{"id":24167,"date":"2026-01-02T18:53:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T18:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/nfl-week-18-preview-play-off-scenarios-standings-and-big-games-to-decide-top-seeds-division-titles\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T18:53:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T18:53:24","slug":"nfl-week-18-preview-play-off-scenarios-standings-and-big-games-to-decide-top-seeds-division-titles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/nfl-week-18-preview-play-off-scenarios-standings-and-big-games-to-decide-top-seeds-division-titles\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL week 18 preview: Play-off scenarios, standings and big games to decide top seeds, division titles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><i class=\"ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Tennessee Titans @ Jacksonville Jaguars (18:00, Sunday)<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><i class=\"ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Miami Dolphins @ New England Patriots (21:25, Sunday)<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><i class=\"ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Los Angeles Chargers @ Denver Broncos (21:25, Sunday)<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Denver should really get the job done here as Chargers boss Jim Harbaugh has already said he will rest quarterback Justin Herbert and any other starters that need it with a wildcard the best they can do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Broncos have the tiebreaker edge on the Patriots so just need to win, but should Denver stumble, New England can bag top spot with a win over Miami.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jacksonville need to beat the Titans, as they should, and have the Broncos and Patriots both lose to claim an unlikely top seed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Jags will just have to focus on victory though, as they could suffer a big trapdoor fall if they suffer an upset defeat with Houston waiting in the wings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A Jacksonville loss and Houston victory will give the Texans the AFC South title, third seed and a home play-off tie with the Jags hitting the road as a wildcard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">All three sides are big favourites to win so things really should stay as they are, but funny things can happen in the NFL.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/american-football\/articles\/ce8n8lyd1zgo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tennessee Titans @ Jacksonville Jaguars (18:00, Sunday) Miami Dolphins @ New England Patriots (21:25, Sunday) Los Angeles Chargers @ Denver Broncos (21:25, Sunday) Denver should really get the job done here as Chargers boss Jim Harbaugh has already said he will rest quarterback Justin Herbert and any other starters that need it with a wildcard [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24169,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24167\/revisions\/24169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}