NFL playoff picture after Week 8: Minnesota's first loss leaves no unbeaten club, 14-3 is now enough for an NFC wild card, Green Bay regains a clinch number and Cleveland loses one, and nobody can clinch in Week 9

The NFC bar came down. A week ago an NFC club needed 15-2 to be sure of a wild card. After Week 8, 14-3 is enough, because Seattle and Carolina both lost and can no longer reach 14-3. That moved every number at the top of the NFC. Minnesota lost for the first time to fall to 6-1, and its clinch number still came down from 9 to 8. San Francisco had the bye and went from 9 to 8. Chicago won to go 6-2 and dropped from 10 to 8, Detroit won to go 5-2 and dropped from 11 to 9, and Green Bay won to go 5-3 and got back a clinch number, 9 with 9 games left, a week after losing the one it had. In the AFC, Cleveland lost to fall to 5-3 and gave up the 10 it picked up a week ago; it now has a tragic number of 9. Thirteen clubs hold a clinch number of any kind, the same count as a week ago, but the split is now six in the AFC and seven in the NFC, against seven and six.

Every figure here is from the table at the end of Week 8, as of Tuesday, November 3 in Korea, with all 14 games final. Houston, San Francisco, the Giants and New Orleans had the bye. No Week 9 result is in these numbers, including the Thursday night game. With Minnesota's loss there is no unbeaten club left; Buffalo, San Francisco and Minnesota share the best record at 6-1. The Chargers, 0-7, are still 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 8 results, by record. Winners: Buffalo to 6-1, Denver and Pittsburgh to 6-2, Jacksonville and Cincinnati to 5-2, New England to 5-3, Las Vegas to 4-4, Chicago to 6-2, Detroit to 5-2, Green Bay to 5-3, the Rams to 4-4, Tampa Bay and Arizona to 3-5, and Washington to 2-4-1. Losers: Kansas City to 5-2, Cleveland to 5-3, Baltimore to 4-4, the Jets and Indianapolis to 2-6, Miami to 1-6, Tennessee to 1-7, the Chargers to 0-7, Minnesota to 6-1, Seattle to 4-4, Carolina to 3-4, Atlanta and Dallas to 3-5, and Philadelphia to 2-6. Scores and opponents are on the schedule page; this piece only uses the records.

Three clubs can lose twice and still clinch without help: Jacksonville, San Francisco and Minnesota, each with a clinch number of 8 and 10 games left. Jacksonville won and came down from 9; San Francisco joined the group during its bye. Four clubs can afford one loss: Chicago at 8 with 9 left, and Buffalo, Detroit and the Giants at 9 with 10 left. That is seven clubs with a game to spare, up from six. Kansas City has dropped out of that group: it lost, and its 10 now comes with exactly 10 games left. Six clubs hold a number equal to every game they have left, so they must win out to clinch on their own: Denver and Pittsburgh at 9, Kansas City and Cincinnati at 10, Green Bay at 9 and Carolina at 10.

Why the AFC numbers moved. An AFC wild card still takes 15-2. Six AFC clubs can reach 15-2 or better: Buffalo at 16-1, and Denver, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Kansas City and Cincinnati at 15-2. Cleveland lost and now tops out at 14-3, the same ceiling as New England. So a club from that group that stops at 14-3 could have five rivals above it and New England and Cleveland level with it, seven in all, and seven clubs make the field; 14-3 is not enough, and 15-2 is. That is Denver's and Pittsburgh's 9 of 9, Kansas City's and Cincinnati's 10 of 10, and Buffalo's 9 of 10. Buffalo's 9 is also its division number, because New England's ceiling is 14-3 and 15-2 takes the East. Jacksonville's 8 is shorter because it is a division number: 13-4 wins the South outright, since Houston tops out at 12-5, Indianapolis at 11-6 and Tennessee at 10-7. Kansas City lost the division number it held a week ago. Denver, now 6-2, can reach 15-2, the same as Kansas City's ceiling, and a level finish counts against the club being asked about. For the same reason Denver cannot be sure of the West, and Pittsburgh cannot be sure of the North while Cincinnati can also reach 15-2. Cleveland and New England, both 5-3 with a ceiling of 14-3, have no clinch number and a tragic number of 9 each.

Why the NFC numbers moved. Four NFC clubs can still reach 15-2 or better: San Francisco and Minnesota at 16-1, and Chicago and Detroit at 15-2. Below them the Giants top out at 14-2-1 and Green Bay at 14-3. A week ago Seattle and Carolina could also reach 14-3; both lost, and along with the Rams they now top out at 13-4. So a club that reaches 14-3 has at most five rivals level with or above it. The South's leader, which finishes below it, takes one more place; that makes six, and seven clubs make the field, so 14-3 is enough. At 13-4, Seattle, the Rams and Carolina would join the crowd and it would not be. That is San Francisco's and Minnesota's 8 of 10, Chicago's 8 of 9, Detroit's 9 of 10 and Green Bay's 9 of 9. San Francisco's 8 is also its division number, because Seattle and the Rams top out at 13-4. Minnesota's division number stays at 10, because Chicago and Detroit can reach 15-2 and the North takes 16-1. The Giants and Carolina lead divisions where less is enough. The Giants' 9 is 13-3-1, which finishes ahead of Dallas's ceiling of 12-5 and Washington's 12-4-1. Carolina's 10, every game it has left, is 13-4, against a ceiling of 12-5 for Tampa Bay, Atlanta and New Orleans.

If the season ended today, the AFC's division leaders would be Buffalo, Denver, Pittsburgh and Jacksonville, seeded in that order, with Kansas City, Cincinnati and New England as the wild cards and Cleveland first out. Denver has taken the West lead from Kansas City and Pittsburgh the North lead from Cleveland, and compared with a week ago New England is in and Cleveland is out. Buffalo would have the bye, and the wild-card round would be Denver against New England, Pittsburgh against Cincinnati and Jacksonville against Kansas City. The NFC's seven are the same seven as a week ago, and only the top two have swapped places: San Francisco, Minnesota, the Giants and Carolina as division leaders, Chicago, Detroit and Green Bay as the wild cards, and Seattle first out. San Francisco would have the bye, and the games would be Minnesota against Green Bay, the Giants against Detroit and Carolina against Chicago. Clubs with equal records are put in the order of the playoff seed listed by our data provider, BALLDONTLIE; we do not compute the league's tiebreakers ourselves. San Francisco ahead of Minnesota at 6-1, Denver ahead of Pittsburgh at 6-2, Kansas City ahead of Cincinnati at 5-2 and New England ahead of Cleveland at 5-3 follow that ordering.

At the bottom, Tennessee at 1-7 and the Chargers at 0-7 have the smallest tragic numbers, 5 each. The Jets, Indianapolis and Miami have 6. Houston, Arizona and Philadelphia have 7. Las Vegas, Baltimore, Seattle, the Rams, Dallas and Washington have 8; New England, Cleveland, Tampa Bay, Atlanta and New Orleans have 9; and Kansas City, Cincinnati and Carolina have 10. Arizona won and its tragic number still fell from 8 to 7, because Chicago, Detroit and Green Bay all won too. Our Week 7 piece said Week 8 could not put a zero anywhere, and it did not: nothing is clinched and nobody is eliminated. Tennessee and the Chargers both lost and came down to 5, the floor that piece gave them. The same holds for Week 9. Give any club a win and every other club in its conference a loss, and the smallest clinch number anywhere is 6, for Jacksonville, San Francisco, Minnesota and Chicago. Give it a loss and every rival a win, and the smallest tragic number is 3, 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, San Francisco, Green Bay, Cleveland and Kansas City.