Cincinnati Bengals: How they could still make the 2018 Playoffs
By Kenn Korb
The Six-Way Tie Special
If all of the previously touched-upon points come to fruition, Cincinnati is almost certainly in the playoffs: head-to-head wins over Indianapolis and Miami give two-way tie advantages to the Bengals, and their 7-5 conference record if they win out to go 9-7 would put them over virtually any other team at the end of the year as long as nobody surpasses them to reach 10-6.
Among the possible ways this ends up is in an insane six-way 9-7 tie for that final spot. We could see Cincinnati, Baltimore, Miami, Tennessee, Denver, and Indianapolis all end up at that record, with the Bengals’ 7-5 conference mark and strength of victory tiebreakers over the Ravens and Dolphins gifting them the final playoff berth.
That outcome would need to work out in a specific manner for Cincinnati to make it, however (because why not make a complicated matter even more complicated!), and it all relies on who the Dolphins lose to. To get to 9-7, Miami must go 3-1 the rest of the way against a schedule that gives them home games against New England and Jacksonville while giving them road matchups versus Minnesota and Buffalo.
From that list, if Miami goes 3-1 to reach 9-7, the Bengals will need that loss to be to an AFC opponent. If the one loss along the way is to Minnesota, Miami will have an 8-4 conference record — better than Cincinnati’s 7-5, giving them the advantage in multi-team tiebreakers over the Bengals and sealing the #6 seed for the Dolphins.
If Miami loses to any of those AFC teams, however, they’ll be tied at 7-5 in conference record with Cincinnati; because of the head-to-head win for the Bengals and a strength of victory advantage in multi-team tiebreaker situations, Cincinnati would at that point beat out every other 9-7 team on the list.