NFL standings: AFC West is already separating after Week 1

AFC Standings after Week 1

There were a ton of thrillers and upsets in Week 1 and AFC teams were involved in almost all of them. How do the AFC standings look after the first week of games?

Here are the current AFC Standings with Week 1 in the books.

Prior to the start of the regular season, the Buffalo Bills were the favorites to come out of the AFC and advance to Super Bowl LVII. Five Thirty Eight (QB Adjusted) had the Bills as the favorites to win the Super Bowl at a 10% chance. In the AFC, after Buffalo, the Chiefs were at 8%, Bengals, Chargers, Ravens, and Colts all 4%, and then the Broncos at 3%.

The Bills looked incredible on Thursday in their victory over the defending champion Los Angeles Rams and the Chiefs looked like the team that went to back-to-back Super Bowls a couple of years ago. The Browns, Ravens, Dolphins, Chargers, and Steelers all opened up their seasons with a win, while the Titans, Jaguars, Patriots, Raiders, and Jets stumbled out of the gate with a loss in Week 1. The Texans and Colts also tied after the latter missed a potential game-winning kick with a couple of minutes left in overtime.

The Colts are likely going to regret not beating the Texans as the tie could cost them the AFC South title and/or a better in the AFC standings come playoff time. The Titans’ loss to the Giants could ruin their hopes of a fourth straight playoff appearance. The Bengals issues on the offensive line haven’t quite been solved and Joe Burrow looked horrible for most of the game against Pittsburgh.

The Browns pulled a win out late against the Panthers and Jacoby Brissett might be able to lead this team to an unexpected winning record by the time Deshaun Watson returns late in the year. The Ravens looked really good and the Jets are still the Jets. The Patriots may not be a playoff team while the Dolphins may take their spot. The Broncos will rue the day they blew the game to the Seahawks because of Nathaniel Hackett’s poor clock management at the end of the game.

After the opening week of the season, Five Thirty Eight still has the Buffalo Bills as the team with the best chance to win the Super Bowl out of all AFC teams at 16%, followed by the Kansas City Chiefs at 12%, the Los Angeles Chargers at 5%, the Baltimore Ravens at 4%, the Miami Dolphins at 3%, and the Indianapolis Colts at 3%.

The AFC playoffs are going to be a gauntlet this season, especially in the playoffs, because of all the quarterback talent. We knew that not every team with a good signal-caller would reach expectations but some of those teams came out flat to start the season while others came out of the gates hot.