NFL playoff picture after Week 7: 13 clubs now hold a clinch number, Cleveland, Denver and Pittsburgh gain one at 5-2, Green Bay loses its number, Minnesota is the last unbeaten club, and nobody can clinch in Week 8

The AFC caught up. After Week 6 only three AFC clubs held a clinch number against seven in the NFC. After Week 7 it is seven and six. Cleveland, Denver and Pittsburgh all won to go 5-2, and each now has a clinch number of 10 with 10 games left, every game on its schedule. Cincinnati won to go 4-2 and has 11 with 11 left. In the other direction Green Bay lost to fall to 4-3 and lost the 11 it held a week ago; it now has a tragic number of 10. Carolina lost to fall to 3-3, kept its clinch number of 11 and picked up a tragic number of 11 beside it. Thirteen clubs hold a clinch number of any kind, up from ten.

Every figure here is from the table at the end of Week 7, as of Tuesday, October 27 in Korea, with all 14 games final. Buffalo, Jacksonville, the Chargers and Washington had the bye. No Week 8 result is in these numbers, including the Thursday night game. Kansas City and San Francisco both lost for the first time, so Minnesota, 6-0, is the only unbeaten club left, and Miami won for the first time, so the Chargers, 0-6 after their bye, are the only winless club. The worst case behind a clinch number has every rival win every game it has left, without checking whether those rivals play each other, and a level finish is always scored against the club being asked about.

The Week 7 results, by record. Winners: Cleveland, Denver and Pittsburgh to 5-2, Cincinnati to 4-2, Miami to 1-5, Minnesota to 6-0, Chicago to 5-2, Detroit to 4-2, the Giants to 4-2-1, Seattle to 4-3, Atlanta, the Rams and Dallas to 3-4, and Tampa Bay to 2-5. Losers: Kansas City to 5-1, New England and Baltimore to 4-3, Las Vegas to 3-4, the Jets, Indianapolis and Houston to 2-5, Tennessee to 1-6, San Francisco to 6-1, Green Bay to 4-3, Carolina to 3-3, and New Orleans, Arizona and Philadelphia to 2-5. Scores and opponents are on the schedule page; this piece only uses the records.

Two clubs can lose twice and still clinch without help. Minnesota, 6-0, has a clinch number of 9 with 11 left. Jacksonville, 4-2 after its bye, also has 9 with 11 left; it did not play, but Indianapolis, Houston and Tennessee all lost, and its number came down from 10. Four clubs can afford one loss: Kansas City and Buffalo at 10 with 11 left, and San Francisco and the Giants at 9 with 10 left. That is six clubs with a game to spare, the same count as a week ago, but Carolina has dropped out of the group and Buffalo has joined it. Buffalo's number fell from 11 to 10 during its bye, and Kansas City's fell from 11 to 10 even though it lost, because New England and Baltimore both lost and can no longer reach 15-2. San Francisco, which could lose twice a week ago, now has one game to spare after its first defeat.

Why the AFC numbers moved. A wild card in the AFC still takes 15-2, and the reason is how many clubs can reach that record. A week ago nine AFC clubs could reach 15-2 or better. New England and Baltimore both lost and now top out at 14-3, so the list is seven: Kansas City and Buffalo at 16-1, and Cleveland, Denver, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville and Cincinnati at 15-2. A club at 15-2 therefore has at most six rivals level with or above it, and seven clubs make the field, so 15-2 is enough. That is Cleveland's, Denver's and Pittsburgh's 10 of 10, Cincinnati's 11 of 11, and Kansas City's and Buffalo's 10 of 11. Jacksonville's 9 is shorter because it is a division number: 13-4 wins the South outright, since Indianapolis and Houston top out at 12-5 and Tennessee at 11-6. Buffalo's 10 is also its division number, because New England's ceiling is now 14-3 and 15-2 takes the East. Kansas City needs 16-1 for the West, 11 more wins, because Denver can still reach 15-2. New England and Baltimore, both 4-3 with a ceiling of 14-3, have no clinch number and a tragic number of 10 each.

Why the NFC numbers moved. Only four NFC clubs can reach 15-2 or better: Minnesota at 17-0, San Francisco at 16-1, and Chicago and Detroit at 15-2. The next tier tops out at 14: the Giants at 14-2-1, and Green Bay, Seattle and Carolina at 14-3. Minnesota's 9 makes 15-2, which clears everyone but those three. At 14-3 it would sit behind San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit and the Giants and level with Green Bay, Seattle and Carolina, and level counts against it, so 8 is not enough. Chicago's 10 and Detroit's 11 are 15-2 for the same reason. Green Bay and Seattle cannot reach 15-2, and Minnesota and San Francisco can finish above anything they can reach, so neither can be sure of its division either and neither has a clinch number. The Giants and Carolina can only reach 14, but they lead divisions where that is enough: the Giants' 9 is 13-3-1, which finishes ahead of Dallas's ceiling of 13-4 and Washington's 12-4-1, and Carolina's 11 is 14-3 against Atlanta's ceiling of 13-4. Minnesota's division number is 10, not 9, because Chicago and Detroit can reach 15-2 and the North takes 16-1. San Francisco's 9 is also its division number, since Seattle tops out at 14-3.

If the season ended today, the AFC's division leaders would be Kansas City, Buffalo, Cleveland and Jacksonville, seeded in that order, with Denver, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati as the wild cards and New England first out, then Baltimore. Cincinnati is in and New England is out compared with a week ago. Kansas City would have the bye, and the wild-card round would be Buffalo against Cincinnati, Cleveland against Pittsburgh and Jacksonville against Denver. The NFC's seven are the same seven as last week in a different order: Minnesota, San Francisco, the Giants and Carolina as division leaders, Chicago, Detroit and Green Bay as the wild cards, and Seattle first out. Minnesota would have the bye, and the games would be San Francisco against Green Bay, the Giants against Detroit and Carolina against Chicago. Equal records are ordered by ESPN's seeding, which applies the league's tiebreakers; we do not compute the tiebreakers ourselves. Cleveland ahead of Pittsburgh at 5-2, and Kansas City ahead of Buffalo at 5-1, follow that ordering.

At the bottom, Tennessee at 1-6 and the Chargers at 0-6 have the smallest tragic numbers, 7 each. The Jets, Indianapolis, Houston, Miami, Arizona and Philadelphia have 8. Las Vegas, the Rams, Dallas, Tampa Bay, New Orleans and Washington have 9, and New England, Baltimore, Green Bay, Seattle and Atlanta have 10. Our Week 6 piece said Week 7 could not put a zero anywhere, and it did not: nothing is clinched and nobody is eliminated. The same holds for Week 8. Give any club a win and every other club in its conference a loss, and the smallest clinch number anywhere is 7, Jacksonville's. Give it a loss and every rival a win, and the smallest tragic number is 5, Tennessee's and the Chargers'. The what-if page lets you pick results within each conference and watch the order move.

How to read these numbers. A clinch number, also called a magic number, is the fewest further wins that guarantee a place even if every rival wins every game it has left. A tragic number is the further losses after which a place is impossible even if the club wins everything else and every rival loses. Zero means it is done, and a blank means the arithmetic cannot settle it yet. A tie counts as half a win in the record, as in the league table. A level finish is scored against the club being asked about in both directions, so a clinch here can come later than the league's own announcement. The official tiebreakers and the question of who plays whom are not part of the calculation. Every club's numbers are on the magic numbers page, the seeding and tiebreaker order on the playoff page, the conference tables on the standings page, and the working on the methodology page. Club pages: Minnesota, Jacksonville, Cleveland, Kansas City and Green Bay.