Because of the playoff structure, a wild-card team would have a treacherous road to reach the Super Bowl. There is no dominant team in the A.F.C., but there are five or six very good ones. If we assume a 40 percent chance of winning any road playoff game, the loser of Monday night’s battle may have to win three straight road games to earn a trip to Cowboys Stadium for the Super Bowl; the odds of winning three such games would fall below 7 percent. The winner, if it secures the No. 1 seed, will have to win just two home games. By those odds, that team would have a 36 percent chance of going to the Super Bowl. The winner would need only to hold serve — survive and advance, so to speak — while the loser would have to scratch, claw and pray for good bounces to dig out of a hole.
I should note that on Monday, Tom Boorstein suggested I figure out exactly the same thing for a TedQuarters post, and it was only while trying to put it together today that I found Stuart had beat me to the punch.
His odds are probably a little off because they assume that the winner of the Jets-Patriots contest will go on to win the division, and that’s hardly written in stone. The winner will be 10-2 and the loser 9-3, so the former could easily go 2-2 to finish the year and see the loser win out.
Incidentally, the Jets and Patriots have rather similar schedules for the rest of the season. Both teams will play the Bears, Dolphins and Bills. The Jets face the 8-3 Steelers in Week 15, while the Pats play the 7-4 Packers.
The Patriots probably have a slight edge in ease of schedule since the Jets’ two toughest remaining games — at Chicago and at Pittsburgh — come on the road. The Patriots will also travel to face the Bears, but they will host their contests with Miami and Green Bay.
But then, as Brian Bassett and I discussed on Monday, the Jets seem to play their best on the road, and have lost twice coming out of the bye week under Rex Ryan. That’s probably small-sample size randomness, but there’s at least some case to be made that the top seed isn’t as valuable to them as it might be to other teams. Of course, I don’t personally buy that and I don’t imagine Rex Ryan or many of the Jets would either. You pretty much always want the week off after 17 weeks of football.
So no surprises here, really: This game is very important. Stuart’s post charts the 17 times two teams with records of 9-2 or better have faced each other this late in the season. Ten of them featured the eventual Super Bowl winner, and 12 times the winner of the regular season game went on to play in the Super Bowl.
Tedquarters 
It’s sure nicer to have homefield locked up than have to go on the road for three games, but I don’t think it’s going to make a huge difference. Let’s face it, both of these teams are making the playoffs, and I don’t even have to add the “barring a collapse” qualifier, because either could lose out and still probably sneak in.
True. And if you lose to Buffalo with your season on the line you should be banned from the playoffs on principle (knock wood).
Seriously rooting for the Jets this weekend, but I really don’t think there’s much chance of this Jets team winning. 10 days for Belichick and Brady to prepare, is just too much. Especially given the way they’ve looked since the Browns game.
My main concern is that the Jets don’t pull off one of their trademark collapses given the tough schedule after the Pats game.