of them has a clear favorite for the title (at least not while Bengals recover) they have at least 3 of their 4 members with a chance to win it. In the South, the Jacksonville Jaguars have the advantage of being a better team and having won last year's championship, but the Colts and Texans have already found their franchise QBs and are playing better than expected and could be looking for a place as division champions, if not as wildcards.
In the North, the fight seems to be more even as all 4 teams could be either champions or the last team in the division, at the moment the Steelers are leaders with a 3-2 record but we will see how long it lasts if the Ravens and Bengals regain their level, although Cinncinatti no longer depends on himself to be divisional champion due to the bad start of the season and the bad start of the season.Although Cinncinatti does not depend on itself to be divisional champion due to the bad start, it is the team that has shown the best performance in the last years. The Cleveland Browns seem to be the most complicated team, but the absence of their QB Deshaun Watson could condition them.
Wild cards
Here it seems to me that two of the three available spots should be reserved, unless something strange happens or there is an unfortunate injury, the first of the three slots should be for Miami or Buffalo; whichever of the two that does not win the division will be present in January playing as a wild card, the second slot should be for the Los Angeles Chargers who will be playing in January.The second slot should go to the Los Angeles Chargers, who before their few options of stealing the West division from Kansas, they are going to the Playoffs looking to be the fifth seed, removing these 6 candidates we would have a free spot that, unless Houston or Indianapolis raise their hands, should go to the second place of the AFC North.
Undoubtedly the American conference has much more competition because while in the National conference we see San Francisco and Philadelphia a step above here we have two or three teams looking to compete with the Chiefs to reach Las Vegas in February.
Panorama of the AFC teams in the race for the postseason until week 6:
