Let’s see if anyone can tell me if my analysis here is wrong:
In all this, I assume that the Jets win their last 3 games against weak opponents.
Consider the scenario of the Bengals beating the Steelers then losing to the Ravens.
The Cincinnati-Pittsburgh tiebreaker at 9-7 will be decided by won-long percentage within the division. The Steelers are 2-2 now and would finish 3-3. The Bengals are 1-3 now and would finish 2-4. The Steelers would be #2 in their division and the Jets would lose the tiebreaker to the Steelers because they lost their game with the Steelers.
It seems to me that the Steelers have to lose 2 of 3 and finish 8-8 (or 7-9) for the Jets to make the playoffs. Losing to the Bengals isn’t good enough if the Steelers win their other two.
The Jets own the tiebreaker against a 9-7 Bengals team, as long as the Bengals lose one more conference game.
Next weekend, the Bengals-Eagles game is irrelevant, it seems to me.
If the Steelers beat the Cowboys next weekend, then the only chance is for the Steelers to lose to the Bengals and Browns, while the Bengals lose to the Ravens.
However, if the Steelers lose to the Cowboys, then the Jets’ chances become very good. It goes up to about 40%.
If that happens, then the Jets have two chances:
(1) Bengals beat Steelers then lose to Ravens.
(2) Steelers beat Bengals then lose to Browns.
So who to root for in the Bengals-Steelers game depends on which of them you think is more likely to lose in the final week. I will not attempt to analyze that now.