The Athletic has live coverage of NFL Week 12.
As Thanksgiving approaches, games across the NFL start to have added layers of significance. Some teams have set themselves up to be fighting for playoff seeding while others are fighting just to get into the dance. On the flip side of the standings, there are a cluster of teams whose 2025 seasons have gone south but have hope for reinforcements with premium draft picks. Only one team can land the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, so the race to the bottom is almost as intriguing for the rest of the regular season as the playoff picture.
Here’s a look at some of the biggest swing games in Week 12, using data from The Athletic’s NFL Playoff Simulator.
Five Week 12 games with biggest potential playoff shifts
Indianapolis Colts at Kansas City Chiefs
TeamOdds if winOdds if loseShift
66%
38%
28%
98%
90%
8%
In a narrative that many before the season would have imagined being flipped in this Week 12 game, the Indianapolis Colts are operating with a healthy cushion, while the Kansas City Chiefs have very little margin for error. A loss would sink the Chiefs to 5-6 and create a further deficit in the wild-card race. The Los Angeles Chargers (7-4), Buffalo Bills (7-4) and Jacksonville Jaguars (6-4) currently hold the three wild-card slots, and the Chiefs have lost head-to-head against each of them. Kansas City still has another game left against the Chargers, but even though the Chiefs are one behind the Bills and Jaguars in the loss column, they would lose the tiebreaker in both cases, so they need to leapfrog them.
This game is also very important for the Colts. Indianapolis is 8-2, right behind the 9-2 Denver Broncos and New England Patriots, who sit atop the conference. It’s shaping up to be a tight race at the top for the No. 1 seed in the AFC. It would be huge for the Colts to earn that top slot and host games in their dome instead of having to play on the road in the elements in January.
Jacksonville Jaguars at Arizona Cardinals
TeamOdds if winOdds if loseShift
73%
48%
25%
—
The game is irrelevant for Arizona’s playoff odds, but the Jaguars are in a tight wild-card race with six teams for the three slots. Of those teams, the Jaguars have the easiest remaining schedule, but they still have two games against the Colts and one against the Broncos. As the current No. 7 seed, they have some margin for error, but they can’t slip against a team like the Cardinals.
Pittsburgh Steelers at Chicago Bears
TeamOdds if winOdds if loseShift
60%
37%
23%
41%
20%
21%
The situation in Pittsburgh is far less comfortable now than it was a month ago, when the Steelers were 4-1 and the rest of the division was hit hard by injuries. The Baltimore Ravens are riding a four-game winning streak and are primed to make it five when they host the New York Jets on Sunday. The Ravens (5-5) are right on the heels of the 6-4 Steelers, with two head-to-head matchups remaining in the final month of the season. The 3-7 Cincinnati Bengals are a far lesser concern, but quarterback Joe Burrow is close to making his return to the field, too.
For the Bears, the preference is obviously to make the playoffs as a division winner, and every game is critical now in keeping pace in a competitive NFC North. Chicago (7-3) is equal to the Green Bay Packers (6-3-1) in the loss column but holds a slight edge because the Packers have a tie while the Bears have an additional win. The Detroit Lions (6-4) are very much in the conversation, as well. After Sunday’s game against the Steelers, five of the six remaining games for Chicago will come against conference opponents currently in the NFC playoff picture, including two against the Packers and one against the Lions.
Minnesota Vikings at Green Bay Packers
TeamOdds if winOdds if loseShift
80%
58%
22%
6%
~6%
The Packers are in good shape because they control their playoff path by virtue of the two head-to-head matchups against the Bears. On Sunday, they can not only keep pace with the division leaders in Chicago, but they can also help sink another division rival. The Vikings would fall to 4-7 with a loss, taking the division out of the picture and making a playoff berth in a competitive NFC highly unlikely. This game is more about the Packers, though, because sandwiched between Sunday’s game against the Vikings and the season finale in Minnesota is a brutal schedule that features the Lions, the Bears twice, the Ravens and the Broncos. Green Bay can’t let one of the truly winnable games left on the schedule get away.
Carolina Panthers at San Francisco 49ers
TeamOdds if winOdds if loseShift
92%
72%
20%
36%
16%
20%
Monday night’s tilt features a 20 percent shift for both the 49ers and the Panthers, but it’s clearly more critical to Carolina. Not only does a loss drop the Panthers to .500, but, as good an opponent as the 49ers may be, they are one of the easier opponents left on the Panthers’ schedule. That’s not as much a slight to the 49ers as it is speaking to the daunting task ahead for the Panthers, who still have to face the Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (twice) in their final five games. The game is big for the 49ers, too. While they have an outside shot at the division, the likely scenario is that they’ll be competing against the second and third teams from the NFC North, as well as the second-place teams in the NFC West and NFC South, for a wild-card spot. Adding to their win total, not to mention improving their already great 7-2 conference record, could be key down the stretch.
Battle for the No. 1 pick
Cleveland Browns at Las Vegas Raiders
TeamOdds if winOdds if loseShift
2%
17%
15%
2%
13%
11%
The stakes are high for these two 2-8 teams and not just because it’s Shedeur Sanders’ first NFL start. A win would improve either team’s record to two games ahead of the 1-9 Tennessee Titans and really hurt their chances for the No. 1 pick. With five two-win teams on the tail of the Titans, keep in mind that Browns-Raiders is a conference matchup. The Raiders are 2-5 in the AFC and the Browns are 1-6. While strength of schedule is the first tiebreaker to determine which team gets the better draft pick, division and conference tiebreakers enter the equation after that, meaning a win for the Raiders could be costly at the end of the season, if the goal is to improve their draft positioning.
